Columbia’s third-floor theater in the 1104 S. Wabash Ave. building was packed on Saturday, Dec. 6 as Chicago-born filmmaker Robert Townsend delivered a high-energy masterclass on storytelling, craft and career survival.
The event opened a two-day pop-up film festival partly hosted at Columbia, with proceeds supporting the Chicago Westside Branch NAACP and the autism-support nonprofit, The Answer Inc.
The sold-out first day featured screenings of Townsend’s personal favorite film, “The Spook Who Sat by the Door”, along with his own work, including “The Five Heartbeats”, a story about a fictional R&B group’s rise and unraveling.
Before the screenings, Townsend opened with an energetic crash course in filmmaking for Columbia students, saying his goal was for viewers to be “reborn or born” by the time they left the theater.
Students and local filmmakers lined both sides of the hallway outside the theater, many expecting a traditional lecture — not the high-octane presentation the 68-year-old filmmaker delivered. Some only knew Townsend from his work on “The Bear”, including junior film and television major Maria Freaner.
“I’ve been really interested in ‘The Bear’ and seeing all his credits on directing, producing, writing and acting,” Freaner said. “I’m really curious how someone in the industry is kind of doing all of that, not at the same time, but essentially the intersectionality between all of those and how they benefit each other or collide with each other.”
Junior film and television student Olivia Watson, who was familiar with Townsend’s earlier work, said “The Five Heartbeats” brought her family closer, and she came to the masterclass to honor that connection.
“All his stories tell something different,” Watson said. “It’s always a different edge, different genres going on. So I feel like if you want a splash of everything, as someone that is a person of color, just to see how diverse his work is, a person should check it out.”
During the hour-long presentation, Townsend outlined pre-production methods and directing techniques, at one point acting out scenes from students’ short films to demonstrate his approach. Attendees said the session offered practical, technically focused guidance they could apply to their own projects.
“Something I’d like to see replicated more at Columbia is expecting directing students to be extremely specific in what they want, and teaching students to maximize or milk like the most storytelling out of any scene possible,” said senior film and television major Alex Lanting.
Townsend repeatedly emphasized that it doesn’t matter where film students come from, but that they put in the work to build the careers they want. He illustrated this by showing a photo from his first job on a set — as a freezing-cold extra on the film “Mahogany” — where he watched the crew and learned from them.
“I learned, in that moment, what everybody was doing,” he said. “For this generation now, people said, ‘Robert, what is going to stop the creatives from really going to the next level? What’s the one thing that’s going to stop these creatives?’ Fear.”
Townsend urged film students not to let fear derail their goals and to stay disciplined, saying opportunities come only when students put in the work and don’t let rejection discourage them.
“Some of y’all act like y’all don’t want to eat, and then you make excuses on other people,” he said. “There’s a lot of rejection in the game, but what is for you is for you.”
On the topic of funding for student filmmakers, Townsend said students shouldn’t focus on money first, but on crafting a compelling story. He urged them to take advantage of whatever tools they have now.
“It’s really about story,” he said. “Because if you said, ‘I need fifty million dollars,’ you’d need a calling card. ‘Hollywood Shuffle’ was done in twelve days and I had no film experience. You guys are nine thousand steps ahead of me because you have all these professors and all of this information.”
The film festival continues Sunday, Dec. 7, with free screenings of two Townsend-directed projects at the Chicago Cultural Center: the superhero comedy “The Meteor Man” at 11 a.m., followed by an episode of the Chicago-set series “Power Book IV: Force” at 2 p.m. Both screenings will be followed by a Q&A. Seating is first-come, first-served.
Copy edited by Matt Brady
