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Television director Mark Cendrowski (The Big Bang Theory), was interviewed by WOLV TV’s Jess Knight last week for the station’s entertainment show, EBuzz. Cendrowski stayed after the taping for a visit wherein he discussed his career with WOLV TV students and answered questions about the industry. Read more about Cendrowski and EBuzz in the TUNING IN TO WOLV TV feature below.
photo credit - Rob Gingerich-Jones 
THIS WEEK'S EVENTS
Latino Americans: 500 Years of History -
Screening of Foreigners in Their Own Land 
Hosted by Assistant Professor Colin Gunckel 
Tuesday, February 16 
Ypsilanti District Library
6:30 p.m. -- Free and Open to the Public 
Episode one of this PBS Series, (full series to be screened at the Ypsilanti Library), explores the period from 1565-1880: the first Spanish explorers enter North America, the U.S. expands into territories in the Southwest that had been home to Native Americans and English and Spanish colonies, and the Mexican-American War strips Mexico of half its territories by 1848.
Behind the Scenes Animation Presentation and
Q & A with Disney Artist Matthias Lechner
Thursday, February 18
U-M Natural Science Auditorium
7:30 - 8:30 p.m. -- Doors Open at 7:15 p.m.
Free and Open to the Public 
Matthias Lechner (Art Director of Environments) collaborated to define the film's environment and sets and invented creative for how the animals inhabiting the magical world of Zootopia sheltered, moved, played, and lived together. Join us for a special behind the scenes animation presentation and 
Q & A this Thursday!
RSVP's are not required -- but they are encouraged. Please send your first and last name to ZootopiaUofM@gmail.com. 
Presented by the Michigan Animation Club and Screen Arts & Cultures
SAC Graduate Student Association Presents
the Annual Mock SCMS Panel- Featuring
Ben Strassfeld, Anne-Charlotte Mecklenburg,
and Joo Young Lee 
Friday, February 19
SAC Conference Room, 6360 North Quad
2:00 - 4:00 p.m. 
Graduate students accepted into the Society of Cinema and Media Studies Annual Conference have an opportunity to present their papers to received feedback during this mock panel. This year's participants and their presentation titles are as follows: Ben Strassfeld (SAC): "Burn the House to Roast the Pig": Censorship and Childhood in 1950's Detroit; Anne-Charlotte Mecklenburg (English Dept. and SAC Certificate Student): Eyes and Brains: The Role of Female Students in Sherlock Holmes Modernizations; and Joo Young Lee (American Culture): Visualizing Genealogies of (Be)gotten Black Koreans: Representations of Racialized and Gendered Black Koreans in the 1970s and 80s Korean Films. Please join us for this annual event to help support and promote our students. 
MARK YOUR CALENDARS
SAC Speaker Series Presents
A Talk by Doctoral Candidate Dimitri Pavlounis
"Sound Evidence: William J. Burns and the Case of the Detective Dictograph"
Thursday, February 25
SAC Conference Room, 6360 North Quad
11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. 
Throughout the 1910s, celebrity detective William J. Burns contributed to and inspired a visual and narrative culture around the device for which he became most famous: the detective dictograph. Not only did this voice amplification and transmission device play a prominent role in a number of crime plays and films, but it also became a celebrity in its own right, being featured on promotional materials and catalyzing debate in the popular press around the nature of detective work and the implications of the use of sound-based technology in crime prevention and detection. This paper puts this imagined, mediated life of the dictograph in conversation with its material affordances and limitations. Moreover, it argues that Burns’ status as “America’s Sherlock Holmes” helped transform the dictograph from a machine that one journalist described as a “merely highly refined telephone” into an infallible forensic technology capable of recording indexical traces of criminal bodies.
Latino Americans: 500 Years of History Film Series-
Related Discussions with Assistant Professor Colin Gunckel 
March 3 and March 16
Ypsilanti District Library
6:30 p.m. -- Free and Open to the Public 
Related Discussions with Assistant Professor Colin Gunckel: 
Zoot Suit Riots (Thursday, March 3, 6:30 p.m.)
Explore the complicated racial tensions that led to the famous riots in Los Angeles in 1943.
Civil Disobedience (Wednesday, March 16, 6:30 p.m.)
Learn how art and activism influenced each other in 1970s Latino/a culture. 
TUNING IN TO WOLV TV : ALL ABOUT EBUZZ
photo credit - Terri Sarris 
WOLV TV's show The Entertainment Buzz, also known as EBuzz, offers entertainment news, commentary on events in Hollywood, and insider knowledge of entertainment events around campus. This past week, EBuzz reporter Jess Knight interviewed The Big Bang Theory director Mark Cendrowski about his career, his advice for college students trying to make it in the industry, and the pressure he feels as the director of the number one comedy show on television. Next week, EBuzz is airing an Oscar special to discuss each of the nominated movies, the nominated actors, and the controversy that sparked #OscarsSoWhite. This episode will feature a round table discussion with four panelists; each panelist has seen all nominated movies, and will give his/her opinion on who should win, or on which movie should have been nominated. Make sure to check back with wolvtv.org this Friday, February 19th at 3pm to find out their picks for the Oscars!

Writer credit: Jess Knight and Julie Fassnacht
SPOTLIGHT ON SAC ALUMNI 
SAC Alum Tricia Williams ('15) placed second in the first round of a stand-up comedy competition at Flappers Comedy Club in Burbank.  She qualifies to compete in the second round, which will be held on February 24th at 8:00 p.m. 
 
Pictured:  Tricia, front and center, with the many other SAC alums and friends who turned out to support her.
THIS WEEK'S FEATURED PHOTO
photo credit  - Mary Lou Chlipala
Students gathered in Studio A last Friday to hear SAC students past and present discuss their internships. This event was sponsored by FVSA. 
NEWS
SAC Alum Sheldon Cohn's The Pickle Recipe Well-Received at SBFF Premiere
The Pickle Recipe enjoyed a fabulous reception at its World Premiere at the 31st Santa Barbara International Film Festival earlier this month. SAC alum and writer Sheldon Cohn comments, "Our second screening overlapped the first quarter of the Super Bowl, and we sold out (again)." Reviewer Phil Hunziker states, "The comedy is only half the reason for which this film will keep you smiling throughout. There is a general pleasantness about it that is paced by both the comedy and the aforementioned warm-hearted nature of the film." The audience members agreed; several viewers contributed their thoughts in spontaneous interviews after the film: "[It] had such a profound effect on me," comments one viewer, and "It was probably my favorite film of the festival - so much fun!," claims another. 

The Pickle Recipe tells the tale of a "down-on-his-luck" party emcee who, in his desperation for cash, is corrupted by his shameless uncle to steal his grandmother's top secret pickle recipe. 

Other Screen Arts alumni who worked on the project include Geoffrey George (Director of Photography), Josh Ficken (Key Grip), Chris Miller (Grip), and Eddie Rubin (Producer).

Read the film's first review here. 
SAC Faculty Spotlight: Professor and Department Chair Caryl Flinn 
Caryl Flinn appreciates the "wide angle" perspective of being SAC Chair.  She enjoys meeting students past, present and future, colleagues across the University, and SAC's extended family, friends, and alumni. (One thing she's learned is that few people refer to us as Screen Arts, opting for the "Film" or "Media" Dept.—so we might be in for a name change!)

This semester, Flinn is teaching SAC 475, Critical Media Theory and Cultural Studies. It's one of her favorite classes and attracts very bright students from SAC and other units.  She's looking forward to events in the works, such as a visit by indie director Alan Rudolph in June, a talk by TV scholar Deborah Jaramillo, and an expanded summer internship program.

Though duties as chair keep her busy (her dog Greta doesn't get enough walks), Flinn has some ongoing research projects.  One article deals with gender and the "speak-singing" of men in musicals like My Fair Lady; a second examines how German director Werner Schroeter used opera in his films.  Her next book project will look at camp and kitsch in film culture.
SAC Graduate Student Spotlight: Certificate Student Orquidea Morales

Orquidea Morales is a doctoral candidate in American Culture and is also pursuing certificates in Screen Arts & Cultures and Latina/o Studies. She is in the process of completing her dissertation “Border Horror: Violence and Death in the Borderlands Post-NAFTA” which examines the relationship between representations and realities of violence and death along the US-Mexico border in the post-North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) era (1994 to the present) in films and graphic novels. Through a border-horror framework as well as a study of distribution patterns in northern Mexico and south Texas, Morales traces how representations of border deaths and violence respond to political, economic, social, and historical changes. Morales’ research and reality overlap in some pretty creepy ways - because when she’s not researching death on the border, Orquidea enjoys watching dramatizations of death in horror movies. If you want to be subjected to some Orquidea-approved gore, check out The Ruins (2008).
Mark Cendrowski of The Big Bang Theory Conducts Directing Workshop In Studio A
Mark Cendrowski conducted a directing workshop last Friday in North Quad Studio A with actors from the School of Music, Theater, and Dance. Using scenes from hit situation comedies, Cendrowski demonstrated blocking action and directing actors in multi-camera style. 
photo credit - Mary Lou Chlipala
Attention SAC Undergrads: Eat Pizza Tomorrow and Support SAC 423!
SAC 423's production, "The Dejects," is having an ALL DAY fundraiser at Pizza House (618 Church Street) tomorrow, February 17th. When you come into the restaurant - or when you place an order for delivery, please mention "The Dejects," and 15% of the cost of your purchase will go toward funding the production!

Pizza House is open from 10:30 a.m. to 4:00 a.m.