- Hello, and welcome to Hollywood at Home
from Arizona Public Media, I'm Victoria Lucas.
- I worked in the development and in the creative end
and Craig works on the stage, you know,
on the actual production end.
So, even though we may have worked on the same movie,
we didn't work together.
The first time that we've started collaborating,
really working together, is on Hollywood at Home.
- You know, I don't work for the station.
I just come in and hang out and pretend
that I'm her manager.
I'm an English major, and I feel like I'm in someways
a better writer than she is.
She does her own research, she writes her own scripts,
and then just like any author does,
she hands the manuscript over to the editor.
And I'm the editor.
- He does fact checking, he re-works it, he re-writes it,
sends it to me, I do some more tweaking.
- I'll just give her little notes on performance,
and it works out quite well.
My first two years of college were
on the east coast, I didn't enjoy that.
So, I wanted to stay a little closer to the west.
And U of A seemed like a good fit.
Within about three weeks of being here,
I said, this, this is it.
When I graduated from college with a degree in English,
and went back home to Los Angeles,
I needed a job, and I needed to get started on my career,
because I was 26 years old already.
- I started in the film industry because I went to a party.
I went to a party and I met Ron Howard.
- There's a lot to be said for it.
The money was good, I got to travel all over
the world and work.
By the time I actually got into
the Directors Guild, I had a reputation.
Almost from that point forward, people would call me.
I got a job offer for a television movie
that was going to Vancouver, and I said yes.
- I was the assistant to the producer.
It was actually on a Ron Howard produced movie, tv movie.
- And I came in for my first day of work during preparation,
which was in Los Angeles.
There she was at the desk, and I asked her
if there was coffee and she said, not yet.
And I said, well, where's the machine?
I'll go make it.
- [Victoria] I looked at him,
and thought this is pretty good.
- [Craig] You know it was like, ding.
I could see her eyes get wide.
Being an AD is a very high pressure job.
And, I just didn't want it anymore.
- And so, he had an investment house here
and he said well, you wanna move?
I said, yeah.
I had moved here, didn't know anybody.
And I saw this little thing in the paper
about a series of films that were screening at the
University, and I thought, well that might be
something to do, and it had a little thing that says,
for more information call,
and somebody says hello, um, hello,
and it was the head of The Hanson Film Institute.
Once I sort of stammered out what I was looking for,
she said, yeah, yeah so who are you?
- And I learned her extensive background of working
in the industry in Hollywood, and then I learned about
her husbands extensive background,
working as an assistant director training.
So, I realized immediately that they were
valuable assets potentially to the Hanson Film Institute.
- [Victoria L.] I just snowballed from there.
- With smaller scale stunts.
- Some of the student had actually suggested to the
faculty that they'd like to have a real course in AD work.
So, I created a course and I taught it.
Part of what it informed me was,
that I really liked doing guest lectures and mentoring.
- [Victoria W.] I do think that Craig's AD training
seminar has really helped students understand how a set
is run professionally, and I think that the way
they run their own sets has improved.
- I'm always available to the department, to the school,
to do whatever they ask me to do.
- Here at the Hanson Film Institute,
we're very grateful that Victoria Lucas and Craig Huston
are Hanson fellows and we really value their
gifts of time and expertise.
(slow music)