TEACHING
SAE Institute
For nearly a decade I have been teaching at SAE Institute in AMSTERDAM. What started out as a college-level guest-lecturer position has quickly evolved into a significant schedule allowing me the opportunity to usher these young people from enthusiastic amateurs to skilled autours ready for the professional world! My classes consist of everything from: Concept Development, Script Writing, MTV class, Crowd Funding Campaigns, Pitching, Entrepreneurship, Visual Style, Cinema Marketing, Industry Perspectives (the major and minor studios,) Pre-Visualization, Directing and Social Media - just to name a few.
Not knowing what to expect from the international students when I started, I am continually impressed with their film sense, knowledge, participation and best of all, they're making some really wonderful films.
AISR:
The American International School of Rotterdam
I'd just begun helping as a guest instructor at AISR in ROTTERDAM with a young-person's filmmaking course when I coached a young director (8th grade) on camera placement, suggesting that one shot in particular would look really cool if his cameraman laid on the floor and the actor JUMPED over him. We set up the shot, the director yelled action, the actor underestimated his height and KICKED THE CAMERA DOWN THE HALLWAY! Luckily the camera was fine and the school recognized it as an innocent accident.
ESCE:
Ecole Supérieure du Commerce Extérieur
I was thrilled when one of France's top international business schools in PARIS asked me to come in and teach 4th-year graduate-level courses in: Entrepreneurship, Promotional Filmmaking and Cinema Marketing.
As the French tradition in teaching is lecture oriented, I caught the students off-guard when we pushed the tables to the side of the room, circled the chairs and work-shopped most of our curriculum. I was impressed with their enthusiasm, hard work and they clearly appreciated my variation in teaching style.
As an added bonus, later that summer I also served as the faculty advisor for a group of graduating seniors on their final thesis.
Independent Study: Europe
In conjunction to my work producing promotional videos for the American Study Abroad Program, British Studies, in LONDON I was asked to mentor an older student filmmaker who was part of the group. It worked out well as I was able to send him out to shoot 2nd camera footage throughout England, France and part of Germany.
L'Abbaye de Pontlevoy
As a supplement to their regular university curriculum I was asked to teach a course - Storytelling: The Moving Image, at a 1000 year-old Abbey in FRANCE to American students on a semester-long study abroad program. We learned the components of storytelling and the students broke into small groups to develop and shoot their own short video.
PEN123: "We Make Learning English Fun!"
Deep in the re-design of THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA'S 3rd largest English language website, I was asked to teach English as a second language to Chinese students.
Pictured above is me striking up a conversation after with students at a recruitment fair held Beijing's largest public park with 10,000 in attendance.
The Hollywood YMCA
I taught a year-long filmmaking course at the famed Hollywood YMCA in LOS ANGELES for "at-risk" teens. It was my first time working with younger folks and proved to be a challenge in many ways. In the end it went well as our first film out of the chute won a national competition.