LOYOLA MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FILM AND TELEVISION HOLDS SECOND ANNUAL SUMMER CREATIVE FILMMAKING WORKSHOP
Two Week Special Program Introduces 12 Academically Gifted High School Students To Visual Storytelling and Film and Animation Production
LOS ANGELES, July 6, 2007 – Teri Schwartz, Dean of the Loyola Marymount University School of Film and Television (SFTV), has announced the second annual Summer Creative Filmmaking Workshop. Held on the LMU campus from July 9 - 20, the special program, unique to SFTV, offers 12 outstanding and creatively promising high school students from Crenshaw High School’s Media Academy total immersion in the filmmaking process and the opportunity to tell their exceptional stories.
The program is demonstrative of Dean Schwartz’s vision for SFTV to serve as a beacon of light for master visual storytelling grounded in humanism, innovation and diversity. Alone among major university film and television programs, SFTV is a champion for the power of diversity out of which the new stories and the new storytellers will emerge to shape our world in remarkable and positive ways.
As part of the strategic direction of SFTV, The Summer Creative Filmmaking Workshop was developed by Dean Schwartz with the engagement of the entire SFTV community and serves as a centerpiece for the Dean’s initiatives for diversity in action. The workshop is a powerful instrument for nurturing, developing, finding and recruiting the most promising young filmmakers from our most underserved communities. And, with scholarships for diversity in place, such as the SFTV Cosgrove Endowment, it is entirely possible for talented youth to come to a premier film school like SFTV.
The selected Crenshaw Media Academy students have excelled academically and creatively, and underwent a rigorous screening process for the program. Six students were chosen for film production and six for animation. Through a dynamic curriculum developed uniquely for this workshop, the students will receive hands-on, intensive training from key SFTV Film Production and Animation faculty on story and screenplay development, directing actors, cinematography, lighting, sound, editing and the full range of 3-D and 2-D animation story development and production.
Most importantly, the students will learn how to work creatively at a high level in a fast-paced, deeply collaborative filmmaking environment. Each student will write a short screenplay that reflects their personal voice and experiences. The group will then select two live action and two animation projects to produce, splitting into film production and animation teams. The results will showcase the students’ talent, determination, teamwork, dedication and creativity.
On Friday, July 20, the students’ work will be screened and celebrated at a gala luncheon at SFTV hosted by Dean Schwartz along with the SFTV Workshop faculty and staff, Workshop students and their families, donors and representatives from the Crenshaw Media Academy.
SFTV faculty and mentors for the 2007 Workshop are Kathy Baur, Assistant Professor, Animation, Greg Ruzzin, Assistant Professor, Film/Television Production, Mark Evan Schwartz, Associate Professor, Screenwriting and Charles Swanson, Assistant Professor, Film/Television Production.
With “angel donors” LMU Trustee Paul and Patti Fieberg’s outstanding long term gift to the program, Crenshaw High School students are now called the FIEBERG FELLOWS.
Those participating in the animation track include Pedro Alvarez, Francisco Contreras, Pablo Hernandez, Anthony Jones, Donte Mills and Andrew Okoye.
Film production participants are Rosalba Aguilar, Ra’Kin Amos, Douglas Bermudez, Alex Moreland, Jerome Newton and Jonathan Nunez-Mejia. |