Award-winning producer and USC alumnus Brian Grazer inspired students and gave a behind-the-scenes glimpse into making “Apollo 13” at the recent 30th anniversary screening at the Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts.
“I’ve always wanted to watch the movie, and I’m a big fan of IMAX, so when I found out that they were giving it to us for free at an IMAX screen, I was like, ‘How could I not?’” said Isabella Torres, a freshman majoring in the business of cinematic arts.
“Apollo 13” tells the true story of the Apollo 13 mission in 1970, when three astronauts barely made it home safe after an emergency explosion forced them to abort their mission of walking on the moon.
The small theater was packed – students were sitting on the stairs on either side of the seats. At particularly stressful moments in the film, students sat forward in their seats mirroring the tense expressions of the flight controllers at mission control on-screen.
Jim Lovell, the commander of Apollo 13, and the main character of the film, recently died on Aug. 7 at age 97.
“He was a huge hero of mine,” Grazer said after the screening.
Grazer said he was fascinated by the story because it was an example of the “human capacity” to survive under the worst conditions.
Preserving the reality of the story was very important to him, so he took the opportunity to “blend science and cinema together,” he said. He detailed the process of working with NASA and using a KC-135 jet, also called a “vomit comet,” to film 27 seconds of weightlessness at a time to maintain the film’s authenticity.
“People would feel it subliminally,” Grazer said. He also said that they froze the soundstage they filmed on to 30 degrees to simulate the conditions the astronauts experienced.
The organizer of the event and the assistant dean of programming and special events for the School of Cinematic Arts, Alessandro Ago, said he loves to bring alumni like Grazer to campus so that students can learn from their experiences.
“It can be intimidating and daunting, and you sort of think, ‘Well, I’m just a student. How am I ever going to get into his position?’” Ago said. “But having a peek into how this person’s career got started at USC is always very inspiring because it is a series of choices that you make over your career that lead you to a particular place or path.”
One student asked Grazer at the event to share a memory with Hollywood legend Robert Redford, who had died earlier that day. Grazer said that Redford was the original director for “A Beautiful Mind,” the film that he and fellow USC alumnus Ron Howard won Best Picture for in 2001.
According to Grazer, Redford left the project due to a misunderstanding. Later that year, Grazer said he remembered being photographed by hundreds of photographers at the Academy Awards whose attention all diverted to Redford the minute he entered the room.
“He had already gotten the Oscar that I was hoping to win,” Grazer joked.
Another student asked Grazer what steps he took during his time at USC that he felt helped propel him to the level of success he has achieved.
“I was always extremely curious,” Grazer responded. As evidence of that fact he shared that he was nicknamed “Twenty Six” because he took 26 credits in one semester.
“It’s really amazing to see how big the potential [is] studying at USC, and also [what] this mindset could achieve,” said Jiarui Lu, a freshman majoring in physics. “I was really fascinated by that, how actually being open to new opportunities, making the one or maybe 10 extra miles with 26 credits, and staying after you graduate to actually talk to your favorite professor, how this can lead to this tremendous success.”
Ago said he hopes students in the School of Cinematic Arts are inspired by events like these, which bring them face to face with Hollywood legends.
“They’re going to be out there making the next generation of entertainment,” he said, “and they need to be inspired by people who came before them.”