Last evening, my wife and I attended a gathering of film school alumni and seniors at the Gordon B. Hinckley Visitors Center at BYU. This was a delightful and engaging event to catch up with old friends and to make some new acquaintances.

The event consisted of mingling and a minor screening of some alumni work. My wife was surprised at the diversity of occupations that were represented at the festival. That could have been said to be equally as true for the films screened.

“Peach Baby” was screened which brought a moment of closure in having it screened for the faculty that were present. The university experience was my inspiration for the piece and it was in part a tribute to those teachers under whom I studied.

One of the faculty that was there was Sharon Swenson, our film theory teacher, she sprung up terms on us like “sutuer” and others that I felt I should have remembered. In time I will have to renew this instruction so that I can build upon it much deeper understandings.

I am grateful for the university experience. We are in a much different age than filmmakers were twenty or thirty years ago. While still not required to enter the industry, one’s scope and vision are vastly improved with film school. I was again recently reminded that BYU is one of only two schools in the country that is supported by a functioning, full-scale production studio–the other being USC. The decision to push through to graduation was also one for which I am grateful. Graduation did not end the educational process, but having crossed that threshold into the real world, it has continued. The friendships, the alliances, that I had hoped to form during my school years didn’t happen until after I graduated. But curiously enough, they all come back to my involvement in the film program at BYU.