Ones to watch - digital media expert Miles McManus and filmmaker Steve Bachrach

Interview, August, 1997 by Richard Pandiscio

SWEEPING UP

Miles McManus is one of the more elegant-thinking people in digital media, because his focus is on making information legible in a field that doesn't typically recognize that legibility is desirable. The Web sites and computer graphics of OVEN Digital, which McManus started in 1996 with partner Henry Bar-Levav (both have fine arts backgrounds), stand out in sharp contrast to the mess that one is used to encountering on the Web. "Because the restrictive economics of printing are eliminated in electronic media, it tends to breed information overdose and overkill," says the twenty-nine-year-old creative director from Texas. "We often act primarily as editors, eliminating and 're-architecting' information to make it clear and enjoyable for the user." OVEN's pared-down designs, with simple typography and clear but suggestive color, have attracted some of the best clients a new company could hope for, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, HarperCollins, Arts International, MCI International, AT&T, Bantam, and the artist Frank Stella. Visit www.oven.com for more information.

TWO-FOR-ONE TO WATCH

Part 1

In the late '80s, the most celebrated skateboard champion was a guy named Mark "Gator" Rogowski. Gator was young, sexy, cool, and earning big money. He had also recently become a born-again Christian. Then, one drunken night, he raped and murdered his girlfriend's best friend, stuffed her in a skate bag, dumped the body in California, and drove into the Arizona desert to lose the weapons. No one could solve the crime, and eventually the investigation was dropped. Gator had gotten away with murder - until he confessed.

One of the millions of newspaper readers who followed the story was filmmaker Steve Bachrach, who had just finished graduate school at CalArts. "1 was so interested in the idea of writing a script about him that I immediately got his court records and began a correspondence with him in prison," the filmmaker says. Beating out heavy-hitting competition, Bachrach secured the rights to Rogowski and his family's story. "I think the reason they were interested in giving me the rights is because I was very direct about my intentions. Because of Gator's sudden conversion to Christianity, I believe a schism developed in his personality, one that made it hard for him to reconcile his past with his current life, and ultimately propelled him to do this thing. I'm interested in his story because it isn't a cinematic notion; in fact it's almost anticinematic. I wasn't thinking, This is a hot, really lurid story, let's cash in!"

Bachrach's Gator Rogowski script will be finished this month, at which point he will begin the process of making it into a film.

Part 2

In addition to making movies, Steve Bachrach heads the media arts program at Jefferson High School in the culturally rich but tough neighborhood of South Central L.A. "The first thing I did was petition the studios and film companies for donations. I wanted to work in film, not video, because not only do I love the way it looks, but filmmaking requires a crew of at least eight to ten people. Working collaboratively is the first important lesson the kids learn." For his project, Bachrach won the support of Kodak, the American Film Institute, and Paramount. "We're lucky that Hollywood is going digital, because so many companies can be generous to us with their older equipment." His students, a mix of ninth- to twelfth-graders, "are making stories about their lives and learning how to tell their stories well. But the main thrust of what I'm trying to teach them is that their lives and their stories and what happens to them day to day are just as worthy as what happens to anybody else, and just as compelling or, screen as anything some screenwriter dreams up on a napkin in a bar." Bachrach sees his next challenge as making schools aware of this untapped potential, an assignment he views as his most important. "if I were the dean of a film school, these are the first kids I'd recruit. Film schools need diversity, they need inner-city kids. The fact that my students already have real filmmaking experience makes it an avenue for them to better colleges and better lives."

In September, Jefferson High School's first three films will be shown in Los Angeles at the Director's Guild or the Kodak Screening Room.