The Towerlight, February 4, 1999

tl19990204_008 "'MakeBelieve' gets a heavy dose of reality Dave Foster The Towerlight Junior film student Mike Flanagan appeared well on his Way to turning his script ""Make- Believe"" into a major motion Picture to be shot on campus next June. Then, a major investor pulled funding from the film for politi-cal reasons, costing him two-thirds of the film's total budget, Flanagan said. Flanagan had just signed Sherry Cunningham as a pro-ducer. Cunningham had recent-ly produced ""Hacks,"" an inde-pendent film shot in Baltimore last year that has yet to be released. ""Sherry brought the potential for a lot of different investors with her and it looked for a While we were going to be fully budgeted by New Year's,"" he said. u Prior to Cunningham joining MakeBelieve's"" executive staff, a majority of the money had been raised by Flanagan and Steve Yeager, a University the-ater professor and Sundance Film Festival winner. It appeared our budget was going to look more like that of a low-budget Hollywood film than independent film,"" Flana-gan said. However, on Jan. 3, when a group of private investors who had provided a bulk of the financial backing for the film Pulled out, Flanagan was left With serious problems. Flanagan had recently hired George Wielechowski and Amy Frost as assistant director and Production manager respective-ly. He also hired a full crew of Megan DaMarca/The Towerlight Film student Mike Flanagan has worked over the last few months to prepare a promotional trailer edited in the University Visual Media Lab to show to potential investors in an effort to raise money for his movie. Towson University students and alumni. Flanagan promises the crew will still be fed every day on the set but will have to be placed on deferred payment contracts unless the film's budget receives a sufficient boost by June. ""I see about half of the crew leaving,"" Flanagan said. ""This means that the only people who stick around to be on the crew are going to be the ones that really believe in the project."" Flanagan said this set back has not daunted him or his cast of six Towson students. ""This has made myself and the cast more determined than ever to get this thing done,"" he said. To ease the financial burden, neither Flanagan or any other member of the executive staff or cast will receive any pay until after the film has been made and distributed. ""We may not have enough right now to do what I wanted in the beginning, but that is what this business is about and that's what I'm learning,"" Flana-gan said. As a result of the financial cut-backs, the length of the film's shoot has been reduced from one month to two weeks. Yeager plans to pitch the film to John Pierson, head of the Independent Film Commission. Flanagan admits he should have anticipated these kinds of budget problems going into the project, but he plans to make the movie regardless of people's perceptions. ""People see the trailer, people read the script and they're impressed,"" Flanagan said. ""Then they meet me and sud-denly it doesn't seem like a real movie anymore."" ""Every person that tells us we're too young to pull some-thing like this off makes us more and more determined to prove them wrong,"" he said. GRADES: Students helped/hurt by plus/minus From page 7 again,"" she said. ""It's like Hailed it, but I didn't."" Plus/minus grading helped freshman Matt Solomon increase his GPA, although he said he still had problems with the policy. ""It should only be a plus sys-tem,� he said. ""You work all semester and get an 82, and that's worth a 'C'? That's ridicu-lous."" Freshman Mary Ruffin said the new system helped her grades last semester. ""A 'B' is okay,"" she said, ""but When you get that extra plus, it is a whole point more."" However, Ruffin said, Plus/minus grading could have a downside when it comes to measuring personal achieve-ment. ""When I get a 'B+,' 1 know I was just a point away from get-ting an 'A-,' "" she said. ""I'd rather just get a 'B.' "" Under plus/minus, an ""A"" counts for four quality points, while an ""A-"" counts for only 3.67 quality points. Due to the added weight of plus grades and the subtracted weight of minus grades, stu-dents can raise or lower their GPAs depending how high or low they score in each letter grade range. ""You shouldn't be able to get a 'D' and a 3.0,"" she said, ""But with pluses and minuses, you can do that."" Freshman Dave Sloan said the plus/minus system puts Tow-son students at odds with stu-dents from other colleges and universities in the state. ""If they change it at Towson, they should change it at all Maryland schools,"" he said. Grade Grading Policy Quality Points Per Credits Hour Grade Quality Points Per Credits Hour Feb. 5: Anzinith Williams will appear at 6 p.m. at the Baltimore Aquarium. William's father founded the Black Seafood Workers Union. Information: (410) 576-8877. Feb. 8: Cesar Gaviria, secretary general of the Organization of American States will discuss regional integration in the Americas at 8 p.m. in the Gar-rett Room of the Milton S. Eisen-hower Library of the Johns Hopkins University campus. Information: (410) 516-5435. Feb. 9: William H. Gray III, president of the College Fund/United Negro College Fund, will speak at 7 p.m. at the Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation Lecture in the Shriver Auditorium of the Johns Hopkins University campus. Information: (410) 516-5435. Feb. 11: The National Organiza-tion for Women is hosting a forum on safe sex and contra-ception at 7:30 p.m. in the Friend's Stony Run Meeting House. Information: (410) 668- 4399. Feb. 14: The Distinguished Black Marylanders Award will be presented at 3 p.m. in the Potomac Lounge of the Univer-sity Union. Information: (410) 830-2051. Feb. 17: There will be an apart-ment fair from 10 to 3 p.m. in the Potomac Lounge. Informa-tion: (410) 830-2332. Feb. 21: Dr. Jean Kilbourne will speak at 2 p.m. at Goucher Col-lege in Merrick Hall. Kilbourne is internationally recognized for her work on the negative image of women in advertising. Admission is free but space is limited. Information: (410) 427- 2100. Feb. 23: Carole Johnson, nation-ally recognized author of ""Self Esteem Comes in All Sizes"", will be speaking at 6 p.m. at the St. Joseph Medical Center. Infor-mation: (410) 427-2100. Feb. 24: Pam Ferrel will be hold-ing ""Black Hair Is,"" a lecture session in University Union, Patuxent Room from 4 to 7 p.m. Information: (410) 830-6191. "