Hollywood film producer Jason Blum shocked the system when his low-budget horror film Paranormal Activity became a huge hit, making massive profits and precipitating successful annual sequels. Blum, 43, also produced the World War II-era drama The Reader.

Vox had the opportunity to sit down with him this week to discuss producing, his new film The Purge, and the changing face of film distribution.

Vox: What do you look for in a screenplay or story you’re producing?

Blum: We look for big high concept ideas that can be told cost effectively… most of the time we make horror movies.

Vox: Is there a social commentary you were interested in with the world of The Purge?

Blum: Yeah, I’m really particularly proud of the movie because I think it works as a great entertaining scary movie, and I think there’s a great social commentary. We’ve shown it to both right- and left-leaning people and no matter what political persuasion audience members had, they left feeling affirmed. That … I’m very proud of.

Vox: What do you feel your purpose is as a storyteller and maker of cultural content?

Blum: I hope that we do it differently. That goes for not only what’s in the stories, but the process also. Our process is unlike other Hollywood production companies. We’re trying to tell stories that break convention. I’ve always loved doing that ever since I was a kid—being a rebel.

Vox: How do you think the Hollywood system of moviemaking will change with more access to filmmaking and cheaper technology?

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Last week, reporters from the Voice and the Hoya participated in University President John J. DeGioia‘s semesterly interview session with campus media organizations. While we’ve highlighted several of the important takeaways from the interview on both Vox and in our print edition, published yesterday, here we offer the complete transcript of the interview.

DeGioia: It was a great fall- I just think we had a terrific fall. For me, it was kind of driven by a couple of big things. We had to launch the public phase of the campaign. That was really quite an extraordinary weekend for us. It was us at our best and I was glad we were able to have such an inclusive experience with so many, including the tent on the front lawn. Our fundraising success has continued, we’re doing pretty well. We’re over the halfway mark in the campaign, at the halfway mark. We feel very encouraged by the generosity of our community. We’re just going to keep at it, our highest priority is scholarships, support for financial aid. Given the challenging nature of the economy I don’t think we could have a more important priority- that priority emerged over the course of roughly 8 years of planning going back to 2003, but certainly characterized all of the years of our quiet phase- that was our most dominant priority. We actually went out publicly with that priority in the quiet phase in a series of town halls across the country, where I talked about what we call the 1789 Scholarship Imperative, which is our way of characterizing the financial aid piece.

I think there were other issues that dominated my time in the fall- the relationship with the community and our engagement in the city were part of that. This is our cycle, to submit our campus plan and we completed our public hearing on November 17th. And we have our final filing of documents this Friday, and on February 9th we have a read-out from the Board of Zoning, where they think they’re going to come down in terms of the conditions for Georgetown, and we’ll expect some time later this spring, probably mid-April to maybe May, that will be our expectation that we’ll get a written report, and that will give us a sense of the position of the Board of Zoning. But I think as you know, this was a three-year effort, but also really it’s not a episodic experience, it really is a full immersion for ten years with deep engagement with the community and lots of conversations. It just becomes particularly focused in roughly the final two years of that ten-year period where you really deeply engage in the formal submission of documents to various city agencies and the like. So we went through that.

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University President John DeGioia has sometimes been perceived by Hoyas, including the editorial board of the Voice, as being disconnected from the everyday life of the student body. In Vox‘s previous life as a columnist, we criticized DeGioia for his distance during campus crises, including the DMT lab and noose-that-turned-out-not-to-be-a-noose incidents last year. In his semesterly interview with campus media last week, Vox asked DeGioia to reflect on his relationship with the student body through his first 11 years in the presidency.

DeGioia, who served in various administrative roles before becoming President, including as Vice President for Student Affairs, made it clear that he attempts to strike a balance between the broad responsibilities of the presidency and his desire to remain connected to the community.

Throughout his response, DeGioia emphasized the presidency’s rigorous travel demands:

This one’s a hard one because I have a couple of days of travel almost every week for our fundraising, and also representing Georgetown on a lot of different contexts. At different times of the year, the travel demands are very, very, very heavy. The fall is my favorite time of year because I genuinely need to be here more, I always try to teach in the fall (I do a first year seminar in the fall) so that requires that I be here every Monday. The work I try to keep so I’m here Tuesday, I’m often away Wednesdays and Thursdays, but in the fall I try not to do much international travel. From now until May it’s a lot of both domestic and international travel so it’s a little hard.

Nevertheless, DeGioia defended his record of involvement in student life:

I sort of track how I’m doing, I keep very close records personally, just for myself: how many events am I getting to, how many student events am I getting to. And I’m sure it would surprise everybody the number because I go to see a play or I’ll go see a game or I’ll go see a concert, and those who know I’m there are those who are at the concert, the game or the play. I do quite a few lectures, so speeches for Georgetown, I do more than 200 a year for the University, and many of those are for the University community right here.

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Earlier this week, Álvaro Uribe, former president of Colombia and current-Distinguished Scholar in the School of Foreign Service, sat down with the Voice‘s Cole Stangler. The full interview can be found in this week’s Voice, but we’ve got a few of the highlights below.

On the protests against his hiring:

I was surprised by the weakness of the protests. In the contrary, I am motivated and impressed by the great number of students that have approached me to express their support.

I have confronted numerous protests against my policies during my career, but over the years I have seen a decline in their number due to my consistent devotion to work with absolute transparency and my open commitment for constructive and respectful debate. Therefore, [it] didn’t surprise [me]. What has surprised me was the kind reception by the vast majority of the students.

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Mash-up culture has come a long way since the 2006 CMJ Festival, when Girl Talk first took the stage in front of a group of confused journalists, radio DJs, and Music Directors.

Since that dreary October, Mash-up, which was previously a little known sub-culture, has taken off with mashes ranging from absurdity of Stuntin’ Like Mufasa to the face-melting quality of the Hood Internet’s tracks. College students are beginning to eat up new mash-ups voraciously, so lucky for us, and The Hood Internet, a duo from Chicago that are at the forefront of this movement—which may very well end up being the music of our generation—are playing tonight in Bulldog Alley.

Vox sat down with members Aaron Brink and Steve Reidell, who go by the handles ABX and STV SLV, to talk about mash-ups and their future.

Vox: I feel like we should start from the beginning: what got you guys into mash-ups to start with? and did you have any other DJs that you looked up to when you first started?

STV SLV: ABX and I were playing in a band together in Chicago in 2007.  We were both fairly adept at reconstructing songs into “beats,” as it were, so when we started hearing stuff like Sammy Banana’s Big Boi/Broken Social Scene and Them Jeans’ Rich Boy/Spinto Band, that was pretty inspirational—in the sense that we were like, “That’s what we’re doing, and we could definitely put some tracks out there to see what people think.”

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Joseph Graumann (SFS ’11), left, and Carlos Leon (COL ’10)

In this week’s issue, the Voice spoke with co-Presidents of GU Pride Joseph Graumann (SFS ’11) and Carlos Leon (COL ’10) about their organization, the recent hate crimes on campus and the challenges facing the LGBTQ community.  This is the extended transcript of our interview with them.

The Voice: How did you get involved in GU Pride?

Joseph: Well, I came out on campus during the Out for Change campaign. It was a lot of the issues at the time and the struggle that went on for recognition of the LGBTQ community really made me look inside myself, and, I mean as corny as it sounds, my so-called “brothers and sisters” are off fighting the good fight and I am not even secure enough to tell my friends.

Ever since then, I realized that there is work to be done. And my good friend Ellen, who was already involved with the Out for Change campaign, Ellen Greer, she really encouraged me to be involved in the community and I started out as historian, when there was an opening in the beginning of my sophomore year [2008] and then sophomore year, December, they had elections for co-chair and I ran and got elected.

The Voice: What is one thing you wish to change about GU Pride?

Joseph: I would like to see GU Pride become a more welcoming and open place for people who are in the process of coming out or who feel like they are unable to find a safe place with other aspects of the community that administers to LGBTQ people.

The Voice: The best thing about GU Pride?

Joseph: What I like about GU Pride is that although not everybody who is affiliated with the organization shows up to everything, we have a pretty good sense of comradery and we’ve developed a very good sense of community on campus, which is really important, given the nature of our identities, it’s really hard to do that, it’s hard to forge a cohesive and diverse, both racially [and] socio-economically, group on campus.

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Broken Lizard—the sketch-comedy troupe behind films such as Super Troopers, Club Dread, and Beerfest—came to DC last Thursday as part of a nationwide comedy tour. Vox spoke with Steve Lemme about the group’s upcoming film, The Slammin’ Salmon, as well as Mike Tyson’s weaknesses, the group’s early days, and the food service industry.

How did Broken Lizard meet?

We met at college. Four of us were fraternity brothers—Jay [Chandrasekhar] and Kevin [Heffernan] were older than us and Eric [Stolhanske] and I were the younger guys. At that time, Paul [Soter] wasn’t anywhere near my radar screen. Jay was given the opportunity to direct something student-run, and he and Kevin decided to do a sketch-comedy show.

I auditioned for it … and ended up becoming the guy who would play the scumbag, the dirtball, or the dick in sketches … The first night 25 people showed up, but eventually we were turning people away from the door. We realized we had a good thing going, brought it to NYC, got into movies, and now we’re back on the road doing a live sketch-comedy tour.

What’s The Slammin’ Salmon about?

We play waiters in a restaurant that is owned by a Mike Tyson type of figure. He’s a retired Heavyweight Champion of the World. He’s a teddy-bear, but he’s also prone to throwing temper tantrums. He can break you neck with one hand if he wants to. Often he slides off into these tantrums.

One night, he ends up owing the Japanese Yakuza, so he has a contest with the waiters to see who can make the most money in one night. The winner he is going to give a cash prize to, but he is simply going to beat the shit out of the loser. That’s the movie. It’s our Glengarry Glen Ross, really.

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This week, the Voice sat down to talk with Chester Gillis, who was named Dean of the College at the end of last year.  We included a portion of the interview in today’s paper, but here’s the full transcript!

The Voice: How you are adjusting to this new job as Dean of the College? Do you find it particularly challenging or interesting?

Chester Gillis: Well in terms of adjusting, fortunately I had a year as interim dean to get the lay of the land. It was just a very good introduction to the position; it was very helpful. So in some ways this year, I’m doing some things for the second time, like last year, but also now I can implement a vision for the next five years. Are there challenges? There are a range of challenges. There are always a range challenges with this job. One is simply attending to multiple constituencies: the students, of course, the faculty, the alumni, the donors and the multiple stakeholders in the University from outside so it’s a very large constituency, very large, so any waverings tend to come from that, just like today. It’s just the reality.

That said, I have a superb staff here in the office, who are very knowledgeable, very experienced, and very helpful to make everything work so the leadership does the execution is happy on may levels and that makes everything possible. It’s as simple as that.

The Voice: I’ve spoken to a few students who are very excited about the proposed creation of a business minor in the college. I was wondering if you had any plans in the future for more of these cross-disciplinary majors?

Gillis: Specific ones, there are none at present. We’ll have to see how this one goes we’re working hard on it to make it happen.

The Voice: Do you have any idea of what the time frame would be?

Gillis: I don’t want to be held to saying next year. I would love to see it next year. I’d love to take my time do it right and do it quickly, but it requires a lot of coordination with the business school and the college and the provost’s office, so it’s not something you can simply fashion overnight.

We can’t even say, “Oh, we’ll just duplicate the program we already have.”  But I think once it’s done it will have a long shelf time, and if it’s successful, then it can be a model for other kinds of programs between schools.  But this is a good start and it’s an important start. We haven’t done it before, so it sets benchmark, and that’s another reason we want to do it well and do it carefully so it is successful. If it doesn’t benefit our students, if it’s not well-designed, it’s not good. If it is well-designed and it benefits students, then I’m in favor, and it could serve as a model.

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In this week’s issue of the Voice, I had the chance to talk to quite a few former Georgetown comedians. Unfortunately, we didn’t have space for all of their quotes in the article, so here are a few of the extras:

Alison Becker (COL ’99) on the advantages of being a comedian at Georgetown:

“Because the comedy vibe at Georgetown was so under the radar of the administration, we did whatever we wanted. It was student-run, and that’s how comedy should be: without rules. And Georgetown gave me something that few other schools could have: the chance to create with genuinely intelligent people. You can’t be an idiot and be a good comedian. You have to play to the height of your intelligence. And I am thankful that my fellow improv players challenged me intellectually and comedically. “

Mike Birbiglia (COL ’00) on benefiting from Georgetown’s erudite culture and bureaucratic red-tape:

“The upside of Georgetown is that I was surrounded by people from all different fields. government, language, science. so in some ways, I feel like I benefited by osmosis, and it gave me a slightly more balanced view of the world.”

“When I was at Georgetown, I resented the administration and bureaucracy of the performing arts, but when I have distance from it I can see that they really have more of a long view and that yes, it was a struggle to get something up and running on campus but that actually there ought to be a struggle of some kind, because the struggle students will face when they leave Georgetown is far more arduous.”

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In this week’s issue of the paper, Chris Heller talked to Claude Jackal (also known as Chris Lowell of Private Practice and Veronica Mars fame) about his plans for Homecoming Weekend 2009.

After throwing an impromptu block party outside Tombs during last year’s Homecoming weekend, Jackal and friends have high hopes for this year (and have even set up a blog devoted to the cause). Unfortunately, we didn’t have space for all of the Jackal’s bon mots in the article, so here are some of his other entertaining declarations:

On Homecoming Weekend 2009:

“Tell everyone you know: friends, girlfriends, boyfriends, friends of friends. Call people in different cities and get them to come. Invite people who you know will have a good time, because I guarantee you it’s going to be something special. And if they seem indifferent, just start lying! Just make up shit. Tell them Shia LaBeouf is gonna be there or something. Who cares? All’s fair in Love and Jackal.”

“Remember that rant Christian Bale had when he was shooting the Terminator movie? It’s time to get that intense. If we play our cards right, this is gonna be like losing your virginity all over again. Except it won’t suck.”

“There’s no exclusivity—we’re like the fucking Musketeers. So just show up, if you want to dress fancy, that’s how we’ll be dressed. I can tell you this: we’ll all be dressed like Frank Sinatra’s wet dream.”

Jackal’s reflections on last year’s festivities, dancing, self-definition and more, after the jump!

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