December, 2017 -- Welcome to our Fall issue of the ELA Faculty newsletter where you’ll find out the latest on our faculty's work and achievements. ELAF-AAUP is the union representing the adjunct faculty of Emerson College Los Angeles which comprises 95% of ELA's resident faculty.
It was our first semester following elections of our current Executive Board. I am continuing as president, Dan Viafore will continue as our treasurer/secretary and Rob Cavanagh will be joining the Executive Board as vice president.
You can find ELA Faculty's history, contract, contract overview, FAQs and media links at our website at www.elafaculty.com You can also find and follow us online on Twitter & Facebook.
Best wishes for the holidays and the coming new year.
Jennifer Vandever
ELAF-AAUP President
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FACULTY NEWS & UPDATES
Roxanne Messina Captor’s short documentary Homecoming: Veterans, Wives and Mothers screened at the San Pedro International Film Festival to rave reviews. Described by City Watch LA as “a sympathetic look at women who define themselves as warriors, who spend time away from their families and who (too often) come home physically wounded or with PTSD.” Roxanne is hoping to expand the short to a feature length documentary. Roxanne’s other short documentary, Deployment won Best Narrative for Women’s History Month, Hall of Fame. Deployment follows a young Asian American Air Force Academy graduate as she says goodbye to her wife and brother prior to her first deployment. Her short documentary "Thank You For Your Service" has been accepted into the Clermont Ferrand Film Festival. Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival and Market is the biggest international film festival dedicated to short films. Roxanne also received ELA Faculty's first Professional Development Fund grant from the college this past summer. (Roxanne teaches the Internship Course)
Esther Chae was invited by the Korean government to attend the 20th anniversary Future Leader  Conference which invites leaders of Korean descent from all over the world. Pictured is Esther with Korea’s Prime Minister LEE Nak-yun who was just coming from hearing Donald Trump’s speech at Korea National Assembly. When Esther asked him about the meeting he said that if he "had a chance to speak to President Trump privately, he would encourage him to aim for the Nobel Prize for his legacy. i.e. peace and reunification of the two Koreas.”
(Esther teaches Acting for Film & TV)
Paul Mandelbaum was recently a consultant for the Emmy-nominated Netflix documentary series The Keepers, about the unsolved murder of a Baltimore nun and its relation to a sexual-abuse scandal involving the local archdiocese. (His 1995 investigative magazine article on the case is still widely read.) Learn more about The Keepers here.
In October, he published a personal essay in The Sun magazine about taking his mother-in-law to a Holocaust survivors conference on the weekend prior to the presidential election. In its final section, the essay recounts the morning of November 9, when his Emerson students and he tried to process the Trump victory and its immediate aftermath. You can read Paul’s funny and moving essay here.
(Paul teaches LA Stories and the Internship Course)
Mary Kuryla’s collection Freak Weather Stories, which won the Grace Paley Award in fiction, was published in November by Massachusetts Press. People Magazine called Freak Weather Stories "an imaginative and unpredictable debut." You can read more about it and order your own copy here. (Mary teaches Cinema & Televisual Bodies)
Andy Miara wrote and directed a live comedy event called Thanksgiving House. A Thanksgiving House is like a haunted house, except for Thanksgiving. Produced by Funny or Die and IFC, Thanksgiving House is an immersive theatre piece that brings to life all the best and worst aspects of Thanksgiving inside one house. Attendees move from room to room, experiencing live, acted-out scenes of a typical, dysfunctional family Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving House was a featured event in LA's VultureFest. (Andy teaches Comedy Sketch Troupe)
Randy Miller recently finished composing the music for six TV films for PixL and Hallmark including the titles, Hometown Hero and The Jones Unplugged. He is currently working on Ittefaq (orchestrator) and The Best of Enemies (additional scoring). In addition, Randy is orchestrating and will be conducting an 84 piece orchestra on Dec 12 and 13 for the Warner Brothers film, Game Night at the Eastwood Scoring Stage on the Warner Brothers lot.
(Randy teaches Music for Writers, Directors and Producers and the Internship course)
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