ACTING & FILM SCHOOL

NBC Universal Partners With NYC Film School

Lights, Cameras and Action! By Melissa Kondak

Since childhood, Pawl Biel always seemed to have a camera in his hand. He shot his first film as a child growing up in Poland and Switzerland, and as a student he went on to study his first love for four years in Krakow, Germany. But all those classes on film theory left Biel feeling frustrated—and ready to get his hands on some real moviemaking equipment.

Then he heard about the New York Film Academy, a two-year conservatory film school where students get hands-on experience right off the bat, using expensive camera equipment on the very first day of class. Students also are exposed to a network of filmmaking connections that can put their careers on course. After a year at NYFA, Biel was working on the first Lord of the Rings film.

“All the professors at the Academy are filmmakers,” he says. “A professor recommended me to my first job.”

The Film Academy was founded in 1992 with a mission statement underlined by the belief that filmmaking students “learn by making their own projects in a hands-on, intensive program.” This simple message is what inspired the recent collaboration between the Academy and NBC Universal, the parent company of NBC News, and the emergence of NYFA’s newest topic of study, digital journalism.

Beginning in July, Steve Capus, President NBC News, and Today show anchor Hoda Kotb will teach master classes, and as the Film Academy’s website touts, students will be exposed to “the most cutting-edge digital technology and methods being used professionally in the field by NBC’s own digital journalists.”

According to NYFA Senior Director David Klein, “Journalists research and tell stories, as well as technically capture images for multiple platforms, so it’s absolutely brilliant to have a school focused on journalism with the digital aspect.”

Digital journalism involves using digital technology—or data-carrying audio and video signals—to record, report and edit news stories. “Digital journalism means journalism—there are ethics, there’s storytelling. The only difference is the tools are smaller,” says Lyne Pitts, Vice President NBC News. Digital journalists, Pitts adds, must be able to write, shoot, direct, edit, and appear on-air in their own field reports and investigative segments. The primary goal for digital journalists will not be to replace news specialists, but to figure out how to transition broadcast-quality TV to the Internet.

This new breed is being led by journalists like Mara Schiavocampo, the first member of NBC News to be bestowed with the title of digital journalist. In the time it takes to identify a story, assign a producer, a correspondent, a cameraman, and get on air, Maria is able to cover multiple stories with her team of one—herself.

The path Schiavocampo has carved out is the model for NBC’s digital journalism curriculum at NYFA. As Pitts recognizes, “We know the technology is constantly changing, and we need to train the next generation of those distributing the news. And unlike a traditional classroom, our learning takes place in real life.” However, NBC does not formally teach, so the NYFA’s role in the program will be to provide the educational infrastructure students need.

If it’s like any of the other programs at the Academy, there will be students like Biel, whose years of passon were finally sparked into a career by the connections he made at the school.

“It’s unprecedented for a news organization to take this step,“ says Pitts. And although it’s too early to measure its long-term impact, NBC Universal and the New York Film Academy are already making history by identifying this next phase of journalism and taking action.

FIRST APPEARED: 8/3/2008 Original Article