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In addition to being awarded The Loft Cinema's first "Emerging Filmmaker" award, Thomas Erickson was also awarded a Creative Achievement Award at the UA.

By La Monica Everett-Haynes, University Communications
November 6, 2008

Poster boards and PowerPoint presentations just didn’t cut it for Thomas Erickson and his twin brother Mike, who began making short films in high school for in class presentations.

Though his brother went on to become an investment banker, the allure of filmmaking world remained with Thomas Erickson, who is currently a film student in The University of Arizona’s School of Media Arts.

Erickson, an Honors College student, has tucked those older films away for family fun nights and has turned his focus on to the more theoretical sife of film and television production. “I’m trying to be the best student that I can,” he said. “You have to know the rules before you can break the rules.”

Yet, he said, he tries to maintain the creative and almost spontaneous nature of filmmaking that he initially felt as a Tempe high school student producing films for statistics. 

“Like photography and pottery, you get this centered feeling,” Erickson said. “You get the same feeling with film. You are molding and shaping.”

Recently, Erickson earned the Creative Achievement Award, which goes to students “who have shown exceptional creativity and have earned respect as innovative and talented artists as demonstrated by a passion for the arts.”

Erickson earned the award for his school, along with other award recipients and, on Friday, he will receive The Loft Cinema’s first ever “Emerging Filmmaker Award” for his drive and the quality of his films.

This comes after the summer, when Erickson lived in Los Angeles working on an internship he had landed with Kirby Dick, an Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker and director who has produced such films as “This Film is Not Rated” and “Twist of Faith.”

“The success of Tom’s creative achievement stems from several sources,” the selection committee – comprised of UA production faculty – noted in a news release The Loft issued on Thursday.

“One is the indisputable passion that Tom brings to his work. That passion sustains him through the often-daunting process of production and the myriad challenges, logistical, creative, emotional and intellectual that making films present,” the release continued. “His passion is contagious and positively affects his fellow crew, cast and his teachers.”

Erickson will receive the award at 9 p.m. during The Loft’s First Friday Shorts event, a monthly film contest. Sponsored by the Tucson Film Office, the award comes with a $1,000 cash prize, which Erickson said he would use toward the production of his current film, which is being shot in Prescott, Ariz.

Erickson is working with fellow media arts senior, William Goldstein, on the film, which is part of their senior capstone project.

His current film, “Destination: Heaven,” is currently in production and will show at The Loft during the spring as part of the senior film capstone screening. The film is about an actor who dies and goes to heaven where he meets one of the characters he once played. It so happened that the character had taken his spot in heaven.

“You can really move out of the box with film,” said Erickson, who has also dabbled in art and photography.

Yet, his ambitions are to write screenplays and to produce movies, which is why he said he came to the UA to study.

“I knew I wanted to share more about the stories,” he said, “but through film.”