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Film Professor Cook brings Hollywood to Keene State

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Stepping inside Tom Cook’s office in the Media Arts Center at Keene State College is like stepping inside a treasure chest. Full of books, maps, and assorted trinkets, the office would make even Captain Jack Sparrow, the main protagonist in Walt Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean film series, green with envy.

“If you saw my room at home where I grew up, you’d see the same thing. I always liked stuff,” said Cook, who is originally from Indianapolis. “My mind never slows down, so I like to have things to look around at during the day.”

Cook has stuff in every direction you look. While the near wall is lined with the books he’s collected during his 20 years teaching a variety of courses in the College’s film program, the far brick wall resembles Wrigley Field, where his beloved Chicago Cubs play, complete with a splash of ivy and a 368 marker (the distance to the left-center field wall) in the well-seasoned park. For nostalgia fans, there’s an asteroid arcade machine, hijacked from his previous KSC home in Parker Hall, that’s tucked into the corner and a pirate-like map of the Grand Caymans across from his desk, reminding him of his love of scuba diving, a passion he shares with his two sons, Benjamin and Walter.

If the aroma of French fries (the byproduct of working in a building that once served as the school’s dining commons) fosters an appetite, Cook can always reach for the stacks of multi-colored Peeps behind his desk. However, he is quick to point out the need for a warning label on each package. “After a few years of sitting on that shelf, they also serve as office invasion defense, because they become hard as rocks and can make formidable projectiles,” he said with a laugh.

Though no actor, Cook has also played more roles in his life than Woody Allen in Zelig or Eddie Murphy sitting down for dinner with a table full of Klumps. His remarkable resume includes a variety of accomplishments from the serious to the sublime. Who else could earn multiple awards for his work on both a United Way program and an FBI training video? Who else could work as a cinematographer on a graduate thesis film for Lee Unkrich of Toy Story 3 fame and also claim to be a Jolt and White Castle aficionado who spends his free time as a paranormal investigator and who, back in 1982, was soundly defeated in laser tag by Tom Cruise?

Cook’s distinct and interesting life has always been wrapped around film. A frequent visitor to the local theatres growing up, Cook, a science fiction fan, gobbled up the films like popcorn. Distraught at not seeing The Exorcist during its first run in 1973 due to his mother’s objections, Cook, who was raised pre-Netflix and Red Box, was treated to an occasional movie at home when his dad, a teacher, would stop off at the local library and bring back a 16mm film for them to screen.

Cook attended Purdue University along with his now wife, Kelly, who was one year ahead of him and a classmate throughout middle and high school. An English major, Cook was excited to find out he could also take a movie class. “That’s what got me started,” he said. “I distinctly remember being in that class and my instructor talking about Hitchcock working with all his crew. I had no idea what film production was like at the time. I never realized you could do this as a job.”

Because Purdue didn’t have a production component, Cook double-majored in English and film criticism with the intent of being the next Gene Siskel or Roger Ebert, the movie reviewers who hosted the popular TV show At the Movies.

Moving to Chicago, Cook spent six years working for Mayfair Games (a subsidiary of DC Comics), getting a chance to live out childhood fantasies by attending superhero conventions.

Not ready to give up on his Hollywood dreams, Cook and his buddies roamed around the city making movies. “I didn’t want to be 80 years old and wondering if I could have made it,” he said. “I wanted to take a stab at it.”

Cook enrolled in a six-week summer course at the University of Southern California in 1989. Debating the idea of becoming an editor, he changed course after landing an internship with Panavision, the premiere camera rental house in the motion-picture industry, and falling in love with cinematography and all of its gear. “If you’re an editor you work on computers, but the cinematographers had all the toys” – cameras and hand-held gadgets – “and that’s really what I enjoyed,” said Cook. “When I got behind the camera, I seemed to have a natural understanding of what needed to be done.”

The three-year MFA program at USC also offered Cook a chance to teach – something he took advantage of as a teaching assistant. After earning his degree in 1991, he worked briefly in television before the arrival of his first son, Benjamin, altered his career path. “I tell my students now, if you’re successful you’re working a third of the time and you’re looking for work two-thirds of the time,” he said. “I didn’t think it was a good way to raise a kid.”

The desire for a steady paycheck and the enjoyment of teaching landed Cook at Keene State. With the encouragement of then-President Stanley J. Yarosewick and Mike Haines, the former dean of Arts and Humanities, Cook and longtime professor and colleague Larry Benaquist set about the task of adding a much-anticipated production element to Keene State’s growing film studies program. “They basically said, ‘We want a Hollywood production studio – do what you need to do,’” Cook recalls.

Initially under the all-encompassing banner of Theatre Arts, Speech, and Film when Cook first arrived in 1994, the fledgling film program at Keene State experienced rapid growth, becoming one of the largest and most popular majors on campus. How does Cook account for the sudden spike in interest? “I think society and a lot of the media were really getting hooked into behind-the-scenes stuff and learning about it,” he said. “The advent of home video was also coming around – you could take your little camcorders and make movies.”

“I never thought it would grow like that,” said Cook of the department that now includes seven full-time faculty members and about as many adjuncts. “Everybody in society was interested in what we were doing and the College really got behind us.”

Cook puts a heavy emphasis on preparing his students to work in the industry. “The important thing for me is that our graduates know what the experience of work will be like when they get out there, using the same programs and knowing the equipment currently being used in the field,” Cook said.

Cook’s approach to film production is the same followed at USC, though USC has 10 times the equipment, he notes. “You’re getting the same type experience and the same type of instruction, but the name recognition isn’t there. But I think that motivates our students. I’m pleasantly surprised how quickly, when they get out there, they are finding work.”

Keene State students are starting to be recognized for their work. In November, Limbo, an action television drama series created by 2014 grads Ben Johnson and Josh Demeule, won Best Drama at the 12th annual International Student Film Festival (ISFF). The show was created under Cook’s guidance.

Cook says, “What impresses me most about the students that come here is nothing seems to daunt them – they will get an idea and I’ll say, ‘Do you realize how big a project this is and what you have to do?’ And they say yup and go off and do it.”

“It pleases me a lot – and any professor will tell you this – when you develop this relationship with these kids and you see them develop into real people and they become friends after they graduate,” said Cook. “I still maintain contact with a lot of my grads and they’re real good friends of mine. And it’s fun to see them do well and think you had something to do with that.”

No story with a film fanatic would be complete without a mention of the upcoming Academy Awards. “I’m the Hollywood guy around here -for better or for worse,” said Cook, who has a show on local cable and radio outlets and starts every class by asking his students what have they seen this week? “I have a single page Academy Award ballot that I put out every year and the joke is who can beat Tom at picking the Academy Awards? Usually they do.”

Keene State’s resident movie picture prognosticator provides his thoughts on this year’s nominees: “Strangely enough, I didn’t like Boyhood (nominated for six Academy Awards, including best picture) “It got loads and loads of hype, but the Grand Budapest Hotel has a good chance,” he said. I liked it quite a bit.”

As far as top actor, Cook is pulling for the underdog: “Every now and then I’ll have an underdog that I root for and Eddie Redmayne who played Steven Hawking in the Theory of Everything is my dark horse this year,” he said. “I don’t think he’ll win. I think the Academy likes Michael Keaton who was really good in Birdman. I think he’s the front runner.”

When it comes to best actress, Cook gives a big thumb’s up to Reese Witherspoon in Wild. “Even though I haven’t seen the movie, I’m pulling for Reese Witherspoon because I love her,” said Cook. “It’s one of those gritty roles that the Academy likes to see.”
The 87th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, will honor the best films of 2014 and will take place February 22, 2015, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles.

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