A film made by Georgia State University students, both in front of and behind the camera, is now available to watch on streaming.
“Rejuvenation” is the name of the film, which audiences can catch streaming on Tubi and for rent on Amazon Prime Video. Tom Luse – an artist-in-residence for GSU’s media lab, the Creative Media Industries Institute – collaborated with Professors Susan Reid and Heath Franklin to help make the production happen. Luse also served as a co-writer and executive producer on the film.
Luse has had a long career in the film industry and is probably most well-known for his work on the hit television series “The Walking Dead.” According to Luse, GSU originally approached him about the possibility of teaching a master class. But he had a different idea.
“I said, ‘I really don’t want to teach,’” Luse said. “If we’re going to do something, why don’t we just make a movie?”
With the help of Reid and Franklin, Luse put together a cast and crew of 32 GSU students. While Luse and other adults were on hand to assist the students in the making of the film, the project was almost entirely student driven – from the actors, to the crew, to the post-production team.
The film stars Imani Okwuosa as Trinity, a track star whose life starts to spiral after an injury and an ensuing drug addiction. That might sound like a fairly standard, dramatic setup. But “Rejuvenation” has a surprising amount of twists and turns along the way, and doesn’t end up quite where you’d expect. Luse said those twists played well when the film first premiered to the public at the Rialto Center for the Arts back in October of last year.
“The response of that audience was off the charts, because the movie starts off really slow, and it’s kind of okay,” Luse said. “But by the end of it, there’s a lot of twists that people don’t expect.”
Luse said that while many of the students didn’t have film training at the production’s beginning, that didn’t stop them from giving their all and bringing ideas to the table. After the students were chosen, they did a single semester class to prepare for the film and figure out each students’ role, then shot “Rejuvenation” over 20 days. When it came to the script, Luse worked with two students – Malik Jones and Sydney Norman – to come up with the story.
All the post-production work – things like sound design, music, and editing – was also done by students, with oversight assistance from Moonshine Post. Drew Sawyer, founder of Moonshine Post, is a Georgia State alumnus.
“Many of these kids were the best and the brightest,” Luse said. “They were really motivated, hardworking and incredibly bright.”
Luse has had a long career in the film industry, and he said he approached “Rejuvenation” as an educational experiment of sorts. He said that throughout his career, the thing that has most bugged him is just how prohibitively expensive and time-consuming making a movie can be. He gave the example of working with a director who has a spur of the moment idea for a great shot.
“I have to tell him or her, you’re 45 minutes behind, and you have the biggest scene of the day coming up,” Luse said. “Do you want to make that decision to lose another 45 minutes? Because we spend most of our time in the film business setting up for a shot.”
Luse thought that along with giving the students real life experience on a film set, he could also use “Rejuvenation” to test out some of his theories of how to make filmmaking more efficient. The film was made on a microbudget (Luse did not give an exact number for the budget, but different sources have different thresholds for what would be considered a microbudget film. Generally, the budget would be under $1 million). On set, the crew eliminated the need for traditional equipment like dollies, boom poles and lighting stands in the hopes of creating a more flexible shooting space.
Luse said the crew used an easy rig, a type of camera support system that attaches to the operator, to shoot, and rather than having a boom operator, they put a small boom on top of the rig. They used practical lighting and LED lighting in the ceiling that they could adjust using an iPad. Editors were also on set with the rest of the crew to help streamline that process later on.
“We really tried to streamline a lot of things so that people could really be on the same page,” Luse said.
If you ask Luse, it all worked out pretty well. And he said once the students finally saw the movie for themselves at a private screening at the Plaza Theatre last year, you could feel their relief too.
“They were so happy when the movie was over, and it was actually a movie,” Luse said. “They were just bouncing off the walls, they were so happy.”
“Rejuvenation” is now streaming on Tubi and available for rent on Amazon Prime Video.