Visual effects (sometimes abbreviated VFX ) is the process by which imagery is created or manipulated outside the context of a live-action shot in filmmaking and video production . The integration of live-action footage and other live-action footage or CGI elements to create realistic imagery is called VFX.
134-429: Robert Lee Zemeckis (born May 14, 1952) is an American filmmaker known for directing and producing a range of successful and influential movies, often blending cutting-edge visual effects with storytelling. He has received several accolades including an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for five British Academy Film Awards and a Daytime Emmy Award . Zemeckis started his career directing
268-671: A Catholic grade school and Fenger Academy High School . Zemeckis has said "the truth was that in my family there was no art. I mean, there was no music, there were no books, there was no theater ... The only thing I had that was inspirational, was television—and it actually was." As a child, he loved television and was fascinated by his parents' 8 mm film home movie camera. Starting off by filming family events like birthdays and holidays, he gradually began producing narrative films with his friends that incorporated stop-motion work and other special effects. Along with enjoying movies, Zemeckis remained an avid TV viewer. "You hear so much about
402-401: A Hitchcockian thriller titled What Lies Beneath , the story of a married couple experiencing an extreme case of empty nest syndrome that was based on an idea by Steven Spielberg. Because Hanks's character needed to undergo a dramatic weight loss over the course of The Castaway (retitled Cast Away for release), Zemeckis decided that the only way to retain the same crew while Hanks lost
536-745: A 2.5 square mile area around each USC campus. The Department of Public Safety headquarters is on the University Park campus, and there are substations in the University Village and on the Health Sciences campus. The department operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. All USC Public Safety Officers are required to be police academy graduates so that under California Penal Code statute they can be granted peace officer power of arrest authority while on duty, enforce state laws and local city municipal codes, and investigate crimes. DPS
670-524: A Protestant nurseryman, Ozro Childs ; an Irish Catholic former governor, John Gately Downey ; and a German Jewish banker, Isaias Wolf Hellman . The three donated 308 acres to establish the campus and provided the necessary seed money for the construction of the first buildings. Originally operated in affiliation with the Methodist Church, the school mandated from the start that "no student would be denied admission because of race". The university
804-645: A film cutter for NBC News in Chicago during a summer break. He also edited commercials in his home state. Zemeckis applied to transfer from NIU to the University of Southern California 's School of Cinematic Arts in Los Angeles, California, and went into the Film School on the strength of an essay and a music video based on a Beatles song. Not having heard from the university itself, Zemeckis called and
938-527: A long-gestating project based on Carl Sagan 's 1985 novel of the same name . The film centers on Eleanor Arroway ( Jodie Foster ), who believes she has made contact with extraterrestrials. In the early 1990s, he founded South Side Amusement Company, which later became ImageMovers . During this same time period, Zemeckis was an executive producer of HBO 's Tales from the Crypt (1989–1996) and directed three episodes. In 1999, Zemeckis donated $ 5 million towards
1072-470: A movie's story and appeal. Although most visual effects work is completed during post-production , it usually must be carefully planned and choreographed in pre-production and production . While special effects such as explosions and car chases are made on set , visual effects are primarily executed in post-production with the use of multiple tools and technologies such as graphic design, modeling, animation and similar software. A visual effects supervisor
1206-481: A net loss of roughly $ 130 million. Zemeckis made his return to live-action filmmaking with Flight , a 2012 drama for Paramount, starring Denzel Washington . On January 31, 2014, it was announced that a stage musical adaptation of Zemeckis's first Back to the Future film was in production. The show would be co-written by original writers Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale. According to Gale, the musical would be "true to
1340-499: A number of years prior to 1972, it was called The School of Architecture and Fine Art. The School of Fine Art (known as SOFA for a number of years after Architecture and Fine Art separated) was eventually named the Roski School of Fine Arts in 2006 during a ceremony to open the then-new Masters of Fine Art building, which occupies the previous and completely refurbished Lucky Blue Jean factory. This small department grew rapidly with
1474-546: A path to a Navy commission. The University Park campus is in the University Park district of Los Angeles, 2 miles (3.2 km) southwest of downtown Los Angeles . Located off exit 20B of Interstate 110 , the campus's boundaries are Jefferson Boulevard on the north and northeast, Figueroa Street on the southeast, Exposition Boulevard on the south, and Vermont Avenue on the west. Since the 1960s, through-campus vehicle traffic has been either severely restricted or entirely prohibited on some thoroughfares. The University Park campus
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#17327731934981608-451: A president, a provost , several vice-presidents of various departments, a treasurer, a chief information officer , and an athletic director . The current president is Carol Folt who on July 1, 2019, succeeded Board of Trustee member Wanda Austin who had been appointed the interim president by the board when the former president C. L. Max Nikias resigned in 2018. The USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences,
1742-455: A reenactment of the beheading of Mary, Queen of Scots , Clark instructed an actor to step up to the block in Mary's costume. As the executioner brought the axe above his head, Clark stopped the camera, had all the actors freeze, and had the person playing Mary step off the set. He placed a Mary dummy in the actor's place, restarted filming, and allowed the executioner to bring the axe down, severing
1876-400: A result of his reputation within the industry, Zemeckis had trouble finding work in the early 1980s, though he and Gale kept busy. They wrote scripts for other directors, including Car Pool for Brian De Palma and Growing Up for Spielberg; neither ended up getting made. Another Zemeckis-Gale project, Back to the Future , about a teenager who accidentally travels back in time to the 1950s,
2010-562: A romantic thriller set during World War II. The film was released on November 23, 2016. Next, Zemeckis directed the fantasy drama Welcome to Marwen , starring Steve Carell , which was released in December 2018 to mixed reviews and flopped at the box office. Zemeckis's film The Witches , an adaptation of the Roald Dahl novel of the same name , premiered on October 22, 2020, on HBO Max , also to mixed reviews. On October 18, 2019, it
2144-542: A select number of undergraduates who wish to pursue dance as their major. This four-year professional degree is housed in the state-of-the-art Glorya Kaufman International Dance Center . In 2015, USC established the Bovard College, which offers graduate-level programs in Human Resource Management, Project Management, and Criminal Justice. The college is named after Emma Bovard, who was one of
2278-667: A street scene in Paris. When he screened the film, he found that the "stop trick" had caused a truck to turn into a hearse, pedestrians to change direction, and men to turn into women. Méliès, the director of the Théâtre Robert-Houdin , was inspired to develop a series of more than 500 short films, between 1896 and 1913, in the process developing or inventing such techniques as multiple exposures , time-lapse photography , dissolves , and hand-painted color. Because of his ability to seemingly manipulate and transform reality with
2412-411: A theatrical release in 2024. On October 31, 2024, Zemeckis, during an appearance on Josh Horowitz's Happy Sad Confused podcast to promote Here , hinted at his plans to produce and direct a film adaptation of the stage musical version of Back to the Future that would also serve as a remake of the original film. Universal has yet to green-light the project after an initial rejection of Zemeckis' pitch to
2546-481: A total enrollment of roughly 47,500 students, of which 20,000 are at the undergraduate and 27,500 at the graduate and professional levels. Approximately 53% of students are female and 47% are male. For the entering first-year class in 2020, 43% of incoming students are drawn from California, 42% from the rest of the United States, and 15% from abroad. USC's student body encompasses 12,300 international students,
2680-513: Is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". According to the National Science Foundation , USC spent $ 891 million on research and development in 2018, ranking it 23rd in the nation. USC employs approximately 4,706 full-time faculty, 1,816 part-time faculty, 16,614 staff members, and 4,817 student workers. 350 postdoctoral fellows are supported along with over 800 medical residents. Among
2814-734: Is a private research university in Los Angeles, California , United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney , it is the oldest private research university in California, and has an enrollment of more than 49,000 students. The university is composed of one liberal arts school, the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences , and 22 undergraduate , graduate , and professional schools, enrolling roughly 21,000 undergraduate and 28,500 post-graduate students from all fifty U.S. states and more than 115 countries. It
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#17327731934982948-601: Is a private pilot who has logged approximately 1,600 hours of flight time, as of October 2012, flying a Cirrus SR22 . According to campaign donation records, Zemeckis has frequently contributed to political candidates affiliated with the Democratic Party , as well as PACs that support the interests of aircraft owners and pilots, family planning interests, and a group that advocates for Hollywood women. Short film Producer Executive producer Executive Soundtrack Producer Director: "And All Through
3082-592: Is a full-service community hospital offering advanced cardiovascular services including cardiac catheterization, electrophysiology and open-heart surgery. Los Angeles County has designated it as both a heart attack receiving center and a comprehensive stroke center, as well as an Emergency Department Approved for Pediatrics. The hospital also offers a variety of surgical services in orthopaedics, neurosurgery, obstetrics, gynecology, and cancer care, plus physical rehabilitation and many other medical specialties. USC physicians serve more than one million patients each year. USC
3216-688: Is a member of the Association of American Universities , which it joined in 1969. USC sponsors a variety of intercollegiate sports and competes in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Big Ten Conference . Members of USC's sports teams, the Trojans , have won 107 NCAA team championships and 412 NCAA individual championships. As of 2021, Trojan athletes have won 326 medals at
3350-580: Is also home to the USC School of Pharmacy and several research buildings such as USC/Norris Cancer Research Tower, Institute for Genetic Medicine, Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute , Harlyne J. Norris Cancer Research Tower and Eli and Edythe Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research. The Keck Hospital of USC is ranked No. 7 out of 420 hospitals in the State of California and ranks in
3484-466: Is among the top 35 largest university library systems in the United States. The Leavey Library is the undergraduate library and is open 24 hours a day. The newly open basement has many discussion tables for students to share thoughts and have group discussions. The Edward L. Doheny, Jr. Memorial Library is the main research library on campus. USC was ranked 22nd in U.S. News & World Report ' s 2020 annual ranking of national universities. In
3618-605: Is classified as "comprehensive" and offers 134 master's, doctoral, and professional degrees through twenty professional schools. USC is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges . USC's academic departments fall either under the general liberal arts and sciences of the Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences for undergraduates, the Graduate School for graduates, or
3752-559: Is known for his collaboration with composer Alan Silvestri , with whom he has worked since Romancing the Stone . David Thomson , a prominent film critic, wrote that "no other contemporary director has used special effects to more dramatic and narrative purpose." Zemeckis has said that, for a long time, he sacrificed his personal life in favor of a career. "I won an Academy Award when I was 44 years old," he explained, "but I paid for it with my 20s. That decade of my life from film school till 30
3886-578: Is no longer affiliated with any church, having severed formal ties in 1952. When USC opened in 1880, the school had an enrollment of 53 students and a faculty of 10. Its first graduating class in 1884 was a class of three: two males and a female valedictorian . USC students and athletes are known as Trojans, epitomized by the Trojan Shrine , nicknamed "Tommy Trojan", near the center of campus. Until 1912, USC students (especially athletes) were known as Fighting Methodists or Wesleyans, though neither name
4020-604: Is overseen by an independent advisory board of 21 faculty, staff, student and community members appointed by the USC President. The board reviews DPS performance, stop, and misconduct data, and conducts periodic assessments of DPS policies, practices, and operational performance. The department has a formal working relationship with the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), which includes USC paying for newly hired Public Safety Officers to attend
4154-507: Is served by several rapid transit stations. The Metro E Line light rail service between Downtown Los Angeles and Santa Monica wraps around the south and eastern edges of the University Park campus. The E Line has three stations in the vicinity of the USC main campus: Jefferson/USC Station , Expo Park/USC Station , and Vermont/Expo Station . The Metro J Line bus service serves both the University Park campus at 37th Street/USC station and
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4288-483: Is the official representative government of the undergraduate students at USC. It consists of a popularly elected president and vice president who lead an appointed executive cabinet, a popularly elected legislative branch, and judicial oversight. The executive cabinet oversees funding, communications, programming, and advocacy work. All USG activities are funded by the student activity fee. In addition to USG, residents within university housing are represented and governed by
4422-573: Is usually involved with the production from an early stage to work closely with production and the film's director to design, guide and lead the teams required to achieve the desired effects. Many studios specialize in visual effects; among them are Digital Domain , DreamWorks , DNEG , Framestore , Weta Digital , Industrial Light & Magic , Pixomondo , Moving Picture Company and Sony Pictures Imageworks & Jellyfish Pictures . University of Southern California The University of Southern California ( USC , SC , Southern Cal )
4556-574: Is within walking distance to Los Angeles landmarks such as the Shrine Auditorium and Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum , which is operated and managed by the university. Most buildings are in the Romanesque Revival style, although some dormitories, engineering buildings, and physical sciences labs are of various Modernist styles (especially two large Brutalist dormitories at the campus's northern edge) that sharply contrast with
4690-653: The Niche Best Colleges rankings, USC ranked 19th overall for 2020 based on academics and quality of student life. USC is ranked 32nd among national universities in the U.S. and 55th in the world by the Academic Ranking of World Universities , and 13th (tied with seven other universities) among national universities by The Center for Measuring University Performance. In 2015, USA Today ranked USC 22nd overall for American universities based on data from College Factual. Among top 25 universities, USC
4824-621: The Annenberg Center for Communication and a later additional gift of $ 100 million for the USC Annenberg School for Communication ; $ 112.5 million from Alfred Mann to establish the Alfred E. Mann Institute for Biomedical Engineering ; $ 110 million from the W. M. Keck Foundation for USC's School of Medicine ; $ 150 million from the W. M. Keck Foundation for USC's School of Medicine ; $ 175 million from George Lucas to
4958-603: The French New Wave . We were interested in Clint Eastwood and James Bond and Walt Disney , because that's how we grew up." Zemeckis graduated from USC in 1973, and he and Gale cowrote the unproduced screenplays Tank and Bordello of Blood , which they pitched to John Milius , the latter of which was later developed into a film which was released in 1996. As a result of winning a Student Academy Award at USC for his film A Field of Honor , Zemeckis came to
5092-555: The Glorya Kaufman School of Dance , the university's first new school in forty years, which was a gift from philanthropist Glorya Kaufman . The USC Kaufman School offers individual classes in technique, performance, choreography, production, theory and history open to all students at USC. In the fall of 2015, the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance began to offer a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree to
5226-589: The Integrated Media Systems Center and the Center for Biomimetic Microelectronic Systems . The Department of Homeland Security selected USC as its first Homeland Security Center of Excellence. Since 1991, USC has been the headquarters of the NSF and USGS funded Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC). The University of Southern California is a founding and charter member of CENIC ,
5360-713: The Interactive Media & Games Division of the School of Cinematic Arts and the CS Games program in the Department of Computer Science at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. The Academic Ranking of World Universities in 2015 ranked USC's combined departments of engineering and computer sciences as 10th in the world, social sciences 31st, and economics and business departments 29th. USC has
5494-654: The Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center , which is one of the nation's largest teaching hospitals, the campus includes three patient care facilities: USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center , Keck Hospital of USC , and the USC Eye Institute. USC faculty staffs these and many other hospitals in Southern California, including the internationally acclaimed Children's Hospital Los Angeles . The health sciences campus
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5628-789: The Marshall School of Business tied for 17th with the USC Leventhal School of Accounting 7th and the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies 9th; the Keck School of Medicine of USC was ranked tied for 30th in research and tied for 53rd in primary care, the Viterbi School of Engineering 9th, the Rossier School of Education 12th, the Roski School of Fine Arts graduate program 69th,
5762-563: The Olympic Games ( 153 golds, 96 silvers, and 77 bronzes ), more than any other American university. USC has had 571 football players drafted to the National Football League , the second-highest number of draftees in the country. The University of Southern California was founded following the efforts of Judge Robert Maclay Widney , who helped secure donations from several key figures in early Los Angeles history:
5896-546: The Sol Price School of Public Policy 3rd, the USC School of Social Work 25th, and the USC School of Pharmacy tied for 9th. USC's graduate programs in occupational therapy and physical therapy are ranked the nation's 1st and 4th best programs, respectively, for 2021 by U.S. News & World Report . The Philosophical Gourmet Report in 2015 ranked USC's graduate philosophy program as 8th nationally. The Hollywood Reporter ranked
6030-477: The USC School of Cinema-Television , now renamed USC School of Cinematic Arts , $ 200 million from Dana and David Dornsife for USC's College of Letters, Arts and Sciences to support undergraduate and PhD programs, $ 110 million from John and Julie Mork for undergraduate scholarships, and $ 200 million from Larry Ellison to launch the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine. In 1999, USC purchased
6164-659: The University Park campus, USC's Health Sciences campus is a major center for basic and clinical biomedical research in the fields of cancer , gene therapy , the neurosciences , and transplantation biology , among others. The 79-acre (32 ha) campus is home to the region's first and oldest medical and pharmacy schools, as well as acclaimed programs in nurse anesthesiology, occupational therapy , physical therapy , physician assistant, and pharmacy which are respectively ranked No. 11, No. 5, No. 6, No. 20, No. 12 by U.S. News & World Report in 2024. In addition to
6298-767: The Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies on Catalina Island just 20 miles (32 km) off the coast of Los Angeles, and home to the Philip K. Wrigley Marine Science Center. The Price School of Public Policy also runs a satellite campus in Sacramento . A Health Sciences Alhambra campus holds the Primary Care Physician Assistant Program, the Institute for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Research (IPR), and
6432-654: The cinematograph , the prolific Méliès is sometimes referred to as the "Cinemagician." His most famous film, Le Voyage dans la lune (1902), a whimsical parody of Jules Verne 's From the Earth to the Moon , featured a combination of live action and animation , and also incorporated extensive miniature and matte painting work. thumb VFX today is heavily used in almost all movies produced. Other than films, television series and web series are also known to utilize VFX. àÁ' Bold text' Visual effects are often integral to
6566-407: The computer animation technique known as performance capture , whereby the movements of the actors are captured digitally and used as the basis for the animated characters. As the first major film to use performance capture, The Polar Express caused The New York Times to write that, "Whatever critics and audiences make of this movie, from a technical perspective it could mark a turning point in
6700-510: The graphic novel by Richard McGuire , with Tom Hanks set to star and Forrest Gump screenwriter Eric Roth working on the screenplay with Zemeckis. On May 11, it was announced that Robin Wright had been cast and that TriStar Pictures had acquired distribution rights for the United States, with Miramax handling international sales and production expected to begin in September 2022 for
6834-444: The interquartile (middle 50%) range of SAT scores was 670-740 for evidence-based reading and writing, 680-790 for math, and 1370-1520 for the composite. The middle 50% ACT score range was 28-34 for math, 32-35 for English, and 31-34 for the composite. USC was ranked the 10th most applied to university in the nation for fall 2014 by U.S. News & World Report . Admission is need-blind for domestic applicants. The university
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#17327731934986968-493: The six major Hadith collections . Although the project currently parked, the referencing remains widely used throughout the Internet. USC is ranked by U.S. News & World Report as "Most Selective," and Princeton Review rates its admissions selectivity of 98 out of 99. Over 70,000 students applied for admission to the undergraduate class entering in 2021, with 12% being admitted. Among enrolled freshman for Fall 2019,
7102-948: The "Highly Cited" in the Institute for Scientific Information database. George Olah won the 1994 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and was the founding director of the Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute . Leonard Adleman won the Turing Award in 2003. Arieh Warshel won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry . The university also supports the Pacific Council on International Policy through joint programming, leadership collaboration, and facilitated connections among students, faculty, and Pacific Council members. The university has two National Science Foundation –funded Engineering Research Centers:
7236-1387: The Chinese Historical Society of Southern California. The USC Digital Library provides a wealth of primary and original source material in a variety of formats. In October 2010, the collections at ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives , the largest repository for documents from the LGBT community in the world, became a part of the USC Libraries system. The collections at ONE include over two million archival items documenting LGBT history including periodicals; books; film, video and audio recordings; photographs; artworks; ephemera, such clothing, costumes, and buttons; organizational records; and personal paper. USC's 22 libraries and other archives hold nearly 4 million printed volumes, 6 million items in microform , and 3 million photographs and subscribe to more than 30,000 current serial titles, nearly 44,000 feet (13,000 m) of manuscripts and archives, and subscribe to over 120 electronic databases and more than 14,000 journals in print and electronic formats. Annually, reference transactions number close to 50,000 and approximately 1,100 instructional presentations are made to 16,000 participants. The University of Southern California Library system
7370-483: The Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California, the nonprofit organization, which provides extremely high-performance Internet-based networking to California's K-20 research and education community. USC researcher Jonathan Postel was an editor of communications-protocol for the fledgling internet, also known as ARPANET , for which USC was one of the earliest nodes. In July 2016, USC became home to
7504-770: The Future Part III in 1990. Before the Back to the Future sequels were released, Zemeckis collaborated with Disney and directed another film, the madcap 1940s-set mystery Who Framed Roger Rabbit , which combined traditional animation and live-action; its $ 70 million budget made it one of the most expensive films made up to that point. The film was both a financial and critical success and won three Academy Awards . In 1990, Zemeckis commented, when asked if he would want to make non-comedies, "I would like to be able to do everything. Just now, though, I'm too restless to do anything that's not really zany." In 1992, Zemeckis directed
7638-1046: The Graduate School, and the twenty professional schools are each led by an academic dean . USC occasionally awards emeritus titles to former administrators. There are six administrators emeriti. The University of Southern California's twenty professional schools include the USC Leventhal School of Accounting , USC School of Architecture , USC Roski School of Art and Design, USC Iovine and Young Academy , USC Marshall School of Business , USC School of Cinematic Arts , USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism , USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance , Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC , USC School of Dramatic Arts , USC Rossier School of Education , USC Viterbi School of Engineering , USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology , USC Gould School of Law , Keck School of Medicine of USC , USC Thornton School of Music , USC School of Pharmacy , USC Bovard College, USC Sol Price School of Public Policy , and USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work . The Undergraduate Student Government (USG)
7772-809: The Health Sciences Campus about 2 miles (3.2 km) northeast of downtown. In addition, the Children's Hospital Los Angeles is staffed by USC faculty from the Keck School of Medicine , and is often referred to as USC's third campus. USC also operates an Orange County center in Irvine for business, pharmacy, social work, and education, and the Information Sciences Institute , with centers in Arlington, Virginia , and Marina del Rey . For its science students, USC operates
7906-568: The Health Sciences campus at LA General Medical Center station . In addition, both campuses are served by several Metro and municipal bus routes. Chaffey College was founded in 1883 in the city of Ontario, California , as an agricultural college branch campus of USC under the name of Chaffey College of Agriculture of the University of Southern California. USC ran the Chaffey College of Agriculture until financial troubles closed
8040-488: The House", "Yellow", and "You, Murderer" Accolades received by individual films Visual effects VFX involves the integration of live-action footage (which may include in-camera special effects) and generated-imagery (digital or optics, animals or creatures) which look realistic, but would be dangerous, expensive, impractical, time-consuming or impossible to capture on film. Visual effects using computer-generated imagery (CGI) have more recently become accessible to
8174-416: The Masters in Public Health Program. In 2005, USC established a federal relations office in Washington, DC., and in March 2023, USC announced the opening of a new Capital Campus in Washington, D.C. The university purchased a seven-story 60,000 square feet building and remodeled it to house classrooms, event venues, office spaces, a bookstore and a theater. Located in the heart of the Dupont Circle neighborhood,
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#17327731934988308-404: The No. 3 school to study undergraduate business in the nation, as of 2015 . In 2015, Forbes ranked the USC Marshall School of Business 3rd in the nation in producing graduates who are most satisfied with their jobs. The Princeton Review ranked USC video game design program as 1st out of 150 schools in North America. The university's video game design programs are interdisciplinary, involving
8442-676: The Residential Housing Association (RHA), which is divided by residence hall. The Graduate Student Government (GSG) consists of senators elected by the students of each school proportional to its enrollment and its activities are funded by a graduate and professional student activity fee. The USC Department of Public Safety (DPS) is one of the largest campus law enforcement agencies in the United States, currently employing over 300 full-time personnel, including approximately 96 armed Public Safety Officers, 120 unarmed Community Service Officers, 60 CCTV monitors and dispatchers, and 30 part-time student workers. DPS's patrol and response jurisdiction includes
8576-481: The Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts at USC, a 35,000-square-foot (3,300 m) center. When the Center opened in March 2001, Zemeckis spoke in a panel about the future of film, alongside friends Steven Spielberg and George Lucas . Of those (including Spielberg) who clung to celluloid and disparaged the idea of shooting digitally, Zemeckis said, "These guys are the same ones who have been saying that LPs sound better than CDs. You can argue that until you're blue in
8710-522: The School for Communication in 1994, features a core curriculum that requires students to devote themselves equally to print, broadcast and online media for the first year of study. The journalism school consistently ranks among the nation's top undergraduate journalism schools. USC's Annenberg School's endowment rose from $ 7.5 million to $ 218 million between 1996 and 2007. In 2015, the new building named for Wallis Annenberg started serving all faculty and students. The Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry at
8844-408: The School of Cinematic Arts the No. 1 film school in the United States for the third year in a row in 2014. In addition, USA Today ranked the School of Cinematic Arts the No. 1 film school in the United States in 2014. The program's range of classes, facilities, and close proximity to the industry were the primary reasons for this ranking. USA Today ranked the USC Marshall School of Business as
8978-427: The Stone , Zemeckis met composer Alan Silvestri , who has scored all his subsequent pictures. After Romancing the Stone , Zemeckis had the clout to direct his time-traveling screenplay. Starring Michael J. Fox , Lea Thompson , Crispin Glover , and Christopher Lloyd , the 1985 film was wildly successful upon its release and was followed by two sequels, released as Back to the Future Part II in 1989 and Back to
9112-487: The USC Capital Campus is also home to USC's Office of Research Advancement, which helps university faculty researchers secure federal funding for multidisciplinary research projects. USC was developed under two master plans drafted and implemented some forty years apart. The first was prepared by the Parkinsons in 1920, which guided much of the campus's early construction and established its Romanesque style and 45-degree building orientation. The second and largest master plan
9246-425: The USC Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, which both had previously been organized as "Independent Health Professions" programs at the USC College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, were administratively aligned under the School of Dentistry and renamed "Divisions," bringing the total number of Divisions at the School of Dentistry to seven. In 2010, alumnus Herman Ostrow donated $ 35 million to name
9380-466: The USC faculty, 17 are members of the National Academy of Sciences , 16 are members of the National Academy of Medicine , 37 are members of the National Academy of Engineering , 97 are members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science , and 34 are members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , 5 to the American Philosophical Society , and 14 to the National Academy of Public Administration . 29 USC faculty are listed as among
9514-426: The University Archives. The USC Warner Bros. Archives is the largest single studio collection in the world. Donated in 1977 to the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts by Warner Communications, the WBA houses departmental records that detail Warner Bros. activities from the studio's first major feature, My Four Years in Germany (1918), to its sale to Seven Arts in 1968. Announced in June 2006,
9648-406: The University Park shopping center, which was demolished in 2014. In September of the same year, the university began construction on USC Village, a 1.25-million-square-foot residential and retail center directly adjacent to USC's University Park campus on 15 acres of land owned by the university. The USC Village has over 130,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor, with student housing on
9782-506: The University of Southern California was established in 1897 as The College of Dentistry, and today, awards undergraduate and graduate degrees. Headed by Dean Avishai Sadan, the school traditionally has maintained five Divisions: Academic Affairs & Student Life, Clinical Affairs, Continuing Education, Research, and Community Health Programs and Hospital Affairs. In 2006, the USC Department of Physical Therapy and Biokinesiology , and
9916-488: The aegis of ImageMovers Digital. Zemeckis wrote the script with Jim Carrey in mind, and Carrey agreed to play a multitude of roles in the film, including Ebenezer Scrooge as a young, middle-aged, and old man, and the three ghosts who haunt Scrooge. The film began production in February 2008 and was released on November 6, 2009, to mixed reviews and grossed $ 325 million at the box office. Actor Gary Oldman also appeared in
10050-478: The alumni have become Pritzker Prize winners. In 2006, Qingyun Ma , a distinguished Shanghai-based architect, was named dean of the school. The Andrew and Erna Viterbi School of Engineering is headed by Dean Yannis Yortsos . Previously known as the USC School of Engineering, it was renamed on March 2, 2004, in honor of Qualcomm co-founder Andrew Viterbi and his wife Erna, who had donated $ 52 million to
10184-432: The animated film Yellow Submarine utilizing performance capture. However, on March 12, 2010, with Zemeckis's biggest Disney ally, former chairman Dick Cook, gone, and amid drastic cost-cutting by the new management team, Disney announced that it was ending its relationship with ImageMovers Digital. The studio's final film, 2011's Zemeckis-produced Mars Needs Moms , was the second-worst box office failure in history, with
10318-601: The attention of Steven Spielberg . Spielberg said, "He barged right past my secretary and sat me down and showed me this student film ... and I thought it was spectacular, with police cars and a riot, all dubbed to Elmer Bernstein 's score for The Great Escape ." Spielberg became Zemeckis's mentor and executive produced his first two films, both of which Gale and Zemeckis co-wrote. Spielberg produced I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978, starring Nancy Allen ) and Used Cars (1980, starring Kurt Russell ); both were critical, but not commercial, successes. I Wanna Hold Your Hand
10452-413: The black comedy Death Becomes Her , starring Meryl Streep , Goldie Hawn , and Bruce Willis . Although his next film would have some comedic elements, it was Zemeckis's first with dramatic elements and was also his biggest commercial success to date, Forrest Gump . Starring Tom Hanks in the title role, Forrest Gump tells the story of a man with a low I.Q. , who unwittingly participates in some of
10586-494: The board of trustees are elected for five-year terms. One-fifth of the Trustees stand for re-election each year, and votes are cast only by the trustees not standing for election. Trustees tend to be high-ranking executives of large corporations (both domestic and international), successful alumni, members of the upper echelons of university administration, or some combination of the three. The university administration consists of
10720-439: The box office, grossing over $ 155 million domestically. Cast Away , starring Hanks and Twister actress Helen Hunt , was released that December and grossed $ 233 million domestically; Hanks received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for his portrayal of Chuck Noland. In 2004, Zemeckis reteamed with Hanks for The Polar Express , based on Chris Van Allsburg 's children's book of the same name . The Polar Express utilized
10854-463: The campus following the 1965 Watts Riots , are credited for the safety of the university during the 1992 Los Angeles Riots . The ZIP Code for USC is 90089 and that of the surrounding University Park community is 90007. USC has an endowment of $ 8.1 billion and carries out nearly $ 1 billion per year in sponsored research. USC became the only university to receive eight separate nine-figure gifts: $ 120 million from Ambassador Walter Annenberg to create
10988-401: The college received a $ 200 million gift from USC trustees Dana and David Dornsife on March 23, 2011, after which the college was renamed in their honor, following the naming pattern of other professional schools and departments at the university. All PhD degrees awarded at USC and most master's degrees are under the jurisdiction of the Graduate School. Professional degrees are awarded by each of
11122-417: The comedy films I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978), Used Cars (1980), and Romancing the Stone (1984). He gained prominence directing the science-fiction comedy Back to the Future trilogy (1985–1990), the fantasy comedy Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), and the comedy-drama Forrest Gump (1994), the latter of which won Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director . He has also directed
11256-516: The drama Welcome to Marwen (2018). He has collaborated with film composer Alan Silvestri since 1984, and directed Tom Hanks in five films. Robert Lee Zemeckis was born on May 14, 1952, in Chicago , the son of Rosa (née Nespeca) and Alphonse Zemeckis. His father was Lithuanian-American while his mother was Italian-American . Zemeckis grew up on the South Side of the city. He attended
11390-447: The dummy's head. Techniques like these would dominate the production of special effects for a century. It was not only the first use of trickery in cinema, it was also the first type of photographic trickery that was only possible in a motion picture, and referred to as the " stop trick ". Georges Méliès , an early motion picture pioneer, accidentally discovered the same "stop trick." According to Méliès, his camera jammed while filming
11524-525: The face, but I don't know anyone who's still buying vinyl. The film, as we have traditionally thought of it, is going to be different. But the continuum is man's desire to tell stories around the campfire. The only thing that keeps changing is the campfire." The Robert Zemeckis Center currently hosts many film school classes, much of the Interactive Media Division , and Trojan Vision , USC's student television station, which has been voted
11658-472: The facility, which was officially renamed USC Verdugo Hills Hospital. This 40-year-old hospital provides the community a 24-hour emergency department, primary stroke center, maternity/labor and delivery, cardiac rehabilitation, and imaging and diagnostic services. In July 2022, the university acquired the 348 bed Methodist Hospital of Southern California in Arcadia, California . Renamed USC Arcadia Hospital it
11792-463: The film as a "cheerfully violent and strange take on the Beowulf legend." The film was released on November 16, 2007, to mostly positive reviews and grossed $ 196 million worldwide. In July 2007, Variety announced that Zemeckis had written a screenplay for A Christmas Carol , based on Charles Dickens 's 1843 short story of the same name , with plans to use performance capture and release it under
11926-512: The film school, which at the time was the largest single donation to USC (and its fifth over $ 100 million). The donation will be used to build new structures and expand the faculty. The acceptance rate to the School of Cinematic Arts has consistently remained between 4-6% for the past several years. The USC School of Architecture was established in 1916, the first in Southern California . From at least 1972 to 1976, and likely for
12060-438: The film. Zemeckis is an avid supporter of 3-D Digital Cinema and has stated that since the 3-D presentations of Beowulf , all of his future films would be done in 3-D using digital motion capture . He has reportedly backed away from that statement and said that the decision to use 3-D will be on a film-by-film basis. On August 19, 2009, it was reported that Zemeckis and his company were in talks with Apple Corps Ltd to remake
12194-498: The first generation in their family to attend any form of college. Twenty-four percent of undergraduates at USC are Pell Grant -eligible, which is defined by having come from a family household income of less than $ 50,000. There are over 375,000 living Trojan alumni . The USC-MSA reference is a numbering system developed by the Muslim Students' Association of the University of Southern California to access their database of
12328-750: The first students to enroll at USC in 1880. The USC Libraries are among the oldest private academic research libraries in California . For more than a century USC has been building collections in support of the university's teaching and research interests. Especially noteworthy collections include American literature , Cinema-Television including the Warner Bros. studio archives, European philosophy , gerontology , German exile literature, international relations , Korean studies , studies of Latin America, natural history , Southern California history, and
12462-540: The four floors above. The $ 700 million project is the biggest development in the history of USC and is also one of the largest in the history of South Los Angeles. With a grand opening held on August 17, 2017, the USC Village includes a Trader Joe's, a Target, a fitness center, restaurants, outdoor dining, 400 retail parking spots, a community room, and housing for 2,700 students. Located three miles (5 km) from downtown Los Angeles and seven miles (11 km) from
12596-500: The general education program for all USC undergraduates and houses a full-time faculty of almost 1,000, nearly 8,000 undergraduate majors (over a third of the total USC undergraduate population), and 1,300 doctoral students. In addition to thirty academic departments, the college also houses dozens of research centers and institutes. In the 2008–2009 academic year, 4,400 undergraduate degrees and 5,500 advanced degrees were awarded. Formerly called "USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences",
12730-419: The gradual transition from an analog to a digital cinema." Zemeckis served as an executive producer for Monster House (2006), a family-friendly horror comedy that used performance capture. In February 2007, Zemeckis and Walt Disney Studios chairman Dick Cook announced plans for a new performance capture film company devoted to CG-created, 3-D movies. The company, ImageMovers Digital , created films using
12864-486: The half-tuition Presidential Scholarship; the one-quarter tuition Deans Scholarship), with only 5.5% of scholarship applicants being selected as finalists for the final interview invitation at the USC campus in Spring. This makes USC one of the highest ranked universities to offer half-tuition and full-tuition merit-based scholarships. These factors have propelled USC into being the 4th most economically diverse university in
12998-492: The help of the Allied Architects of Los Angeles. A separate School of Architecture was organized in September 1925. The school has been home to teachers such as Richard Neutra , Ralph Knowles, James Steele, A. Quincy Jones , William Pereira and Pierre Koenig . The school of architecture also claims notable alumni Frank Gehry , Jon Jerde , Thom Mayne , Raphael Soriano , Gregory Ain , and Pierre Koenig . Two of
13132-546: The idea, Zemeckis later said, "But only in the sense that they were concerned ... for my family and my friends and the world that I grew up in, this was the kind of dream that really was impossible. My parents would sit there and say, 'Don't you see where you come from? You can't be a movie director.' I guess maybe some of it I felt I had to do in spite of them, too." Zemeckis first attended Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois, and gained early experience in film as
13266-438: The independent filmmaker with the introduction of affordable and relatively easy-to-use animation and compositing software. In 1857, Oscar Rejlander created the world's first "special effects" image by combining different sections of 32 negatives into a single image, making a montaged combination print . In 1895, Alfred Clark created what is commonly accepted as the first-ever motion picture special effect. While filming
13400-537: The later events, to lose only by a slight margin. After this contest, Los Angeles Times sportswriter Owen Bird reported the USC athletes "fought on like the Trojans of antiquity", and the president of the university at the time, George F. Bovard , approved the name officially. During World War II , USC was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program , which offered students
13534-431: The major events of the twentieth century, falls in love, and interacts with several major historical figures in the process. The film grossed $ 677 million worldwide and became the top-grossing US film of 1994; it won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture , Best Actor (for Hanks) and Best Director (for Zemeckis). From this point, Hanks and Zemeckis became frequent collaborators. In 1997, Zemeckis directed Contact ,
13668-424: The movie business was. Zemeckis remembered not being much fazed by this, citing the "healthy cynicism" that had been bred into him from his Chicago upbringing. At USC Zemeckis met a fellow student, writer Bob Gale . Gale later recalled, "The graduate students at USC had this veneer of intellectualism ... So Bob and I gravitated toward one another because we wanted to make Hollywood movies. We weren't interested in
13802-402: The nation. USC enrolls one of the largest amounts of National Merit Scholars of any university, offering finalists in the program its half-tuition Presidential Scholarship. As of 2021, about 72% of the student body receives about $ 810 million in financial aid annually. Twenty percent of admitted and attending students are SCions, or students with familial ties to USC, while 14 percent are
13936-672: The neighborhoods surrounding both the University Park and Health Sciences campuses earned it the distinction of College of the Year 2000 by the Time/Princeton Review College Guide . Roughly half of the university's students volunteer in community-service programs in neighborhoods around campus and throughout Los Angeles. These outreach programs, as well as previous administrations' commitment to remaining in South Los Angeles amid widespread calls to move
14070-459: The new buildings, but infused them with his trademark technomodernism stylings. More recently under President C. L. Max Nikias , the architectural orientation of the campus has moved towards a Gothic Revival style, taking cues from the scholastic styles of Oxford University and Harvard University , while underpinning USC's own historic identity that is present in the red-brick construction. USC's role in making visible and sustained improvements in
14204-403: The number one college television station in the country. In 1996, Zemeckis had begun developing a project titled The Castaway with Tom Hanks and writer William Broyles Jr. The story, inspired by Robinson Crusoe , is about a man who becomes stranded on a tropical island and undergoes a profound physical and spiritual change. While working on The Castaway , Zemeckis also became attached to
14338-468: The performance capture technology, with Zemeckis directing most of the projects which Disney distributed and marketed worldwide. Zemeckis used the performance capture technology again in his film, Beowulf , to retell the Anglo-Saxon epic poem of the same name . It featured Ray Winstone , Angelina Jolie , and Anthony Hopkins . Neil Gaiman , who co-wrote the adaptation with Roger Avary , described
14472-514: The predominantly red-brick campus. Widney Alumni House, built in 1880, is the oldest university building in Southern California. In recent years the campus has been renovated to remove the vestiges of old roads and replace them with traditional university quads and gardens. The historic portion of the main campus was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015. Besides its main campus at University Park, USC also operates
14606-425: The problems with television," he said, "but I think that it saved my life." Television gave Zemeckis his first glimpse of a world outside of his blue-collar upbringing; specifically, he learned of the existence of film schools on an episode of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson . After seeing Bonnie and Clyde with his father, Zemeckis decided that he wanted to go to film school. His parents disapproved of
14740-624: The respective professional schools. The School of Cinematic Arts , the oldest and largest film school in the country, confers degrees in six different programs. As the university administration considered cinematic skills too valuable to be kept to film industry professionals, the school opened its classes to the university at large in 1998. In 2001, the film school added an Interactive Media & Games Division studying stereoscopic cinema, panoramic cinema, immersive cinema, interactive cinema, video games, virtual reality, and mobile media. In September 2006, George Lucas donated $ 175 million to expand
14874-415: The satirical black comedy Death Becomes Her (1992), the science fiction film Contact (1997), and the drama films Cast Away (2000), Flight (2012), The Walk (2015), and Allied (2016). His exploration of performance capture techniques can be seen in the animated films The Polar Express (2004) and A Christmas Carol (2009) as well as the action fantasy drama Beowulf (2007), and
15008-573: The school in 1901. In 1906, the school was reopened by the municipal and regional government and thus officially separated from USC. Renamed as Chaffey College, it now exists as a community college as part of the California Community College System . USC is a private public-benefit nonprofit corporation controlled by a board of trustees composed of 50 voting members and several life trustees, honorary trustees, and trustees emeriti who do not vote. Voting members of
15142-852: The school the Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry. In 2013, the school introduced an eighth division, and in 2014, a $ 20 million gift endowed and named the USC Mrs. T.H. Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy. USC collaborated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University to offer the USC Executive MBA program in Shanghai . USC Dornsife also operates two international study centers in Paris and Madrid. The Marshall School of Business has satellite campuses in Orange County and San Diego . In 2012, USC established
15276-454: The school. Viterbi School of Engineering has been ranked No. 11 and No. 9 in the United States in U.S. News & World Report ' s engineering rankings for 2018 and 2019 respectively. The Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism , founded in 1971, is one of the two communication programs in the country endowed by Walter Annenberg (the other is at the University of Pennsylvania ). The School of Journalism, which became part of
15410-609: The second most out of all universities in the United States. Of the regularly enrolled international students, the most represented countries/regions are China (Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan not included), India, South Korea, and Taiwan, in that order. Like other private universities, the nominal cost of attendance is high; however, the university's large endowment and significant revenue streams allow it to offer generous financial aid packages. USC also offer some very competitive and highly valued merit-based scholarships (the full-tuition, four-year Mork Family, Stamps and Trustee scholarships;
15544-414: The six month-long Los Angeles Police Academy. A special joint USC/LAPD crime task force composed of USC DPS personnel and approximately 40 selected Los Angeles police officers, including a dedicated specially trained LAPD SWAT team, is assigned exclusively to the USC campus community to address crime and quality of life issues. USC is a large, primarily residential research university. The majority of
15678-686: The spirit of the film without being a slavish remake". In August 2008, IGN revealed in an interview with Philippe Petit that Zemeckis was working with Petit to turn Petit's memoir To Reach the Clouds into a feature film. In 2015, he directed The Walk , about Philippe Petit ( Joseph Gordon-Levitt ) and his ambition to tightrope walk between the towers of the World Trade Center. Paramount Pictures and New Regency announced in February 2015 that Zemeckis would direct Brad Pitt in Allied ,
15812-436: The student body was undergraduate until 2007, when graduate student enrollment began to exceed undergraduate. The four-year, full-time undergraduate instructional program is classified as "balanced arts & sciences/professions" with a high graduate coexistence. Admissions are characterized as "most selective, lower transfer in"; 95 undergraduate majors and 147 academic and professional minors are offered. The graduate program
15946-777: The studio. Zemeckis is regarded as an innovator in visual effects . His exploration of state-of-the-art special effects includes the early use of computer graphics inserted into live-action footage in Back to the Future Part II (1989) and Forrest Gump , the insertion of hand-drawn animation into live-action footage in Who Framed Roger Rabbit , and the performance capture techniques seen in The Polar Express (2004), Beowulf (2007), A Christmas Carol (2009), and Welcome to Marwen (2018). He
16080-802: The testimony of 52,000 survivors, rescuers, and others involved in The Holocaust is housed in the USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences as a part of the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education . In addition to the Shoah Foundation, the USC Libraries digital collection highlights include photographs from the California Historical Society, Korean American Archives Automobile Club of Southern California, and
16214-459: The top twenty nationally for specialities by U.S. News & World Report , including cancer, cardiology, gastroenterology, and geriatrics. In July 2013, the university expanded its medical services into the foothill communities of northern Los Angeles when it acquired the 185 bed Verdugo Hills Hospital in Glendale, California . USC planned on making at least $ 30 million in capital improvements to
16348-400: The university's 20 professional schools. The USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, the oldest and largest of the USC schools, grants undergraduate degrees in more than 180 majors and minors across the humanities, social sciences, and natural/physical sciences, and offers doctoral and masters programs in more than twenty fields. Dornsife College is responsible for
16482-489: The weight was to shoot What Lies Beneath in between. He shot the first part of Cast Away in early 1999, and shot What Lies Beneath in fall 1999, completing work on the former in early 2000. Zemeckis later quipped, when asked about shooting two films back-to-back, "I wouldn't recommend it to anyone." What Lies Beneath , starring Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer , was released in July 2000 to mixed reviews, but did well at
16616-1385: The world's most powerful quantum computer , housed in a super-cooled, magnetically shielded facility at the USC Information Sciences Institute , the only other commercially available quantum computing system operated jointly by NASA and Google . Notable USC faculty include or have included the following: Leonard Adleman , Richard Bellman , Aimee Bender , Barry Boehm , Warren Bennis , Todd Boyd , T.C. Boyle , Leo Buscaglia , Drew Casper , Manuel Castells , Erwin Chemerinsky , George V. Chilingar , Thomas Crow , António Damásio , Francis De Erdely , Percival Everett , Murray Gell-Mann , Seymour Ginsburg , G. Thomas Goodnight , Jane Goodall , Solomon Golomb , Midori Goto , Susan Estrich , Janet Fitch , Tomlinson Holman , Jascha Heifetz , Henry Jenkins , Thomas H. Jordan , Mark Kac , Pierre Koenig , Neil Leach , Leonard Maltin , Daniel L. McFadden , Viet Thanh Nguyen , George Olah , Scott Page , Tim Page (music critic) , Simon Ramo , Claudia Rankine , Irving Reed , Jacob Soll, Michael Waterman , Frank Gehry , Arieh Warshel , Lloyd Welch , Jonathan Taplin , Diane Winston , and Gabriel Zada . In February 2023, USC Graduate Student Workers voted 93% to unionize with
16750-463: Was announced that Zemeckis is in talks to direct Disney's live-action adaptation of Pinocchio . Zemeckis was officially announced as the film's director and co-writer of the script in January 2020. In addition, Tom Hanks was reportedly announced as playing Mister Geppetto in the film, marking the fourth collaboration with Hanks since Forrest Gump , Cast Away , and The Polar Express . The film
16884-424: Was approved by the university. Tommy’s sword has been stolen so frequently that instead of replacing it with an expensive brass one each time, he is now provided with a wooden one. During a fateful track and field meet with Stanford University , the USC team was beaten early and seemingly conclusively. After only the first few events, it seemed implausible USC would ever win, but the team fought back, winning many of
17018-494: Was later released, as part of Disney+ Day on Disney+ , on September 8, 2022, to highly negative reviews from critics, nominated for six Razzies , including Worst Picture and Worst Director for Zemeckis ("winning" Worst Remake ), ultimately losing the former to Blonde . Despite this, it also received a Visual Effects Society Award nomination for Outstanding Animated Character in a Photoreal Feature. On February 17, 2022, Zemeckis signed on to direct Here , an adaptation of
17152-432: Was nothing but work, nothing but absolute, driving work. I had no money. I had no life." In the early 1980s, Zemeckis married actress Mary Ellen Trainor , with whom he had a son, Alexander Francis. He described the marriage as difficult to balance with filmmaking, and his relationship with Trainor eventually ended in divorce. On December 4, 2001, he married Leslie Harter, an actress, with whom he has three children. Zemeckis
17286-474: Was prepared in 1961 under the supervision of President Norman Topping , campus development director Anthony Lazzaro , and architect William Pereira . This plan annexed a great deal of the surrounding city, and many of the older nonuniversity structures within the new boundaries were leveled. Most of the Pereira buildings were constructed in the 1970s. Pereira maintained a predominantly red-brick architecture for
17420-627: Was ranked as a "Top 10 Dream College" according to The Princeton Review , as conferred from a survey of 10,000 respondents. USC appeared in the Top 10 list for both parents and students. On the 2011 "Green Report Card", issued by the Sustainable Endowments Institute , the university received a B−. The Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism was ranked 1st in 2014 by USA Today . In its 2020 rankings, U.S. News & World Report rates USC's School of Law as 17th,
17554-401: Was ranked by U.S. News & World Report as having the 4th most economically diverse student body. Reuters ranked USC as the 14th most innovative university in the world in 2015, as measured by the university's global commercial impact and patents granted. USC was ranked 15th overall in the 2016 inaugural Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education ranking of U.S. colleges. In 2016, USC
17688-577: Was the first of several Zemeckis films to incorporate historic figures and celebrities into his movies; he used archival footage and doubles to simulate the presence of the Beatles. After the failure of his first two films, and the Spielberg-directed 1941 (1979) (written by Gale and Zemeckis), the pair gained a reputation for writing "scripts that everyone thought were great [but] somehow didn't translate into movies people wanted to see." As
17822-477: Was told he had been rejected because of his average grades. He gave an "impassioned plea" to the official on the other line, promising to go to summer school and improve his studies, and eventually convinced the school to accept him. Arriving at USC that fall, Zemeckis encountered a program that was, in his words, made up of "a bunch of hippies [and] considered an embarrassment by the university". The classes were difficult, with professors constantly stressing how hard
17956-431: Was turned down by every major studio. The director was jobless until Michael Douglas hired him in 1984 to direct Romancing the Stone . A romantic adventure starring Douglas and Kathleen Turner , Stone was expected to flop (to the point that, after viewing a rough cut of the film, the producers of the then-in-the-works Cocoon fired Zemeckis as director), but the film became a sleeper hit. While working on Romancing
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