Rachel Raimist, cinema production professor, teaches students about the short film pitch process during class. Raimist has previously worked on television and movie projects like “Elsbeth,” “Bel-Air,” “The Spiderwick Chronicles” and “Wu-Tang: An American Saga.”
After hours of lecture, videos and class discussion on short films, it was time for Rachel Raimist’s cinema production capstone students to come up with a short film pitch of their own. The catch: They had about five minutes to do it.
Students heard that, and the energy shifted a bit. They needed a title, a genre, themes and a summary of the film in the time it takes most people to make their bed.
The class pitched romance dramas, psychological thrillers and horror films.
After every pitch, Raimist pushed the class to really think about their ideas and presentations and provided constructive feedback, like “Good eye contact. Loved that you smiled” and “Tell me a little bit more about the protagonist. Can you add an adjective? He is confident? He is nervous?”
Once every pitch was presented, the class ended, and just like that, many students had gotten their first taste of what it’s like to work with a Hollywood director.
Raimist, who has a background in directing and teaching, joined UTA over the summer to serve as the Morgan Woodward Distinguished Professor of Film and Video. The endowment will allow her to teach two classes, the capstone class and cinema production 2.
Cinema production 2 emphasizes advanced production concepts, aesthetics and hands-on exercises using small production crews. The capstone class brings together all the ideas, practices and theories to make an entire project from conception.
Dallas-Fort Worth isn’t the powerhouse that Los Angeles or New York are, but its film industry is growing. By bringing her concepts, ideas and experience to Arlington, Raimist said she hopes to inspire students to join that growth.
“There’s no limit to what students here at UTA and in the greater area and in Texas can do,” she said. “There’s already a longstanding tradition of indie filmmakers from Texas, certainly from the other A town, but it’s time for us.”
Raimist joins UTA with directing credits on projects like “The Sex Life of College Girls,” “Bel-Air,” “CSI: Vegas,” “Roswell, New Mexico” and “Fantasy Island.” Her teaching career is just as deep, starting in 2001 at the University of California, Irvine.
She got her first taste of directing at 16 years old, when she joined an electronic English class, a journalism and documentary fusion. She was told to do a story on a landfill; there she found corruption and pollution being hidden from her community in New York.
At 16, she knew her voice alone wouldn’t carry much weight or have much impact, but having a camera in her hands changed that.
“The whole town is in an uproar, and all these adults are upset,” Raimist said of the impact the documentary had. “I realized how powerful storytelling and filmmaking can be.”
The documentary she created, “Garbage Gangsters and Greed,” showed her the passion she had for directing, which led her to the University of California, Los Angeles. There, she got a bachelor’s in film and television and a master’s in directing.
She said graduate school is where the directing and teaching seed she planted earlier in life really started to bloom. What started as an assignment turned into 30 years of filmmaking and more than 20 years of teaching.
“I don’t think that I envisioned that I would grow up to be the Morgan Woodward Endowed Distinguished Professor. That wasn’t on my radar,” Raimist said. “I just have always been a person who’s very creative and not afraid of trying new things.”
Rachel Raimist, art and art history professor, teaches students about the short film pitch process during class. Raimist has previously worked on projects like Elsbeth, Bel-Air, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Wu-Tang: An American Saga and more.
Good teaching and educating the younger generation are ideals that have stuck with her throughout her dual careers.
Raimist spent almost 11 years teaching at The University of Alabama. In her time there, she met Daniel Barnes, a student she would come to mentor. Barnes is now the head of content and storytelling at Cloudco Entertainment, a studio that produces content catered toward children.
The two met during a school-sponsored industry trip that Raimist would take students on during summer and winter breaks. The trips consisted of visiting studios and networking with industry pioneers in Los Angeles.
Barnes said he was a little intimidated by Raimist because of her wealth of knowledge. He said he’d never had a professor who not only was kind and welcoming but also held him accountable. Raimist knew what it took to be successful, so she held the students to a high standard.
He described her as a mentor, a teacher and a coach all in one, saying he would not be where he is in his career without her.
“It made my dreams tangible,” Barnes said about learning from Raimist. “I’m from Alabama. I really didn’t know anybody that had come out here and pursued a career in entertainment.”
He went as far as calling her the greatest of all time and said she was the most impactful professor he had in his college career.
Another student impacted by Raimist is Greg Kubik, an Emmy-winning director of photography. Kubik took a class with Raimist in college, and 14 years after graduation, Raimist is the only professor he’s still in touch with.
Kubik said Raimist cares about the success of her students. He said Raimist still feels like someone he can reach out to for support, even though they may only run into each other once every five years at conventions.
“That’s very rare in the collegiate world,” he said. “It just makes the whole experience feel a lot more satisfying when you have somebody who has your back and is on your team and is going to push you to be great.”
Just a week into her UTA tenure, Raimist is already inspiring a new generation of students just as she inspired Barnes and Kubik.
During the first couple of classes, Raimist told her class to be bold, take risks and not tell generic stories. Cinematic arts senior Erick Garcia heard that and wasted no time in taking her advice.
Garcia pitched a rite-ofpassage short film titled “Staring Into the Abyss” in class. It contained themes of isolation, identity and the acceptance of the self, a stark contrast to the comedy sketches he said he usually does.
“I’m a little scared,” Garcia said about trying something new. “This is jumping into something a little bit more mature, more complex.”
Rachel Raimist, cinema production professor, discusses the short film pitch process with students during class. Raimist teaches a capstone course.
Raimist and her teaching style don’t exist in a vacuum. She had mentors along the way who’ve done for her what she’s doing for UTA students.
Mary Lou Belli is an established director and author working as the executive director of “The Ms. Pat Show.” Belli is part of the Directors Guild of America, where she met Raimist, whom she now considers a friend.
The Directors Guild of America is a labor organization founded in 1936 to protect the creative and economic rights of directors. Belli said Raimist’s contributions to the guild have been outstanding.
When they first met, Raimist was already an experienced director and educator, and after getting a chance to do a one-on-one class with Raimist, Belli knew she was more than ready to step into a role at the guild.
Raimist went on to become the first woman appointed as the guild’s co-chair of the Special Projects Committee and was appointed as co-chair of the Disability Committee. Belli said Raimist was a force of nature when it came to getting the Disability Committee running.
“If Rachel’s leading it, it will happen, and it will happen quickly and efficiently, and that’s exactly what happened,” Belli said.
Beyond her leadership roles at the guild, Raimist’s passion for teaching is clear to Belli. Having seen her teach, Belli said what Raimist knows is immense and that Raimist cares about sharing all that she knows.
“She is truly one of the most gifted teachers I have ever seen,” Belli said.
As Raimist continues her work at UTA, she has one goal for the program and its future — for her students to make stories from the heart that people are watching and talking about.
“I’m at the end of my career,” Raimist said. “I want to see my students soaring past what I’ve been able to achieve.”
Raimist said she wanted to emphasize and remind people of the importance of art, film and media.
“Imagine a day without media, without cinema, without stories,” Raimist said. “That would be a really boring, bland, uninspiring day.”
News reporter Huda Qureshi contributed to this story.