• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

Photo

Gavin Hood, who attended UCLA Extension in 1990, has his latest film, “Tsotsi,” nomin

Photo

Gavin Hood’s movie “Tsotsi” is a film about the inner struggles of a young gang

When Gavin Hood first introduced himself to one of his UCLA Extension classes, three students walked out.

“I said, ‘My name is Gavin, and I’m from South Africa.’ Three people – two black guys and a white guy – got up and walked out and didn’t want to be in class with me. You just want the world to open up and swallow you,” said Hood, the writer and director of “Tsotsi,” a 2006 Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film.

The year 1990 should have been a difficult one for Hood, who had just moved to the U.S. to study film.

In addition to the irony of facing prejudice due to his home country’s apartheid policy, Hood, who is white, was unable to afford film school, so he began UCLA Extension’s Entertainment Studies certificate program.

It was, however, exactly what he wanted. Despite the fact that he had earned a law degree back home, he spent his time outside of extension classes working odd jobs for a commercial company on a cash basis.

“I mean, folding letters into envelopes or cleaning up or whatever – I had the best time. I worked on as many people’s short films as I could. I didn’t have money to make my own short,” Hood said.

“I hadn’t had the benefit of a film education, and I was just drinking it in.”

For Hood, the education Los Angeles had to offer was a godsend compared to what was available to him in South Africa.

There, he had left his job at a commercial law firm to work as an actor, playing the lead in a television series. But he quickly became frustrated with the limits of the country’s entertainment industry.

“We were very much a small industry, and I didn’t think the standard of work – my own included – was that high,” he said. “I thought that spending a period of time in a formal training environment would allow me to immerse myself in learning the craft. And that’s what I did – I sold everything when I was 29 years old, I left South Africa, and I went to UCLA.”

The first part of Hood’s journey in the entertainment industry, which ended with his return to South Africa upon receiving his certificate, is actually a common one in the Entertainment Studies certificate program.

In the program, students do not receive degrees but still have the opportunity to take courses, seminars and workshops taught by industry professionals.

The flexibility of the schedule attracts many students from other countries who, like Hood, lack the resources and time to attend film school.

“There’s a surprising number of foreign students,” said Pete Hammond, a frequent contributor to Variety and film critic for Maxim, who this quarter moderates UCLA Extension’s Sneak Preview Series.

“I would say the majority of them seem to be from somewhere else. (The Entertainment Studies program) is something that is easier for them to go to, and like (Hood), they’re just trying to get where they can and do what they can in this country.”

The fruit of Hood’s labor has been the surprise success of “Tsotsi.”

The power of his story, of a young shantytown gang leader’s inner struggles, has resulted in several festival awards, including the coveted top prize at the Toronto Film Festival.

The film has broken box office records in South Africa, and is currently being distributed in the U.S. by Miramax.

Last Monday, Hood returned to UCLA Extension – this time as a part of the curriculum, having accepted an invitation to attend and discuss Hammond’s screening of “Tsotsi.”

There he enthusiastically shared insights into the filmmaking process, from screenplay structure to his method of casting and directing actors.

Present at the screening were students with whom he could relate all too well. One grabbed the microphone and asked in a thick Indian accent how much UCLA Extension had really helped him.

“I was really trying to know if he got a lot of information from the classes or if his creativity came from more than what he learned from them,” said Raj Narayanbas, who is in his second year of the Entertainment Studies program.

Narayanbas, who worked as an assistant director on three films in India, came to Los Angeles after being unable to get into the Film and Television Institute of the University of India, Pune, which was, for all practical purposes the only film school he could attend there.

Here, he works days at Best Buy in order to take courses at night.

“I was really lucky to get into this program. I didn’t meet any graduate students (here), so I also want to know how different it is from the Extension Program. That was another reason I asked (Hood),” he said.

“Because regular graduate students must have a lot of lengthy classes from the faculty, and for the Extension Programs it’s only three hours a day. I’m wondering how much real content we’re getting from the instructors.”

Hood’s answer highly praised the program, emphasizing that it had offered the opportunity to hone skills, such as screenwriting, that he had not been able to learn back home.

In fact, Hood’s time with UCLA Extension directly jump-started his filmmaking career. With the help of a writing course, he wrote his first screenplay, “A Reasonable Man.”

Based on the strength of that writing sample, Hood was hired to write and direct educational dramas for South Africa’s Department of Health that dealt with pressing urban issues such as teen prostitution and the spread of AIDS before directing, co-producing, and starring in “A Reasonable Man.”

The film got him on Variety’s list of “10 Directors To Watch” after its screening at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival.

His film education here is further evident in “Tsotsi,” which sets a very American narrative structure within a uniquely South African setting.

“I think what you can take from L.A., and what’s so great, is that one thing American films know how to do is keep the pace going,” he said.

“The great thing about studying an American film is learning the tools of storytelling, getting great pace and rhythm to a movie. And that doesn’t mean going flat-out, it means earning moments of silence, knowing how to shift pace, and knowing how to convey a great deal in as little time as possible. All of that, I think, is evident in ‘Tsotsi.’”

In addition to depicting his education in Los Angeles, “Tsotsi” represents a culmination of Hood’s experiences thus far.

The film casts its lens, as Hood did for the Department of Health, on South Africa’s economic gap and the reality of life in its poverty-stricken shantytowns, where many orphaned children are homeless.

For the film’s empathetic look into the mind of a young criminal, Hood drew on experiences he said are common to many in South Africa. He had been mugged, and his mother was carjacked twice.

“A young kid just ripped her necklace from her neck and pulled out her earrings, and my mother tried to get him into a conversation. My mother was going, ‘Sweetheart ... what would your mother say?’” Hood said.

“And I said to my mom, ‘What were you thinking? You could have gotten shot, Mom.’ And Mom was going, ‘But he was just a child,’ and she was all upset. I think that’s right. As naive as my mother is, it’s sort of profound.”

The film’s call for understanding has resonated strongly with audiences and critics.

“I think it’s really a remarkable movie. It’s a movie that connects with audiences. That’s why it’s done so well on the film festival circuit,” Hammond said.

“There’s just something about it. It shines a light on a certain condition – that you don’t have to live in South Africa, that this kind of thing goes on everywhere. It’s almost a universal story, and it also has a lot of heart.”

Hammond, who is also an Oscar expert and one of Movie City News’ “Gurus of Gold,” likes the film’s chances in the Best Foreign Language Film category.

“I think it’s got the best shot to win the Oscar.”