The film incentive bill that is currently being considered by the Wyoming State Legislature could mean good news for young filmmakers in Wyoming. Central Wyoming College is currently the only school in Wyoming that offers a degree in film. This bill has the potential to encourage the University of Wyoming to adopt a film degree program.
“We used to have a broadcasting major, and professors would teach some film courses, but that major was discontinued over 25 years ago. Phil Dubois was the president of the university then, and he was just looking for courses to cut.” Ken Smith, an emeritus professor of Communications and Journalism at UW said.
One concern of UW adopting a film program is the consideration of what department the program would be placed in, either in the theater department or Communications and Journalism
Another concern would be regarding staffing professors to teach new film courses.
“If what the legislature wants to accomplish is actual filming, and not just marketing, then I would make the case that adding a film degree in our department would be the appropriate department for that,” Smith said.
“Theater might be the logical place for it to initially be housed, because they collaborate with the English program for script writing,” Michael Brown, an emeritus professor at UW, said,
“But, if you’re going to do documentary kinds of film, there might be some collaborations with Communications and Journalism.”
Along with additional state revenue, tourism, and film production that the incentive bill would bring, if passed, it is hoped that it would inspire the university to endorse a film program, so long as an appropriate number of staff is hired and equipped with the tools to be able to teach these courses.
“I hope if they do decide to do that, that it’s not just one of those things that they just dump on a department without the necessary resources,” Smith said.
“In that case, the necessary resources would be additional faculty to be able to teach the courses.”
Dr. Brown expressed further concern of the addition of a film degree program in mentioning the overall cost of film technology that would be necessary for the university to purchase.
“I would think there would be enough interest to support that kind of degree. The two issues I would say would be basic campus politics, as in who is in control of it, and then the money needed to support the technological side of that,” Brown said,
“The legislation is probably a good idea. It would be a good idea for us to invite the film industry here, where Wyoming is trying to diversify its economy. That is one more step towards this tourist focus that they’ve been trying to develop.”
