FILM IN TRFT

KSJS-FM Founder and Professor Emeritus Clarence Flick tells about the history of the department's Film Program

History of KSJS

In 1958 a new option in Radio-TV was offered as a major in Drama in the Department of Drama at San Jose State College. At that time in the only course offering in film was THE FILM, a course on the history and development of motion pictures in the U.S. and the World. THE FILM, still offered as a basic course in the field, was started by Hugh Gillis.

Photography, a course in still photography, was taught in the Science Department, with a scientific emphasis.

After hiring Charles Chess (1963) whose main teaching interest was film, we decided to pursue the offering of a course in movie making or film production. Charles and Flick, who became head of the Radio-TV curriculum in 1958, wrote a course proposal for Film Production. The nay-sayers and particularly same faculty in Drama were very skeptical of approval of the course.

To get some answer Flick took the proposal in hand and walked in to see Dean Harrington, Dean of Academic Studies of the University. After a very brief broaching of the proposal the Dean said, "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!! We're almost finished building our new Science Building and the Photography Division has all this money available for motion picture cameras and they don't have a course to teach! You bring that proposal to the Academic Studies Council meeting on Wednesday and we'll have a course to teach so we can buy the cameras. Your course will be approved and you'll have the cameras to teach it."

And this how the film production program began at San Jose State. This was rather unusual procedure and n exception to many months it could and does take to process new course proposals. The timing of Flick's visit to Dean Harrington was perfect. Charles Chess used the new cameras with students checking them out of the Photography Division until the cameras, replaced, came to RADIO-TV. This was long before quality video cameras were available.