By Lauren Holcomb | Reporter
After working at Baylor for almost 18 years, Film and Digital Media Department chair Chris Hansen has turned his office into a home away from home. Filled wall to wall with movie mementos and childhood collections, Hansen has turned his office into a science fiction lover’s dream.
Located on the first floor of Castellaw Communications Center, Hansen’s space is home to everything that he loves, including memories galore. Every wall houses a different collection. The large bookshelf to the right is filled with books he has read or hopes to read. In front of these novels and textbooks are lines of figurines and PEZ candy dispensers from Marvel films, Disney classics and Dr. Who characters.
“I’ve had a bunch of PEZ, I mean, some of those go back to my childhood. The action figures and the Marvel stuff is all within the last, I’d say, six or seven years that I’ve been adding that,” Hansen said. “Any kind of movie-related stuff really attracts me. I’m a movie or film professor, and I’ve loved movies my whole life. Movies and television have the action figures, and I’ve stuck to Marvel just because there’s too many other things to collect.”
Right in the corner is a door with a hanger, home to Hansen’s numerous film festival passes and badges. A film producer himself, Hansen has attended a handful of film festivals where his own work has been broadcasted. Hansen has even created five feature films at Baylor.
“I noticed that when I got here, I had a colleague who had all the badges on his door and I thought, ‘Oh, that’s cool,'” Hansen said. “Kind of a memory lane of all the places you’ve been.”
Hansen’s desk and the wall behind it are covered in Marvel movie classic props. From Captain America’s shield to Thor’s hammer and the infinity gauntlet hanging on the wall, to character mugs lined along his desk’s edge and Iron Man props, there’s no secret that Hansen is a huge movie fanatic.
“I grew up a movie lover, had movie-lover parents and my dad took my brother and I to classic movies and introduced domestic movies all the time,” Hansen said. “So, I kind of grew up loving movies, and then in college decided I wanted to make movies and so I went to film school. And that’s [a] long story [of] how I ended up here, but I just have always loved movies.”
The back corner of Hansen’s office is decorated with framed comic books he has had since he was a young child. Still in great condition, Hansen decided to feature the classic stories of heroes like Spider-Man, Thor and Iron Man and has added more once the franchise became popular again. Hanging in addition to these are huge and interesting versions of his favorite movie posters.
“I just love unusual movie posters,” Hansen said. “I feel like if you go to any college student’s room, they’re going to have, you know, posters of movies up. And I always thought, yeah, I want my favorite movies. But I want to find an unusual expression of that. Just to be different.”
With all of the precious collections and framed memories surrounding him, Hansen said his favorite part of his office is how it is constantly changing over time.
“I spend as much time in my office as I do in my bed, you know. You spend eight hours a day in the office at least,” Hansen said. “I want to have that place be a place that I’m surrounded with things that make me smile or that I’ve enjoyed in the past, so I just kind of surround it with stuff I enjoy. And I know some people think it looks childish to have action figures, but I just kind of love them. It’s things that have inspired me or give me joy.”
