w w w w w eqr ,w w w w w w w 1 16-he ic iga al -W dedaNvmbr7 007 My brush with stardom on State Street n an unseasonably cold afternoon a few Fridays ago, I got a phone call that made me believe in the miraculous power of dumb luck. My friend called to tell me that the famous Hollywood director Doug Liman ("Swingers," "The Bourne Identity") was shoot- ing pick-ups with his lead actor Hayden Christensen ("Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith," "Factory Girl") for the upcoming film "Jumper" outside Ashley's Restaurant and Pub on State Street, about seven blocks from my home on Packard Street and McKinley Avenue. Thousands of teenage girls have fantasized about the opportu- nity to meet Christensen, and with almost as much enthusiasm, count- less film students like me have fan- tasized about seeing an A-lister like Liman at work on the set. I ran my ass off. When I got there, gasping for air and sweating from the uphill run, I was shamed to see the corner empty. Had I sprinted for nothing? I was considering dragging myself back home when I looked across the street and saw a four-person movie crew standing in front of Michigan Book and Supply. I casu- ally walked over. My friend and I introduced self-consciously following the crew ourselves to the filmmakers and up and down State Street. But then couldn't help but stare at the crew's it happened - a pair of traffic cones new digital RED 1 camera, a point gave us an opening. Liman asked of pride for the film's producer, us to move the orange cones so he Avram Ludwig. With the capacity could capture a special dolly shot involving four guys and a pair of rollerblades. We were in. When the crew needed to watch ' Turns out even their footage in Ashley's basement, we might have been expected to Hollywood llleave. But Liman referred to my A 4- ea friend and me as "our guests" and A-.-liters eat allowed us to stay. Some time later, Jimmy John's the director went off to shoot exte- riors and I was left to have an hour- long conversation with Hayden Christensen. to shoot at 4K resolution (an image I had thought it would be impos- with arguably better quality than sible to try to make small talk with film itself), we were as awed by the someone like Christensen without camera as we were by the celebrity being dumbfounded by his star status of the men. power, but something about the fact After gawking for a while, my that he had ordered and eaten a 8- friend and I asked if we could tag incher from Jimmy John's made it along and watch the rest of the easier to strike up a conversation. I shoot. I expected a polite no, but was pleasantly surprised to find the was pleasantly surprised to hear actor engaging, polite and respect- the word sure instead. ful of the many fans who walked by The following hours were a blur. begging for autographs. We followed them around between I asked him, "Do you mind all East William and East Liberty this?" streets. "This is what I signed up for," At first it was painfully clear that he replied. "I remember when I we were an unwanted entourage went to hockey games and asked for signatures; I liked the guys that gave them, didn't like the ones that didn't." Now that's just classy. And I will add, there's no expe- rience more humbling than stand- ing next to an actor for an hour and having every girl who passes com- ment on how hot he looks. What was amazing to me, though, was watching Liman, Christensen and their small crew of cameramen work. "Jumper" has a reputed budget of more than $100 million, its makers have produced enough work to garner the kind of publicity that could shut down New York City for a week. Yet they moved around Ann Arbor guerilla- style, without a pretentious pomp to mark the boundaries of their territory. In fact, all they needed was production manager Heather LaForge manning "Jumper" head- quarters in front of Stairway to Heaven. While watching Liman direct, a certain word kept coming to mind - economy. Economy of time usage, economy of movement, economy of space and technol- ogy. I heard that Liman had used this term when giving a specific direction to Matt Damon in "The Bourne Identity," but I could see how it applied to the director's own style. The point was to get a certain amount of shots done, and they simply did it. And for an aspir- ing filmmaker, it was incredible to watch men at the top of the Hol- lywood ladder still enjoying the footwork of movie-making. They made it seem so effortless. They reminded me it was fun. After the shoot, I only said a few words to Liman, because I was embarrassed about how long we had overstayed our welcome (how do you go home when an idol is working half a mile away from your front door?). But even in the chilled night after a long day of shooting, the auteur found time to speak with some wannabe filmmakers - at least three of us - answering our questions and posing for pictures with awe-filled pedestrians. I walked home that night deeply impressed by the filmmaker who seemed alarmingly grounded in reality and the larger-than-life actor who ordered a sub at Jimmy John's. You can bet I'll be at the front of the line when "Jumper" comes out this February. And when I see the shots of Ann Arbor on screen, I'll remember a pretty ter- rific afternoon. ARCHITECTURE From page 7B After the completion of the Alumni Memo- rial Hall Museum of Art addition and the Law Quad expansion, there will be little room left on Central Campus for new construction. Because of this, the University has shifted much of its attention to North Campus in order to make it a more dense and lively area. The VSBA plan and the North Campus Redux" plan spearheaded by architecture and urban planning dean Doug Kelbaugh have provided the backdrop for Michigan's North Planning Campus Update. As North Campus begins to unfold into a richer envi- ronment; however, important changes are still occurring to the south. Efforts are now being made to strengthen existing architectural connections and to introduce new ones; the Hill area and Medi- cal Campus Corridor are two examples of a renewed effort toward campus continu- ity. In 1997, these locations were identified as having unrealized potential for kiitting once-disparate campus elements together. So the University built the Biomedical Sci- ence Research Building and the Life Sciences Complex. It also undertook the Public Health Building addition and Medical Science Build- ing renovations, along with the Cardiovascu- lar Center and the Hill Dining Center. Plans are in the works to find a food vendor for Palmer Commons that would further ener- gize the complex as well as provide a new destination point for the area. Regardless of whether you like the actual architecture of the area, its use as a key connection is an indisputable success. Gott cited the Life Sci- ence Complex as the most important campus development in recent years. These projects represent concrete steps toward building a better segue from Central Campus to the Medical Campus, clearly campus plans are more than just idealized fantasies. One area now under University review lies on the northwest corner of Michigan's original 40 acres, where the campus bleeds into the Ann Arbor community and eventu- ally to downtown. Though always bustling with student activity, the State Street stretch around North University Avenue is riddled with high business turnover and lessening vibrancy. Using this area as a key passage- way into the University would create a hub of activity - or, architecturally speaking, a node - for future Wolverines. Over the next decade, the combined efforts of the University with North Quad along with the recent apartment high-rise above Buffalo Wild Wing's will hopefully provide a critical mass of people to reshape this campus cor- ner. Because growth begets more growth, this area will be one of the most changed in the coming decades. Correspondingly, the southwest end of Central Campus is also ready for improve- ment. Although temporary, the art gallery on South University has stretched the Universi- ty's reach further into that area of Ann Arbor. The possibility of a mixed-use residential private development where the Village Cor- ner now stands along with a more accessible Business School complex Nill further aid in creating a more serious campus node instead of a mere aggregate of separate buildings. Michigan is also attempting to better define its borders as a way of articulating a more compact campus. North Quad and the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy are, seen as north and south "gateways" into the campus along State Street. The idea under- scores the University's desire to solidify its boundaries in order to restore the essential character of the campus. "The gateway architecture provides both a ceremonial and functional welcoming to campus," Gott said. "Such treatment dem- onstrates the collegiality of the University of Michigan and provides a positive contribu- tion to the civic realm at the intersection of town and gown." These strikingcampus structures will send a signal to visitors that they have entered the University of Michigan rather than allowing them to stumble upon it when they see the distinguished Law Quad or Angell Hall and realize they're academic buildings. Using architecture in such a manner is a subtle, smart way to signify both the campus limits and bring forth campus character in a single stroke, and they are definitely more preferable than gaudy signage or pretentious archways. In 1997, Bollinger looked at 1987 to imag- ine the following hundred years. Ten years later, the University's campus is still in that transition of looking in the rearview mirror to better steer its course. Yet with continuous development, the University will likely be in transition for years ahead. This is a good thing, and it forces architects and planners to constantly reeval'uate how Michigan's cam- pus should look and where it will lead. The process of combining the outcomes of yes- teryear with the motivations of today bripg forth a certain picture of what tomorrow will be. Twenty years from now, the world will have again changed dramatically, but Mich- igan's buildings will remain.