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Eagles in Action
Once an Eagle, Always an Eagle
American University Archives and Special Collections acquires, preserves, and makes available to researchers unique materials of enduring value to support research and teaching. We house rare books on a variety of topics including art, Japanese history and culture, literature, mathematics, music, and religion; chronicle more than one hundred years of the University's history such as audiovisual materials, correspondence, minutes, reports, photographs, and university publications from all areas of the University; and house manuscript collections containing papers of American University alumni and faculty and as well as organizational records relating to international affairs, journalism, museums, music, peace studies, public service, and religion.
In April, the University Library partnered with the Alumni Association for their annual Eagles in Action: A Coordinated Month of Service to support the creation of an archival collection showcasing student experiences from alumni while students at the university. We asked alumni for their support by sharing a photo and brief story about the scene depicted about their favorite moment from their student experience. This project allowed the University Library to collect, preserve, and provide long-term access to student materials created by alumni.
Please enjoy these stories and images from seven AU Alumni. Thank you to all who participated.
Share your story!
Do you have memorabilia, stories, photographs, documents, audio/visual material from your time on campus? Please consider donating them to American University Archives and Special Collections. Contact archives@american.edu for more information.
Anthony Aung, SIS/BA '16
Alumnus Anthony Aung shares images and a description of American University's Southeast Asian Student Network and related events.
Southeast Asian Student Network Executive Board AY 2015-2016 | (L-R: Anthony Aung, Nargiza Kanybek Kyzy, Hein Htwe Maung) | Unknown
Thingyan Dance performed at American University Southeast Asian Student Network's Colors of Southeast Asia cultural show in 2016. Thingyan (Water Festival) is celebrated every April in Burma/Myanmar by splashing water at one another. Splashing water at one another to wash away one's sins is a distinctive feature of the celebration. -Anthony Aung, SIS/BA '16
Donna Robinson, WCL/LLM '13
Alumna Donna Robinson fondly remembers her time at Washington College of Law. She has commemorates her experience by sharing images from the May 2013 Washington College of Law Graduate Reception at the Organization of American States, and another event.
Thierno Balde' (WCL '03) and Donna Robinson (WCL '13) at unknown event| Donna Robinson (WCL '13) at the 2013 WCL Graduation Reception in May 2013 | 2013 WCL Graduation Reception in May 2013 [L to R] Patria Nellie Lohvinski, Donna Robinson, Romaña Rivas Jhorkae Alexander, unknown, and Martha Mosquera
Megan Lavins, Kogod/BS '18
Alumna Megan Lavins shares an image from the Kogod Case Competition in 2016.
Megan Lavins wins first place in the 2016 Kogod Case Competition
Sara Nieves-Grafals, CAS/BS '75, CAS/MA '79, CAS/PhD '80
Alumna Sara Nieves-Grafals shares two images from the first all women class enrolled in the Clinical Psychology doctoral program. The cohort started the program in 1975.
First all women class in the Clinical Psychology program started in 1975: Sara Nieves-Grafals, Carmen Gonzalez, Barbara Keefe, Maxine Arnsdorf, and Carole Hoage. Nancy Madden is missing from the photo. | Clinical Psychology class reunion in 2013: Nancy Madden, Carole Hoage, Maxine Arnsdorf, Barbara Keefe, Carmen Gonzalez, and Sara Nieves-Grafals.
Stephen Gould, Kogod/BS '61
Alumnus Stephen Gould shares the story of "The Return of Yelbar", the student film he made.
SO YOU WANT TO MAKE A MOVIE!
Well, yes! Sounds like a good idea, a great idea. That was what a bunch of us American University students were thinking and “jawing” about one night in 1958 in the dorm. The plan: make an 8 mm movie that would be inspired by Universal’s “Frankenstein” which starred Boris Karloff as the creature. The title would be “The Return of Yelbar”. I know what you are thinking: we need to do this for college credit for a course in filmmaking. Nope, we were doing it because we thought it would be fun. And maybe we’d get a special showing of it on campus. But first, we needed a screenplay or script, a story line of sorts. One of the guys in the initial discussion said he would tackle it. Oh yes, the name of our production company was agreed upon: GRAVE Productions (GRAVE = Grand Restoration of Abused Vampires Everywhere)!!
Still image from "The Return of Yelbar" film
The Plot
The story is a contemporary one involving AU student Gerry; the college is not far from where her father did experiments. She knows where her father and his creation were buried and asks her boyfriend John to drive her to the cemetery. They are met by the caretaker who takes them to the crypt. (This is where one of the cast members asks about “the cat that crept into the crypt, crapped, and crept out again”!) The caretaker fumbles for his keys and then is aghast that the crypt door is open. He hobbles to the door and turns back to look at Gerry and John. Here is where the creature emerges from the crypt and strangles the caretaker; Gerry and John scream and run for their car. Young Dr. Vertigrass appears from behind some bushes to take control of the creature. This is where we used a Hollywood trick by starting the film with the GRAVE Productions logo, film the segment outlined above, then started with the credits…..”The Return of Yelbar” staring yada, yada, yada, etc. And so the story begins….
After the credits finish, the doctor and the creature are seen walking in the woods back to the laboratory. Gerry and John drive back to campus. John leaves Gerry as friends Dot and Paul approach the car. They get in and start driving down Arizona Avenue to Canal Road (in Washington, DC). Gerry spies an abandoned house that looks very familiar and she thinks is her dad’s former laboratory. Gerry gets out of the car as she wants to explore. She tells Dot and Paul to take the car and she will get back to campus via public transit.
Meanwhile, down in the laboratory, Dr. Vertigrass is seen working on the creature on a gurney. Cynthia, his housekeeper raps on the door and tells him there is someone in the office to see him. He leaves the lab but shortly thereafter, Cynthia enters, sees an open diary on the desk, and starts to read. Switch back to the office. Dr. Vertigrass was Gerry’s father’s assistant and Gerry is worried about the experiment (the creature) worked on by her dad. Vertigrass comforts her by saying his work is far milder than what her father did. Switch back to the lab: the camera focuses on Cynthia still reading, as a shape, covered by a sheet, begins to rise off of the gurney. Back to the office as Gerry begins to sob and Vertigrass gets up to get her some water. Back to the lab: Cynthia sees a shadow, turns and looks in horror as the creature grabs her neck and strangles her. Back to the office: the doctor hears a noise, excuses himself and heads to the lab where he finds the creature is gone. Vertigrass runs out the door and heads to the woods, looking for the creature. Meanwhile Gerry goes down to the lab and finds Cynthia as she utters, “The diary…..on the desk”. She expires. Gerry picks up the diary and realizes it is her father’s diary and the description of the work he has done.
Dot and Paul are seen driving and Dot says she is worried about Gerry. Paul knows a dirt road shortcut through the woods. As they drive, they see a fallen branch across the road. Paul and Dot get out and Paul moves it just as we see the creature standing in the road, 20 yards away. They scream, get back into the car, and floor it, striking the creature as they head off. The creature struggles and gets up as Dr. Vertigrass arrives. The doctor commands the creature to follow him back to the lab. Switch back to Dot and Paul driving the car. They arrive at the laboratory and find Gerry waiting outside. In the distant background, we can see Dr. Vertigrass and the creature walking to the back of the house where the lab door is. Gerry tells Dot and Paul to go back to the campus and get help. “Don’t argue, just get help!”
We are back in the laboratory as Dr. Vertigrass tries to get the creature back onto the gurney but the creature resists. He stares down the doctor and doctor collapses. Meanwhile, Gerry enters the lab, the creature turns and we see his terrible face for the first time. Gerry faints and the creature picks her up, and leaves the lab. Meanwhile, Paul and three friends arrive and come into the lab. One tends to Cynthia, another to Vertigrass, while boyfriend John sees the diary on the floor; he picks it up and realizes it belongs to Gerry’s father. He then says, “Where’s Gerry?” The four of them take off into the woods and a chase scene ensues. They are seen running down a hill and on to the tracks of the B&O’s Georgetown branch, heading into the tunnel under MacArthur Blvd. They end up in the cemetery where the crypt is located. In the distance they see the creature carrying Gerry. The creature decides to put down Gerry at which time one of the friends has a clean shot with his trusty 45 water pistol and fires. The creature falls, gets up and falls into the crypt. They all run towards the crypt. John tends to Gerry, the others look into the crypt and are amazed: he’s gone! IS THIS THE END appears on the screen. The total running time is 15 minutes!!
The Production
So that’s the story. How did we film it? I owned the camera, purchased the film, and paid for the processing so I guess I was executive producer. Anyway, we could not see the daily “rushes” since we had to wait a week to get the processed film back. I was also the cinematographer and we had the scenes so well blocked that we shot all but one in one take. Prior to shooting, we did a location search and found the cemetery, lab house, dirt road, woods, railroad tunnel, etc. But where would we do the office scenes and the lab scenes? For the office, we took a chance. We asked if we could use the dorm proctor’s office. You see, it was a men’s dorm, and we had to film a girl, Gerry, in the office talking to Dr. Vertigrass. We had the scenes all blocked perfectly and we did all of office scenes together in twenty minutes. We got the girl who played Gerry, out of the dorm swiftly before anyone caught us. Back in the fifties, girls were not allowed in the men’s dorms, not for one minute, and certainly not to make a movie!
Now the lab scenes: my fraternity, Phi Sigma Kappa, let us use the meeting room for the lab. Like the office scenes, we filmed them all at one time. This took about 4 hours because we had a make-up girl from the AU Players create the distorted face of the creature at the same time. A fraternity brother of mine played the creature and he was a handy carpenter to boot. We needed a door to enter the lab so he removed a closet door and part of the frame, re-attached it to a blank wall. By having the camera positioned so you could not see behind the door, there was enough room for a person to stand behind the door, open it, and enter the lab. We filmed the Cynthia death scene first and never showed the creature’s face. Next we did the scene with Gerry, who faints as the audience gets to see the face that caused her to faint. Lastly, we filmed the help arriving through the door, one at a time. When it was a “wrap”, the door and frame was reattached to the closet.
The Dr. Vertigrass actor and I had an idea. Why not throw in some special effects? The two of us could handle the shoot with Dr. Vertigrass actor as a stand-in for the creature. We inserted it when the creature was walking through the woods after escaping from the lab the first time. Before we left the dorm, we took a shirt and a pair of jeans and stuffed them with newspapers to make a dummy. We then found one of DC Transit’s accessible trestles on the suburban streetcar route to Cabin John, MD. The creature would find a person taking in the scenery from the trestle. He hears a noise, looks around in absolute horror and sees the creature’s hand reaching out to him. The person (it was me with the creature shooting the scene) was about to be thrown off the trestle. I then got down to the bottom where a creek ran, about 100’ below the trestle, and filmed the creature (the stand in) picking up the dummy and throwing it off. It worked out well but we had to be careful: we were trespassing on the trestle and we had to watch for streetcars which ran on 10 minute headways.
We made two trips to the old crypt located in Arlington, VA, one for the opening scene and one for the closing scene. All went well with the opening scene but we had to stop shooting the closing scene as a funeral was taking place nearby.
The scenes with the car proved interesting. The actor who played the creature owned the 1950 Oldsmobile. He went home one vacation and was in a fender bender with the driver side headlight and fender pretty well crunched. No problem: we worked it in the dirt road scene. As Paul and Dot were getting back into the car, we shot from behind the creature as he walked towards the car, his shape blocking the fender. As Paul roared by after striking the creature, we shot the crunched fender, the “damage” done by the hit! During another break, this time for the summer, the car was repainted. It was black with a white top through all the filming done by then; now it was green with a white top! The last scene with the car was when Gerry told Paul to get help. We shot only the roof of the car from a higher elevation to avoid seeing the balance of green. Two of us rail fans lobbied for more railroad shots but all we got was the streetcar trestle and tunnel.
We took two years to do the shoot. I did all the editing, putting all the scenes in order. The Dr. Vertigrass actor painted all the credit poster boards which I filmed during one summer. We never did get to show it on campus. We all graduated and I had the only copy on 8 mm film. Twenty-six years later, in 1987, the cast and crew had a reunion. Prior to attending, I got the film transferred to VHS tape. I also contacted the son of a friend of ours who was a musician and asked if he’d like to write and perform a soundtrack. He borrowed the tape and used it to write the music. Using a synthesizer, he and I one evening transferred the audio tapes he had done to a copy of the video, merging the two into the final product. I then made duplicate tapes so that everyone could have their own copy. At the reunion, we visited all the locations used. It turned out that the lab building was a historic boat house, fully restored, along the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal. Also we had a fake CHN (Cable Horror News) interview with each of the cast members. And since the end title lacked a question mark, we took care of that at the reunion. On the last day, we had a showing of the VHS tape of the film with the newly composed soundtrack.
Well that’s a wrap for this write up. We had fun making the movie and twenty six years later, having a reunion. American University sent a reporter for their American Magazine to do a story of our film shoot and the reunion, which appeared in the 1987 Winter Issue of the magazine. All of us are kind of disappointed that we didn’t get an Oscar nod for our work on this epic motion picture!
Tiana Hakimzadeh, SOC/BA '12
Alumna Tiana Hakimzadeh shares three images from the 2009 Men's Basketball Patriot League Championship. Tiana was the Team Manager for the Men's Basketball team.
Team managers Joanna, Tiana Hakimzadeh, and Ryan Eskow | Tiana Hakimzadeh and Jordan Nichols (center) | Tiana Hakimzadeh cutting down net
2009 Men's Basketball Patriot League Championship. This photograph was taken after the AU Men's basketball team defeated Holy Cross to punch their ticket to the NCAA Tournament; for a second time in AU school history. This photograph is of myself, Joanna, and Ryan Eskow - who were the team managers that season - holding up the Patriot League Championship Trophy. The second photograph is of myself and Jordan Nichols; the team's center. The third picture of me cutting down a portion of the net after the win, I still have that piece of the net 11 years later.
Yuanyuan Song, SIS/MA '09
Alumna Yuanyuan Song shares images and stories from her time as President of American University's Chinese Students and Scholars Association, and the 2008 CelebrASIA event sponsored by the ASA, CSSA, JSA, KSA, ThSA, VSA.
Images from the 2008 CelebrASIA, held on November 22, 2008 in the McDowell Formal Lounge
I am Yuanyuan Song, was President of CSSA (Chinese Students and Scholars Association) then. CelebrASIA is an event that celebrates the many diverse Asian communities and heritage thriving in the American University community. Those photos show us CSSA 's participation in the event. The first photo is me in blue Chinese Qipao (a traditional Chinese dress) with presidents of other Asian countries' associations.