Amy Glazer (Arc Entertainment photo)
By Pat Lopes Harris, Media Relations Director
“Seducing Charlie Barker” by SJSU Professor of Theater and Film Amy Glazer opened to high acclaim at theaters on both coasts in December.
“It’s a sad, hilarious, witty and right-on rendering of a talented but unemployed New York actor who, as his own worst enemy, makes all the wrong decisions,” Doris Toumarkine wrote in Film Journal International. “Casting throughout is pitch-perfect, as is the writing, direction and storytelling.”
Glazer is a recent convert to film. For many years, she “focused on directing plays — mostly new ones — at prominent Bay Area theaters and teaching theater and film,” wrote the San Francisco Chronicle’s Chad Jones. “As a film teacher, though, she was feeling somewhat inauthentic. ‘How can I teach it if I’m not doing it myself?’”
So she put her students to work, and in the process taught herself how to teach them more effectively. How many Spartans pitched in?
“Many!” she said. “It was part of our curriculum so students in my advanced projects class worked on the pre-production play-to-film part, then production, and then six months of editing and post-production over a three-year period. Most of them have just graduated. Many students from the film class are in the background, including former students who play Daphne’s assistants and Clea’s friend at the beginning and end of the film.
“And the final shot, when they call ‘cut,’ there are several of my film directing students playing filmmakers. It always makes me smile. I even have a cut of two of my TA’s in the same shot at the party. Then behind the scenes, much of my crew was made up of students and former students who got internship credits for their efforts along with film credits. Several students working professionally in Los Angeles came back to help me out as well.
“The first day of shooting, when I realized I was surrounded by so many of my students and former students, was filled with so much joy and satisfaction — both as an artist and a professor.”
Read a San Francisco Chronicle review.