'92 grad's work in Oscar-nominated film Spring 2009 - By Tanya Schiller
Ambitious. Dedicated. Committed. Hard working.
All words describing Elizabeth Hitt and the impression she left not only at SIUE, but with her colleagues and friends.
Hitt was an Air Force brat who ended up in Illinois due to her father’s final assignment at Scott Air Force Base when she was in the fifth grade. He retired in the area after 22 years in the military.
“We didn't--and still don't have--a film department/degree program at SIUE, and I couldn't afford to pay out of state [tuition] to go to Webster across the river or drive two hours each way to SIUC. So, I figured a double major would get me enough education to get started in the film biz, and it seems to have worked,” Hitt said.
She majored in both mass communication and theater technology and design and graduated in 1992.
One class that influenced her career was Visual Production for the Media with Professor Riley Maynard.
“Everybody talked so highly about him when I got there,” she said.
When she finally fit his class into her schedule, he went on sabbatical. So she took it with a different instructor. But she still wanted the opportunity to take the class from Maynard. She asked him if she could take the class again with him as the instructor. He agreed as long as she became his teaching assistant.
“He was awesome with any questions I had,” Hitt said with admiration. Maynard had nothing but praise for her as well.
“I remember Liz as being very ambitious, hard working, dedicated, serious about her work. Soaked it all up like a sponge,” he said. “That class usually has 15 people in it. You could have 40 in there if they were like Liz because everything would just function. It wouldn’t be a problem with that many people.”
Professor Peter Bukalski remembered Hitt from his History of Film class.
“I remember her very, very well. What I remember about her most of all was that she was a quiet, but a very focused and determined person,” he recalled. “She worked hard at everything she did. She developed a direction and followed it.”
Hitt remembered Bukalski’s film class quite well.
“I was just like, ‘I can do this. This is what I want to do. This is what I want to be,’” she said.
Otis Sweezey taught Hitt something that is integral to the work she does now as a visual effects producer.
“He was probably one of my biggest influences at SIUE,” she said. “He opened up a computer lab for animation and integrating computers and computer graphics to live theater and dance. I was one of our first video editors for that department or at least for the computer lab. I still count myself lucky to have learned how to edit because it is something that is tied deeply to the work I do”
Sweezey remembers Hitt as being “very talented.”
“She had many interests, which really makes a difference,” Sweezey said.
She worked hard during her time at SIUE, but she said she still sometimes got lost in the mix. Theater thought of her as a mass communications major and mass communications thought of her as a theater major. Not many realized she double majored.
“I worked my way through school, rather than [having] a bunch of student loans. So, I was hardly ever there. I really didn’t have the time to do the extra projects,” she added.
Hitt managed to work her schedule so that her last semester at SIUE would be just spent completing her internship. She knew that she wanted to work in film, and the best place to do that was in California. She started applying for internships and eventually landed one at Dream Quest Images.
Hitt told herself, “I’m going to go out there and wow them, and they’re going to hire me.” Of course, it worked. She knew the key to success was treating her internship like it was a real job. “You get out of it [internship] what you put into it,” she explained.
When her internship was complete, she was planning to move back home when Dream Quest Images offered her work for a month. They soon needed a night driver to take film to a lab. She accepted, but it only lasted two weeks. Before long, they had an opening for a driver on the day shift instead. She did that for a week until a friend of hers wanted to move up to be a stage manager. She got the chance to become a driver’s captain. This meant that she was in charge of all the other drivers, their schedules and how to accomplish their pick-ups in the most timely and efficient way.
Disney bought Dream Quest Images in 1998. Eventually they changed their name to The Secret Lab. She’s no longer with them, but the connections she made in the beginning have helped her in her career.
“My current executive producer was an editor back then, and that helped me get in to where I’m at now,” she said.
Hitt now works for Asylum Visual Effects in Santa Monica, Calif. She has worked on films such as “The Golden Compass,” “Transformers,” “Spider-Man” and “Stealth” as a digital coordinator.
A good personal friend of Hitt’s, and another SIUE alumnus who graduated in 1992, is Matt Mueller. Because of his degree in civil engineering, she felt he would be a good fit for help she needed.
“He minored in [technical] theater, and, through luck and fate, we connected professionally a little over 10 years ago. I got him to come down to L.A. from Alaska to work in the movie business,” she said.
He moved in with her in L.A. and ended up staying there for a while before moving on to New Zealand where he works for Weta, the company responsible for the special effects seen in “Lord of the Rings” and the remake of “King Kong.” Mueller can not seem to say enough about Hitt and her work ethic.
“She's one of those rare people who is committed 100 percent to a project,” Mueller said. “Those words are thrown around a lot when describing people these days, but Liz is old school when it comes to being dedicated to work. Fifty hours a week is normal, and twice that isn't weird.”
Mueller added, “Every job and every industry has its demands, but Liz is committed to an industry that requires long hours and personal sacrifices. And she's the person you can rely on to make those crazy demands a reality. It takes a hard worker to make it in the film industry, and Liz has been a solid performer for 15 years. That speaks volumes for her work ethic and dedication.”
Hitt still lives in L.A. Her most recent completed work can be seen in the Brad Pitt hit film “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” where she was the computer graphics producer.