Jerry LaBuy, Nordlof Center, Rockford, IL
Ever want to grill your boss interview style? I sat down with Founder of Mosaic World Film Festival, Jerry LaBuy, and asked him everything a new intern wants to know about developing and maintaining a film festival (and more!) Are you ready to hear his take on it?
Jerry: I started out at a public 4 year school in IL thinking I wanted to work in biology; possibly zoology or vet science. Then I started taking media, writing, and photography elective classes. I also visited a film set for a major film that was happening in Woodstock, IL. That visit and my elective classes were enough for me to realize I wanted to work in that field. I wasn’t at a school with a program for that though. So I went to Rock Valley College, a community college near my hometown, to first get my A.A. Then I transferred to Columbia College in Chicago where I earned my Bachelor’s degree. College was so helpful and some of my best friends in this industry today are the same ones I made my first films with across the street from Columbia in Grant Park 20 something years ago.
M: How did you first learn you were a filmmaker?
Jerry: As a kid I made VHS films with my friends. Mostly us playing in our backyards or out in the woods near my home. We also would make action films with our action figures, several of them featured some pyrotechnics via fireworks. I actually set my yard on fire as a kid doing that! Once I got to Columbia in my teens I really started making films and it took off from there.
Jerry LaBuy, Columbia College Chicago ’97
M: Who is the coolest person you have ever met in the media industry and why?
Jerry: There have been several, but the coolest is my friend Liz Allen Rosenbaum who is a film and TV director. When I first got to LA she was finishing grad school at USC and let me help her work on her thesis film “Eyeball Eddie.” I was just working freelance PA jobs at the time and appreciated her helping this kid “right off the bus.” We had a ton of fun working on that and she became a lifelong friend. We cast Michael Rosenbaum and Martin Starr in that and meeting them was great. Martin booked “Freaks and Geeks” when we were making that film. We also had a meeting with M. Emmet Walsh at the Hamburger Hamlet across the street from Mann’s Chinese Theatre to ask him to play the coach in the film. I am a huge fan of the film “Blade Runner” so that was a real treat for me. He said yes and was in the film as well. About a month after that I started working with her I got a job as a writer’s assistant on a TV show at the MGM building and then a few months after that I was the assistant for a Producer with a deal on the Sony lot, who also taught at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. Things for me professionally moved really fast after that, but it all started with her seeing something in me and helping me up. I try and do the same when I see something special in a younger person trying to get into this business.
Liz Allen Rosenbaum, Paramount Studios, 2000
M: Tell me about your Foundation and Film Festival. Where did you get your idea to found them? How