A little over a month ago, my office accepted a project that was suggested by the UIowa Office of Advancement. The idea was to make a faux trailer that argued that the University of Iowa is a training ground for some of the most influential people in TV and Film in Hollywood.
If I'm being entirely honest, my first impression was that the concept was a huge overreach. I went to high school in Hollywood and the feeder schools for The Industry are LA's dozens of exceptional institutions, including USC, UCLA, and various art and film-specific schools. If we set our sights outside of CA, NYU *might* come up. I imagined presenting this idea to cool TV execs to have them laugh out loud as much from the thought that Iowa-educated folks were influencing Hollywood as from the incongruence of thinking about Iowa for what might be the first time in their lives.
Once I dug in to the evidence, however, for a relatively small place so far from "the Hollywood hills and bright lights of Broadway," it would seem that graduates of the University of Iowa have had outsized impact when it comes to innovative and exciting storytelling in TV and film. Check out the trailer and this article and see if you agree.
If I'm being entirely honest, my first impression was that the concept was a huge overreach. I went to high school in Hollywood and the feeder schools for The Industry are LA's dozens of exceptional institutions, including USC, UCLA, and various art and film-specific schools. If we set our sights outside of CA, NYU *might* come up. I imagined presenting this idea to cool TV execs to have them laugh out loud as much from the thought that Iowa-educated folks were influencing Hollywood as from the incongruence of thinking about Iowa for what might be the first time in their lives.
Once I dug in to the evidence, however, for a relatively small place so far from "the Hollywood hills and bright lights of Broadway," it would seem that graduates of the University of Iowa have had outsized impact when it comes to innovative and exciting storytelling in TV and film. Check out the trailer and this article and see if you agree.
This project was quite a challenge, bringing together various creative visions into one complete thought and attempting to live up to the bold claim we were making. It was fun being able to use over-the-top styles we usually try to avoid and working with voice over artist Ian Guerra. What would you say? Did we convince you that Iowa has forged influencers in TV and film?
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