infobong.com

The New York Times is running a story on Burnt Orange Productions, the new in-house studio part of UT's Department of Radio-TV-Film, where I'm a doctoral student. Burnt Orange is a commercial project to bring Hollywood films to campus and employ students in productions. The University and the department get a cut of the proceeds and students get experience working on big-budget films.

Although its a good opportunity for undergraduates - who often aspire to editing and D.P. jobs - and screenwriting grad students, many people in the department are skeptical about the project. Media Studies folks like me are worried about the growing commercialization of the school - we're here to critique the media, rather than endorse it - and the production division has earned a reputation for fostering independent films that operate aesthetically, discursively, and industrially outside the established coastal industries. It will be interesting to see how Burnt Orange pans (sorry about the pun) out.