Title: Film Grad Learns Lessons, Makes Connections
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Leona Whitney Beatty, MFA Film Production '03, made a student film that took her all the way to Cannes. She's poised for further entertainment industry success.
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Leona Whitney Beatty has a mission. The MFA Film Production '03 graduate wants the world to know just how good an LMU moviemaking education is.
"I wouldn't have gone to LMU if I didn't feel that it was great for my career," Beatty says, speaking from her job as assistant to the VP of Business Affairs at William Morris Agency. "I wouldn't go and tell people that I am from LMU if I didn't think it was a great program and something to be proud of."
Beatty's LMU short film, "Last Chair," was the West Coast Winner of the 2003 Directors Guild of America Student Film Awards for African-American filmmakers. The work is based on Beatty's mother's experiences as a teenager in the late 1960's, integrating an all-white Michigan high school.
The work screened at 13 competitions, including arguably the globe's most prestigious, the Cannes Film Festival. While in the south of France, Beatty spread the word about a certain Westside campus.
"I told everybody, from famous people I met on the street to other directors that were screening," Beatty says, "I'm here from LMU. We're in Los Angeles. And this is what we do."
Beatty is currently working with a fellow LMU alum on a "reality" entertainment project. Beatty raves about the connections she made and has kept with classmates, back then working long hours on each other's films, learning how to make movies – and sometimes, how not to. Some of Beatty's campus collaborators now labor for industry heavyweights such as Fox and HBO.
While attending school, Beatty worked for LMU's Academic Persistence Program (APP), providing counseling to incoming students. Otherwise, Beatty says she spent her time immersed in a film program that focuses students on directing and permits them to own their films.
"I didn't know what people did in L.A. on Friday or Saturday nights, because I spent my time on a soundstage painting sets," Beatty says, "Or watching movies with other film people." And for this LMU alumna, it was an education that prepared her for what is sure to be a successful career.