CEDAR CITY — While the Utah Film Commission is celebrating 100 years of movie making in the Beehive State, Southern Utah University is set to graduate its first students earning a bachelor’s degree in filmmaking in 2024.
SUU Film Facilities Manager Stephen Balsley said the accreditation requirements for the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree are stringent, limiting the university’s “cohort sizes” to around 20 new students each semester.
“This offers an unprecedented opportunity for students in class sizes and faculty-to-student ratio, as well as access to equipment, film cameras and gear for their projects,” Balsley said. “We have one of the largest offerings in the region in terms of available studio and class spaces, student editing workstations, a fully operational foley stage and recording studio, a color grading suite, an audio mixing and automated dialogue replacement room — and a 4K screening theater that seats 200 people.”
McKenna Murphy, a senior from Spanish Fork, told Cedar City News the ongoing collaboration between students and professors will have an impact on her future work.
“It’s wonderful to connect with people, to network with people, to help fellow students more,” she said. “It’s about that connection.”
Sarah Hutchings, from Riverton, has been in the film program at SUU since the beginning. This year with the completion of the Bristlecone Hall building, the “super senior” was one of the first students to test the new equipment.
“In the beginning of the program, we didn’t have access to all this equipment we currently have,” she said. “It’s just incredible to see the cinematic aspects of the new cameras.”
Elias McDaniel, a senior from Orem, wasn’t the only film student who said they discovered additional interests while pursuing their freshmen aspirations at SUU.
“I’m still passionate about writing, but I have learned a whole lot about directing, photography, sound and editing, that I wouldn’t have known if I didn’t take this program,” he said.
Senior Megan Newbold, from Hyrum, said it takes a lot of courage to put oneself out there for judgment on the big screen — but worth it.
“It’s a little bit nerve-wracking,” she said. “But there is something so satisfying about having your end product displayed.”
Despite the shiny new studios, dolly tracks, lighting effects and the latest in sound and video editing technology, Pleasant Grove’s Carson Blickenstaff echoed that the university staff’s attention to students is what he will remember.
“But since we do have that equipment, we can really make anything,” he said.
Todd Petersen, an English professor at SUU, said this filmmaking degree is possible due to many departments working together.
“It is a collaboration between two colleges and three main departments and a couple more supporting ones,” Petersen said. “Communications has contributed one faculty member, English two, and art and design — now filmmaking, art and design — hosts two faculty members, our studios and equipment, along with an amazing equipment, studio, safety manager.”
According to the university website, Southern Utah University’s Bachelor of Fine arts in filmmaking is an interdisciplinary program, integrating areas of art and design, communication, media, English, history/sociology/anthropology, music and theater, as well as content unique to the discipline of film.
Among the recent graduate thesis projects completed by SUU filmmakers include the following:
- “Untainted Sky,” a short sci-fi film by Madeline Bradley and Carson Blickenstaff.
- “Ripple,” an LGBTQ+ short film, currently in casting and produced by Jacob Norris.
- “The Bird and The Bear,” a short film by Sarah “Graveey” Hutchings.
- “Fallout and Flowers,” a short documentary currently in fundraising by Megan Newbold.
“A lot of these thesis projects are personal stories,” Murphy said, “or have personal things that we want to share with the world.”
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