From Grinnell to Hollywood, says F. Hudson Miller `80, it’s who you know
Scarlet & Black 2025-04-12
Academy Award-nominated sound designer and supervising sound editor F. Hudson Miller `80 brought a taste of Hollywood back with him when he returned to Grinnell last week for a slate of events sponsored by the Department of Film and Media Studies (FMS) concentration at the College.
The events included a screening of “Man on Fire” (2004) followed by a Q&A with Miller, a “union coffee break” morning session during which Miller — who is a longtime union man himself and serves as vice president of the Motion Picture Editors Guild — discussed the rise of artificial intelligence and the uncertainties it is creating around employment in Hollywood. During the final event, a “Grinnell-to-Hollywood” talk, Miller chronicled his journey from growing up in Interlochen, Michigan, to attending college in Grinnell and finally to building his film career in Los Angeles, where he moved as soon as he graduated in 1980. Hudson also made a visit to the film concentration’s production class to advise students one-on-one.
Miller’s visit was programmed by Assistant Professor and FMS Department Chair Nicky Tavares with support from the Grinnell College Film Society, the Wilson Center for Innovation and Leadership and the Departments of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies and American Studies.
“I met many of Hudson’s classmates, and they all said the same thing, that Hudson changed their life because he opened their world to cinema,” said Tavares when introducing Miller before his Grinnell-to-Hollywood talk. “Hudson brought film to Grinnell.”
Grinnell’s film and media studies concentration is indeed young, taking shape only in 2022 and still growing. When Miller arrived at the College in 1976, taking the advice of his parents to get a “real education” before moving on to film school, he had to create his own film curriculum.
As an American studies major, Miller said he found every opportunity to weave film theory and criticism into his schoolwork, and he convinced a professor in the department to offer a course on the films of Alfred Hitchcock. “And then I’d go off and find co-sponsorships with different departments to put films together. Let’s play ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and ‘West Side Story’ together — and I’ll get the English department to pay for half, and I’ll get the theatre department to pay for half. And I won’t have to pay for anything!” Miller said, chuckling.
It turns out what I want to see is what lots of people want to see. And if you develop a trust in your audience, your audience develops a trust in you, and you can take them to the films they wouldn’t normally go to see. They trust you that they’re not going to be disappointed.
— F. Hudson Miller `80
That’s how Miller began his film series at the College, where he would organize multiple screenings a week. Miller said that his film programming was guided, quite simply, by what he wanted to see.
“It turns out what I want to see is what lots of people want to see,” he said. “And if you develop a trust in your audience, your audience develops a trust in you, and you can take them to the films they wouldn’t normally go to see. They trust you that they’re not going to be disappointed.”
Miller credits Grinnell with teaching him the writing skills that got him through the University of Southern California’s MFA program in cinema production and said that, like Hollywood, Grinnell is a place where people are always looking for opportunities to collaborate in creative ways.
Andre Pardue `26, a FMS concentrator who is interested in pursuing a career in the film industry after college, attended the union coffee break, where students got the chance to ask Miller specific career questions in a more casual setting.
“Somebody asked him, like, ‘Oh, is this a good time to get into film?’ And he was, like, ‘No,’” said Pardue. “And there’s never a good time to get into film. It’s, like, an inherently kind of abusive industry with a lot of shitty work practices and bad stuff, and it’s hard, and it’s probably harder than it’s ever been to find a career in it. But if you are passionate about film, there really isn’t anything else, right?”
Pardue and Miller both lamented that film screenings at Grinnell are inconsistently available.
“We have this movie theatre here!” said Pardue, who feels the Harris Center cinema is massively underutilized. “I do wish that there was a protected forum where it doesn’t matter how profitable it is, it doesn’t matter if maybe on a Friday nobody goes — there will be accessible films for students, because I think that’s just important and relevant and a good thing to have considering where we are.”
After all, if students want to see movies other than the biggest blockbusters and children’s movies offered at Strand 3, they have to drive an hour or so away. “Even if there was just a little bit of a way for students to program and schedule, even if it was just like a consistent weekly Friday screening or something, that would be so important to creating a campus that’s just a bit more aware of films, and I think it’s not that there’s not an interest,” Pardue said.