I began teaching at Stanford the summer of 1973. It was my first full-time job at 27, Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication, making a respectable $11,000 a year, teaching film history and criticism, hosting programs and guests from the Pacific Film Archives, from a program of Russian revolutionary films to Roberto Rossellini and Nicholas Ray. I realized I knew nothing about filmmaking so the following year I enrolled in a class in the Summer Institute.
We shot two 8 mm. exercises, a silent story with no editing, under a minute. Our main project was to be a two-minute film shot in 16 mm. I was going to do a film about fishing in San Francisco Bay. Early one morning I went out on a fishing boat with my bench mate Dale Djerassi. But the owner of the boat changed his mind, so I only have a series of atmospheric shots of the boat and the bay. I love the water, so I decided to record a rafting trip on the Stanislaus River. I was baptized on that rafting trip when I fell into the river with my camera. I knew I could not lose the camera. I held it above my head until my mates pulled me out. I only lost a few rolls of film. I saved the camera and my reputation. The movie became WILDWATER and it served in the “Save the Stanislaus” campaign that successfully blocked the building of a dam.
Here you can see the two 8 mm. exercises, footage of fishing in the Bay, and the finished film. A long haired Dale Djerassi was my bench mate. He would enroll in my American Experimental Cinema class the following year. And ten years later he and his wife Isabel Maxwell would become co-producers of my first feature film ’68.
Other members of the class made their marks in film. Dan Gillham started as a gaffer and became a cinematographer on films such as STRIKING DISTANCE and THE PUBLIC EYE. Sarah Jackson went on to be a producer. Ross McElwee directed the documentaries SHERMAN’S MARCH and BRIGHT LEAVES.
The following year I teamed up with instructor Kris Samuelson and graduate student Jon Else to produce the documentary ARTHUR AND LILLIE that garnered us an Academy Award Nomination.
Instructor Bill Zarchy and Ken Zunder forged careers as cinematographers. In 1979 I offered teaching assistant Pat Crowley a chance to be second unit production manager on THE LADY IN RED, a film I was producing for Roger Corman. He went on to become a highly successful producer in Los Angeles.
So, this was my start as a filmmaker.