Six questions for Eric Tuxen

What was your most recent job in the movie industry?

I just directed my first feature-length film at Bossier Parish Community College, it is called "Anything for the Game." It is classified as a student production but is the fifth show I have worked on.

What's the coolest part about your job?

That all depends on which hat I am wearing at the time. As a DP (director of photography), I get the biggest kick out of operating camera, composing shots, and blocking action. As an editor, I love taking the nuts and bolts of a scene and cutting them together to create a performance. As a director, I enjoyed working with the actors away from the set in order to find the meaning of a scene.

What is your main career goal?

My main career goal would be to become a full time director in "the business." I would gladly settle for being a working DP or editor though. Any local camera crews looking for an AC or PA, I'm your man!

What single experience has proved most valuable?

I learned a lot working on a film with a local actor and director named John Fertitta. He taught me a lot about working with actors and about the business of filmmaking.

In what movie or show can we see your work? Highlight a scene you like.

There is a sequence in "Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins" where RJ is watching a segment of his television show at home; I shot that HDV footage. You can also find my work for BPCC at http://www.bpcc.edu/filminstitute/index.html.

What's your favorite movie of all time and why?

"Star Wars." Why? I will never forget seeing it for the first time at the AMC in the St. Vincent Mall, before multiplexes took over the landscape. For this six-year-old kid, "Star Wars" transformed the cinematic world in a way that I believe has yet to be duplicated. This film had everything; you had storm troopers, droids, and the Death Star. This was back when Darth Vader was still a bad guy and not a sympathetic widower. You had the good guys too in Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Chewbacca, Obi-Wan, and the droids. You had the damsel in distress in Princess Leia, a babe that every guy in the audience wanted to be with. The best part for a six-year-old kid was the toys that came out later in the year. I will never forget getting R2-D2 and C-3PO when I was stuck at home with chicken-pox. In short, this film changed my life and made me want to be a filmmaker.