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Poetter Hall was purchased by the SCAD founders in March 1979. Classes began in September of that year.  
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Trivial Pursuits

Trivial Pursuits
 
‘Mentor’ helps student launch career

Danielle Koch
Photo by Ben Dashwood 
Danielle Koch relaxes in the District office in Keys Hall May 2.

By Monique Bos
Published: Friday, May 5, 2006

Savannah College of Art and Design sophomore Danielle Koch recently traveled to New York for the Tribeca Film Festival, where she got to see her name in the credits of one of the featured films.

Koch, a film and television major who also serves as copyeditor for District, spent Summer 2005 working on the set of “Mentor.” The film was shot in Baltimore, near her hometown of Severn, Md., and stars Rutger Hauer as a college professor whose student (played by Matthew Davis) begins a relationship with the professor’s girlfriend (played by Dagmara Dominczyk). “It’s a love triangle, all rather twisted,” Koch said.

She found out about the film through her cousin, who is a friend of both the producer and the writer. “They were looking for anyone who would work for free,” she said. “It was my first movie, so I was excited for the chance.”

Originally, she was going to act as a personal assistant, but when the actress to whom she was assigned dropped out, she became a video assistant.

“I operated the monitor that everyone watched while scenes were being filmed,” she explained. “I did a lot of production assistant things, too.”

Filming lasted for almost a month, with the cast and crew working six-day weeks, often 16 hours per day, but the word that Koch used most to describe the work is “fun.”

“I had so much fun making it,” she said. “It was a great experience for learning film and working with adults.”

For Koch, who had only taken Introduction to Video Production prior to that point, the experience meant an immersion into her chosen field.

“I learned everything,” she said. “I didn’t know much about on-set things.”

Now, she said, “We’re doing a lot of things in class that I already know about, and I know the names of things. It’s been helpful.”

The experience also has helped her focus on the direction she wants to take in her career.

“I was thinking about producing, leaning more and more toward that,” she said. “Now I really feel like I want to be a producer. I’m pretty organized and they’re typically the organizers — making sure all the equipment needed for the day is there, not getting kicked out of a location because of not having a permit, or giving actors rides when they need them.”

She added, “I want to be on the set every day. If I could choose one place to be, that’s where I’d be.”

Her work on “Mentor” also has led to other opportunities in the film industry. During winter break, she worked as a production assistant on another film shot in Baltimore, “The Visiting,” starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig.

Did she get to meet the new James Bond?

“I almost walked into him,” she said. “He was on his cell phone.”

She also has a summer job lined up with Steve Blair, a unit producer from “Mentor,” on a film he wrote. She said many of the same crew members will be involved, and she’s looking forward to working with them again.

In fact, one of the highlights of Tribeca was the chance to reunite with her friends from the film.

“The best part was seeing all my friends again,” she said. “I’d seen individuals since last summer, but it was really great to see everyone together again because so many of the crew went. Knowing them makes me realize I’m doing the right thing in my life.”

She also got to see the fruits of her labor on the big screen. “Mentor” premiered April 28, and although Koch had watched a less-edited version on DVD, she enjoyed the chance to see the film on the big screen.

“It was really neat to see something, knowing I was there when it was made,” she said. “It was also neat to see my name on the credits on a real big screen in a theater in New York.”

Through District, Koch also has had the opportunity to interview and photograph Savannah Film Festival guests such as Walter Murch and Ellen Burstyn. She is writing an article for the paper’s May 5 issue comparing professional and student film production and discussing her experiences at Tribeca.