And … Action!

Bud Elder

Even non-film buffs can recognize certain signature touches by well-known directors – the Hitchcock cameo, the Welles deep focus, and the restless camera employed by Scorsese; however, there are few filmmakers whose name alone has entered the vernacular.

According to Jennifer Kiersch, living with her husband, George “Fritz” Kiersch, Hollywood film director turned university professor/administrator, has caused her to create a new term that best describes his behavior.

“When Fritz is pondering his lectures or working out a script in his head instead of paying attention to the rest of the world, I call it “fritzing,” she said, with a wink and a smile. “This can be both charming and frustrating at the same time.”

Those who mistake Kiersch for an “absent minded professor” do so at their own risk. His professorial air masks a savvy Hollywood player, one who has taken the studio system head-on, climbing his way from the cutthroat world of advertising and lower ranks of production to directing feature films that bear his own particular sense of character development, mood and pacing.

While actually born in Texas, Kiersch spent his formative years as an Ivy League offspring – his father was a geology professor at Cornell University who received a National Science Grant in the early ‘60s, an award that enabled the family to live in Austria for over a year.

“My father had a great plan for me,” Kiersch said. “He thought I would join the button-down world of high finance or other such undertaking; however, the idea of ‘peace and love’ and California was awfully appealing.”

Armed with a degree from Ohio Wesleyan University, go west Kiersch did, learning filmmaking processes at USC and the American Film Institute. One of his first professional camera jobs was Robert Schuler’s “Crystal Cathedral.”

“I was working a camera when I got a direction over the headset that said ‘pan to God,’ meaning ‘point skyward,’ Kiersch said. “Nothing I’d learned about the film industry prepared me for that particular command.”

From there, after working his way up through the business, Kiersch took a modestly budgeted Stephen King short story and turned it into a franchise.

Made for under $1 million, “The Children of the Corn,” released in 1984, was the kind of hit that puts its director on the “A” list. Eschewing any of the horror film’s sequels, Kiersch instead directed films based on his own visions, such as “Tuff Turf” and “Under the Boardwalk.”

Cut to the year 2000, when the Oklahoma Film Commission and Oklahoma City Community College joined forces to begin a hands-on training school for filmmakers. Leaders of both organizations knew they wanted someone with a foot in both doors – practical, commercial experience in the film industry, while also a strong sense of classroom protocol. Kiersch took the challenge, in effect to revolutionize how film production was to be taught in the Sooner state.

“It was my understanding that Oklahoma was being passed over for film business, in part because there was a shortage of trained crew members available for productions,” he said. “With the support of Oklahoma City Community College, we were able to immediately use state-of-the-art equipment for training, while also encouraging budding filmmakers that theirs was not an impossible dream.”

After staying in residence at OCCC, Kiersch moved on to Oklahoma City University in 2005 to perform a similar task. He now serves as the school’s Artist in Residence and chair of the Moving Image Arts Department.

“What I developed in my first year at OCU was actually two degrees – one in film studies and one in film production under the banner of Moving Image Arts,” Kiersch said. “This would go beyond what was being commonly offered in schools across the U.S. as film or video studies, adopting new forms of technological processes and methods into the degrees as these new forms of expression and processes were developed in the industry. This is combined with firm foundations of business, history and practice. The Moving Image Arts umbrella eventually created two separate degrees with a required core curriculum for both.”

Kiersch has also created the Oklahoma Center for Media Literacy at OCU, which will include how visual and aural elements of moving images convey perceptions, much like editorial text.

“A few years from now, most information will be through moving images, so we are now prepping our students to be able to discern what is honest and genuine in these communiqués over what has been manipulated and created to influence our thinking,” he said. “Media Literacy is a subject that will soon be taught in elementary through high schools in conjunction with traditional reading and writing skills. Our students and our faculty will now be proponents of this new concept.”

Two new projects are on Kiersch’s radar – a Master of Liberal Arts Degree and an expansion of the OCU sphere of influence in, of all places, Singapore.

“We expect to have our first students enrolling in December, 2010 with our sister institution,” he said. “It will be a BA degree uniquely structured, requiring study of both theory and practice. I have been to Singapore and am excited by the student appetite for this degree and the high level of government support, interest and existing planning to make Singapore the media hub of Asia.”

An example of Kiersch’s progressive approach to education is evident with the production of the film “Unsolved,” a full-length feature film that was recently produced.

“‘Unsolved’ came from an experimental course developed for summer sessions in which students from across the campus and across disciplinary lines came together to collaborate on one large production,” Kiersch said. “Each student contributed to the film as specialists in their study areas. Our film kids wrote the script, our theater acting students were the cast, our music students worked as composers and musicians, marketing students from the business school helped in product design and marketing concepts, art students did scenic, package and ad art, while legal students looked over contracts and business exposure issues.”

Kiersch adds that the result of the collaboration was successful.

“We have now a full-length feature film done by students, created and executed on campus in our facilities, that can be used by its creators as a calling card to their next life step,” he said. “I don’t know any school that has done this. We are excited about continuing the course, offering it every two years so that new students can join the effort and build opportunities for almost anyone enrolled in almost any degree at OCU through a tangible, real life experience that doesn’t require relocation or internships outside of Oklahoma.”

OCU president Tom McDaniel appreciates Kiersch’s contributions to the university.

“We were delighted when Fritz Kiersch joined the talented faculty at Oklahoma City University,” he said. “Fritz brings a successful experience in the film industry with him to the classroom. He is a dedicated professor whose devotion to students is evident in our growing film program. We are excited about the opportunities our students have to study and practice alongside professionals thanks to the opportunities he has developed.”

Aside from his work in the classroom, Kiersch has continued his commercial skills. Since arriving in Oklahoma, he has helmed two features, “Surveillance” and “The Hunt.” But, perhaps the project closest to his heart is a documentary entitled “12,” a harrowing presentation regarding substance abuse.

“Two years ago, I got involved with a local producer who wanted to talk directly to kids who might be at risk or are on the roller coaster created by alcohol and drugs. So we discussed how we might get an affected audience to see that even if they think all is lost, there is a choice that will work, has worked and will continue to work for them if they want it,” Kiersch said.

Kiersch said the process of making “12” took an emotional toll.

“I shot many hours of interviews and the footage into a very different documentary form. People are finishing others’ sentences, so it seems that collectively they are all telling the same story, but each is adding a personal, unique experience that shapes the whole,” he said. “It has been shown across the U.S. and is a solid hit with the substance community, even being called the best peer-to-peer testimonial/educational video out there that talks directly to teens, so I am proud to say it is working and helping.”

Married in 2005 to the former Jennifer Smith, Kiersch is now a full-blown Oklahoman, saying that his new home state is “a model of what life is supposed to be like – what most people have forgotten or never knew.”

Whether in his position as an educator, filmmaker, visionary or community citizen, Fritz Kiersch brings with him an aura that challenges, inspires and promotes excellence. From his students to his family and friends, he’s a sincere optimist, an accessible, encouraging listener and, yes, a “fritzer.”

Cut! Print!