WINSTON-SALEM – Ten years ago, a film school did not exist at the North Carolina School of the Arts.

 How times have changed.

 Next month, from Dec. 1-12, the School of Filmmaking will celebrate its 10^th anniversary at NCSA by bringing back about 20 of its successful alumni to give workshops to and screen some of their recent work for current students. It’s a major accomplishment for a school that conducted its first classes in a renovated diaper laundry.

“I’d say that that School of Filmmaking has put itself on the map,” said Dean Dale Pollock, a Hollywood journalist and film producer who took over from Founding Dean Sam Grogg in 1999. “In just 10 years, the NCSA School of Filmmaking has made a name for itself nationally. Today, people talk about it in the same breath as long-established film schools such as USC and NYU.”

When it opened in the fall of 1993, the film school had 60 students and five faculty members. Today, more than 230 film students study cinematography, directing, editing and sound, producing, production design, and screenwriting with 25 faculty and 15 full-time staff members.

Part of its reputation was earned through the opening in 1997 of a unique “Studio Village” on the NCSA campus. It resembles and functions like a Hollywood studio “back lot,” combining three sound stages and post-production, film music recording, and exhibition facilities. A new storage facility for the school’s extensive film archives (the second largest non-commercial film archives in the world) is set to open early next year.

But much of the film school’s reputation has been earned by students, whose films have won major honors such as the Student Academy Award, Showtime’s Black Filmmaker Showcase, the Angelus Award, and CINE Eagles.

Producer of such films as SET IT OFF and BLAZE, Pollock has continued to push the envelope as dean of the NCSA School of Filmmaking. He brought the first national conference of its kind, CINETHICS, on the ethics of filmmaking, to NCSA in 2000. In 2003, he collaborated with the Winston-Salem Cinema Society to bring films back downtown with the highly successful Films on Fourth. Also in 2003, he brought a major film festival to Winston-Salem, the RiverRun International Film Festival, which showed 65 films to more than 10,000 audience members last April. And he’s been instrumental as a consultant in bringing a multiplex with an IMAX theatre to Unity Place, the planned multi-use development on the western edge of downtown.

Pollock also expanded year-end screenings, before members of the industry in Los Angeles and New York, of films of the graduating seniors. This annual event has been underwritten by Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Inc., for the past three years and last year attracted more than 500 total attendees in the two film capitals. 

When Pollock arrived at NCSA, one of the first things he did was to integrate a community service component into the film school’s curriculum. To date, more than 25 public service videos have been shot by NCSA films students for local nonprofit agencies, such as The Ronald McDonald House, the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, AIDS Care Service, and the Bethesda Center for the Homeless.

Among the alumni from the film school’s seven graduating classes scheduled to appear as guest artists during Dec. 1-12 (“Intensive Arts”) are:

• David Gordon Green ’98 Directing. Writer and director of GEORGE WASHINGTON and ALL THE REAL GIRLS, he will give a workshop at NCSA before going into post-production on UNDERTOW and pre-production on A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES.
• Tim Orr ’98 Cinematography. He will conduct workshops with cinematography students. He shot GEORGE WASHINGTON, ALL THE REAL GIRLS, RAISING VICTOR VARGAS, and the upcoming UNDERTOW.
• Anna Dudley ’00 Editing and Sound. Winner of the Showtime Black Filmmaker Showcase, she wrote and directed JACOB’S SOUND in Wilmington. She currently works for HBO and will talk about writing/directing/producing for cable television.
• Butter Fisher ’99 Screenwriting. Currently director of the RiverRun Film Festival, she will speak about working the festival system to advantage.
• John Rotan ’97 Cinematography. He will screen his American Film Institute master’s thesis project and his 16mm feature, which recently premiered at the Asheville Film Festival.
• Alicia Collins ’01 Producing. A finalist for a Student Academy Award, she currently works as an assistant editor and producer in New York. She will screen an episode she edited of the Learning Channel series “Residence Life.”
• Matt Petrosky ’00 Cinematography. A first assistant cameraman, he will conduct workshops on getting work as a 1^st AC. His credits include THE GIRLS’ ROOM, SURFACING and IMAGINARY HEROES.
• Jen Haire ’02 Producing. Currently working on the “World Series of Poker,” she was the date coordinator on the third season of “The Bachelor” series. She will speak about episodic and reality TV and location production.
• Nick Panagopolus ’98 Editing and Sound, and Craig Moorhead ’99 Screenwriting. The founders of Brainbox, a TV production company, they will talk about their experiences and will screen an episode of “Vital Scan,” produced for the Discovery Channel.
• Kelly Donnellan ’00 Editing and Sound. With credits including “The Making of” THE MATRIX REVISITED and MY LIFE WITH MORRISSEY, she will conduct an Avid workshop and will discuss the role of the assistant editor on feature films.
• Beth Petty ’97 Directing. The current Charlotte Regional Film Commissioner, she will talk about bringing films to North Carolina, and will conduct workshops on getting film commission support.
• Matt Doyle ’03 Editing and Sound. He will screen segments from the Showtime series “The Red Carpet” that he edited.
• Craig Zobel ’99 Directing. Director of SURFACING, he will conduct workshops for directors and producers.

For more information, contact Marla Carpenter at 336-770-3337 in the public relations office at NCSA.

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