The Andrew J. Kuehn Jr. Foundation has donated more than $750,000 to the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and the UCLA Film & Television Archive to significantly expand the media marketing curriculum in the school's prestigious M.F.A. Producers Program and create student fellowships. The foundation also has donated the archival collection of movie trailers produced by Kuehn's Kaleidoscope Films.
Andrew J. Kuehn Jr. was a movie-advertising pioneer whose creative mastery revolutionized the motion picture trailer. The foundation was established in 2004 following Kuehn's death at the age of 66.
Since the mid-60s, Kuehn (pronounced Keen) conceived of trailers for some of the most memorable and successful American movies ever made, including "Jaws," the "Indiana Jones" trilogy, "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," "Schindler's List," "The Lost World: Jurassic Park," "The French Connection," "The Sting," "Star Wars," "Funny Girl," "Aliens," "Top Gun," "Back to the Future" and "Witness."
He was widely respected for his innovative use of smart writing, a strong musical presence and groundbreaking editing techniques.
"This generous gift recognizes the business in show business," said Robert Rosen, dean of the School of Theater, Film and Television. "Trailers are essential in helping audiences find great films. We are pleased that this important area will now get the focus it deserves."
The gift will fund several new producers program courses in marketing including one devoted to conceptualizing and producing trailers to promote films and television programs. During the two-year graduate producing program, students develop feature film and television
projects under the guidance of such entertainment industry luminaries as 20th Century Fox co chairman Jim Gianopulos, Oscar-winning "Crash" producer Cathy Schulman, industry veteran Peter Guber and Sundance Film Festival director Geoffrey Gilmore.
The new class on creating a trailer would provide additional opportunities for producing students and directing students to collaborate creatively. The producers would develop the trailer to help pitch their film or television project and the directing student would oversee the production of the piece, which would then be added to the student's reel of work.
"In the Producers Program, we are constantly reminding students that studio and network heads are already envisioning the marketing campaign for a film or television show while listening to a pitch or reading a screenplay," said Denise Mann, head of the program.
"Specialty divisions start working on the trailer for their latest indie acquisition the day they leave Sundance or Toronto. With this donation, we will be able to introduce students to the magical combination of art and science that goes into every trailer and teaser campaign," Mann said.
"Movie trailers are a unique form of cinema: they're ads for films, yet they're also little films themselves," said Lisa Kernan, author of "Coming Attractions," the definitive text on movie trailers as a unique film genre. "The study of trailers is gaining in significance not only for producers, but also for film critical studies students and scholars, who have become increasingly aware in recent years of the crucial role marketing plays in the ways meanings are produced within popular film."
Kernan holds an appointment at UCLA as the library's film, television, theater and photography subject specialist, and also serves as a lecturer in the department of film, television and digital media.
The donation of the vast Kuehn collection will significantly enhance the UCLA Film & Television Archive's existing holdings of trailers and other film promotional materials.
"Andrew Kuehn's creativity changed how films are marketed and set trends that still reverberate today," said Tim Kittleson, director of the Archive. "It's also notable that the Kuehn donation includes pre-print elements, which will make any future preservation efforts much more effective."
Kuehn was born in Chicago and, at the age of 10, began editing film using an ice pick and Scotch tape. While a student at the University of Miami, he worked at an agency that provided advertising trailers for drive-in movie theaters.
After college, he went to New York City and began writing for the National Screen Service, one of the first companies outside of the studios to produce movie trailers. Two years later, Kuehn landed at MGM's promotion department where he contributed to the successful
campaigns for such important films as "Doctor Zhivago," "Night of the Iguana" and "Blow-Up." After five years with MGM, he decided to launch his own company, Kaleidoscope Films, in 1968.
Trailers produced by Kaleidoscope were considered the benchmark for the industry.
An example of Kuehn's creative writing of trailer copy is the line, "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water," which he used to establish the dramatic tone of the "Jaws 2" trailer.
The UCLA Film & Television Archive is internationally renowned for its pioneering efforts to preserve and showcase not only classic but also current and innovative film and television. Additionally, the Archive is a unique resource for media study, with one of the largest collections of media materials in the United States - second only to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. - and the largest of any university in the world. Its vaults hold more than 270,000 motion picture and television titles and 27 million feet of newsreel footage. The combined collections represent an all-encompassing documentation of the 20th century.
The UCLA Producers Program is a two-year graduate program designed for creative people pursuing careers as independent producers or studio or network executives. Unique in its combined emphasis on film, television and new media, the UCLA Producers Program offers a comprehensive set of courses covering development, packaging, financing, production, marketing and distribution. Taught by an extraordinary roster of top industry professionals, these courses provide firsthand knowledge of the contemporary realities of producing works for the entertainment market. Program faculty members include Barbara Boyle (who also serves as Chair of the Film, Television and Digital Media Department), Tom Nunan, Terry Press, Joe Roth, Tom Sherak and Sheila Hanahan Taylor.
Consistently ranked among the leading institutions in the nation, the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television is unique in the world in that it brings together the arts of theater, film and television in one academic institution. UCLA's reputation as an outstanding training ground for the theater, film and television professions, and for critical scholarship is based on its long tradition of fostering creative growth, encouraging experimentation and ensuring artistic freedom. Many of the most respected names in the entertainment and communication arts, and the world of scholarship, are UCLA alumni.
-UCLA-
AF108