Alexis Borchardt, who is graduating this May from the Film and New Media program in the Johnny Carson School of Theatre and Film, has accepted a position as a production assistant at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) in San Francisco, California.
“I’m pretty excited,” she said.
Founded in 1975 by George Lucas, ILM is the leading effects facility in the world, serving the motion picture, commercial production and attraction industries. They have created visual effects for more than 315 feature films (including Star Wars: The Force Awakens and The Revenant) and have been awarded 15 Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects and 29 Academy Awards for Scientific and Technical Achievement.
"I am excited for her, of course," said Associate Professor of Film Steve Kolbe. "Alexis has been a diligent, hard-working student during her time here. She excels in her classes and is always looking for more--more experience, more challenges, more input, more feedback."
Borchardt went to San Francisco over spring break and met with Production Coordinator Joy Carmeci, who Kolbe connected her with.
“I met with her, and we talked, and she introduced me to all these people. It was so much fun,” she said. “But she made it very clear that openings in May were very slim, and they only had two openings. And then I got the e-mail: ‘Can you start May 23?’ I called my parents and told them it was happening. It was pretty crazy.”
She’ll be working on a film scheduled to be released next summer, though she is unable to reveal any specifics.
“They just got all the budgeting and the script cleared,” she said. “I think we are still doing a lot of pre-production.”
During production, she will either go on location for six weeks for filming or stay in San Francisco to work as a production assistant for the animation department.
“It’s insane. I always assumed that graduating from college, I’d get a job. And in that job, you’d meet the connection you need. And then that connection over seven years would take you to where you’re supposed to be,” she said. “I would have never thought that you get to start at ILM. Every single one of those people is a great connection immediately. I can pretty much go anywhere now.”
She will join Carson School alumnus Ethan Seagren at ILM. He has worked there since he graduated in 2014.
“When I went down there, we had lunch, and he showed me the campus,” she said. “He works for Joy, too, but in a different way, so I’ll probably see him a lot. We gab.”
Last summer Borchardt was an intern at the Cannes Film Festival. It was there she realized the value of her education in the Johnny Carson School.
“There was a team of eight of us who were videographers. The rest of them were from Coast schools, either in New York or Los Angeles,” she said. “I was surprised at how little they knew about everything. If they knew cameras, then they knew cameras. They were all very creative, but none of them knew how to do everything.”
Kolbe said the Carson School's film program is gaining in prominence every year.
"Not every student is a great fit for a large company like ILM," he said. "Many of our students want to create and tell stories on their own, and we encourage that as well. However, there are also those students who desire to head towards the large studio model. A very select few of those students have the ability to do well at that level of production."
She said she will be leaving UNL with a variety of skills.
“I got to work on both panels, for both ‘Inside Out’ and ‘Tale of Tales,’ because I knew how to work on sound and lighting,” she said. “My boss said, ‘Why would I teach someone to do sound when you already know how to do that?’ It just makes you more valuable when you enter the industry and they see how many classes you have taken.”
For her Capstone Film, Borchardt and her partner, Kate Westberg, collaborated with the UNL Department of Educational Psychology. They originally planned a feature-length documentary about seven talented Nebraskans. Due to logistics and the timing of Borchardt’s graduation, her portion is a 7-minute segment of the opening that will be used for fund-raising to fund the whole movie. Westberg will finish the project this summer.
“The one premiering at the Nebby Film Festival is about two swimmers. They are both Olympic qualifying athletes. They grew up on the same club team, so it’s a study between the parents and the athletes and the coaches, what makes a talented athlete,” she said. “We loved getting to know the families. It was just so fun.”
Borchardt, who is originally from Liberty, Missouri, became interested in movies when she was 12 years old.
“I knew I wanted to do movies, but I didn’t know exactly how,” she said. “I never had interesting cameras. I didn’t do broadcasting. But I did make these stupid little anime music videos. I was obsessed with them. And my Mom said, ‘You know that’s what they do in movies. They put them together.’ So my junior year, I started looking into colleges.”
Her grandparents grew up in Nebraska and her family are Husker fans, so on a “Husker tour,” Borchardt toured the Johnny Carson School and visited with Associate Professor of Film Sharon Teo-Gooding because she was initially interested in editing.
“Sharon talked to us. She said this is what we do, and you get to work with Avid,” she said. “I didn’t know what any of those things meant, but I knew I needed them all.”
Now, her interest lies more with producing.
“I love the planning aspect. It’s so much fun,” she said. “And I kind of became the planner out of necessity in our group. I just love the scheduling and stuff, but I’m really open.”
Borchardt says her love of film comes from the stories.
“It’s not just that you watch the story from beginning to end, but it opens up so much more of a world,” she said. “You think it could all be possible then. It just open realms that you didn’t know and makes you more creative in your daily life and makes people think outside the box.”
Her lasting memory of her time at the Johnny Carson School will be the family she has built with her classmates.
“The first day of classes I told everybody we were going to be best friends,” she said. “And they all laughed at me, but now we are. I’m really happy with the connections I’ve made here.”