CLASS SCHEDULE (10 SESSIONS)
FREE to ALL High School Students:
June 1st - June 12th, Monday - Friday 10AM - 3PM
Meet at 14 Pews, located at 800 Aurora Street, Houston, TX 77009
(up to 15 students)

STUDENT FILM SHOWCASE
June 19th @ 7PM
FREE to the public

REQUIREMENTS: All participants will be required to have a mobile device or any video camera. Please download and install iMovie for your device before the start of class.  Also, it is strongly suggested that you have a pair of headphones that have a built-in mic. 

FEES: This class is FREE to ALL High School Students with current School IDs

ABOUT INSTRUCTOR: Cressandra Thibodeaux is a documentary filmmaker, cinematographer, editor and storyteller. She started actively exploring film while being a camera-woman at Houston Public Access. She then went on to receive her MFA from Columbia University’s Film Program. At Columbia University she was part of an educational team that taught documentary to middle school students in Harlem. Cressandra is passionate about helping other filmmakers develop their skills. She balances her time as a teacher with her creative work on documentary films and running 14 Pews. Cressandra is the founder of several small film festivals and the Executive Director of 14 Pews.

LIST of 14 SPEAKERS: We have 8 award-winning iphone filmmakers that will be SKYPED in for a 40-minute SKYPE SESSIONS. In addition, we have 6 leaders in our local film community excited to come in and speak to the high school students. 

SEAN BAKER: New York based writer/director Sean Baker received his B.A. in Film Studies from New York University.

Sean directed award-winning films such as Take Out (co-directed with Shih-Ching Tsou), Prince of Broadway, and Starlet. Prince of Broadway was named one of the best films of 2010 by the Los Angeles Times, won the Grand Jury Prize at the Los Angeles Film Festival and the Woodstock Film Festival, and won the Special Jury Prize at Locarno International Film Festival.

He co-created the Fox and IFC series Greg the Bunny, and directed, wrote, and executive produced the MTV series Warren the Ape. Sean’s most recent film, Tangerine, was shot entirely on the iPhone 5s. Tangerine premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, and will have a limited release on July 10, 2015.

RICKY FOSHEIM: Writer/Director/Producer/Cinematographer Ricky Fosheim is the founder of Detention Films, where he has produced three feature films and dozens of music videos. Ricky recently produced, directed, and shot And Uneasy Lies the Mind, one of the first feature films shot entirely on the iPhone. Uneasy had it’s world premiere at Cinequest and screened in the Film Excellence in Title Design Awards at SXSW, where it was nominated against True Detective, Masters of Sex, Pacific Rim, and The Lego Movie. Ricky’s groundbreaking camera work for Uneasy was published in the August 2014 issue of American Cinematographer.

In 2013, Ricky shot Virginia Cassavetes’ directorial debut Love and Skin, which won the NociCortin Award at Hollyshorts Film Festival.

Ricky spent five years as a freelance cinematographer at Will Ferrell's comedy website Funny or Die, where he had the opportunity to shoot for almost every major actor in Hollywood.  Ricky holds two degrees, a B.A in Film Production and a B.B.A. in Business Entrepreneurship from Loyola Marymount University. 

MICHELE HERMEN: Michele has been a professional artist for 25 years working in the field of Graphic Design and Photography. Additionally, she has over 20 years experience leading creative students in photography and art. In 2010 and 2012, Michele was nationally recognized and awarded a Gold Medal by Scholastics Incorporated for Excellence in Teaching. She has worked as an independent designer contracted to General Electric and Stellar Technologies. Michele holds a BFA from Alfred University, A Teaching Certification from Moore College of Art and Design, A Masters in Education from Southern CT State University, and two Masters equivalents from the College of Liberal Arts in North Adams, Massachusetts. Her documentary, Creativity-Pass it on, is an official selection of the iPhone Film Festival.

JOSPHEH HOWES: Joe Howes is a filmmaker, computer programmer, and actor based in Austin, TX. Joe was a key animator, modeler, and programmer for the science documentary series, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. Joe has acted and provided voiceovers for a variety of short films. His work, Iker Who Lives Under Our Bed, is an official selection for the International New Media Festival and the iPhone Film Festival.

JEREMY HURLBURT: Jeremy A. Hurlburt is a filmmaker, writer, and artist from Hinsdale, NY. He wrote, directed, and acted in his feature length film, Zeus, where it was shown at the Atlanta Underground Film Festival and the Buffalo International Film Festival. His short film, Hobby Horse, is an official selection of the Original iPhone Film Festival. 

CRAIG ANTHONY PERKINS: Craig Anthony Perkins is an award winning filmmaker, composer, photographer, designer, and founder of Genshi Media Group. He has worked in both a creative and technical capacity within the entertainment industry for companies such as Philips Media, Universal Interactive Studios and AVID.

His first short film, Remembrance (a Ghost Story), shot entirely on the iPhone 4, won 2nd Place Grand Prize at the first annual iPhone Film Festival. He was then invited to shoot and premiere an exclusive film for the 2012 Macworld Expo in San Francisco, California. The resulting film, entitled, "Isobel & The Witch Queen", premiered on the main stage of the expo for a crowd of several hundred people as part of the iPhone Filmmakers/Directors’ talks.

His third short film, The Haunting at Danford Cabin, won Best Animation as well as Grand Prize Best Overall Film at the 2012 iPhone Film Festival. Haunting was also featured in several other film festivals world-wide, including The U.K.'s The Smalls, the Canadian Film Centre's Shorts Nonstop Festival, Sitges Film Festival in Spain and the Olleh Film Festival in South Korea.

SCOTT SCHULER: Scott Schuler was born in Washington, DC and grew up in the nearby suburb, Potomac, Maryland. In his youth, he studied film at Imagination Stage under the direction of David Stern. Scott attended NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts where his film credits include directing 5 shorts, editing 12 shorts, and contributing to 2 features. His film, Blood Bath, won numerous awards at Tisch’s 48 Hour Film Festival and is currently in competition at the Original iPhone Film Festival.

Scott splits his time between editing and directing. Scott is a featured content creator for an upcoming online horror platform executive produced by Jason Blum, James Davies, and Eli Roth. His first project for the network is a 12-part horror miniseries entitled ‘Stream No Evil’, which will premiere with the network in June.

DR. TEMPLE NORTHUP: is an Assistant Professor at the Jack J. Valenti School of Communication where he teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses in media writing, media effects, and research. Dr. Northup is also co-director of the Gulf Coast Food Project (http://www.uh.edu/gcfp/). He received his B.A. in anthropology from Wake Forest University, his M.A. in media studies from Syracuse University, and his Ph.D. in mass communication from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His research focuses on the effects of mediated messages on audience members, paying particular attention to the unconscious mechanisms that drive attitudes and behaviors and how the media may help to influence those mechanisms. He has presented research at the annual meetings of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, the International Communication Association, and the National Communication Association. His work has been published in such journals as Media Psychology, Applied Cognitive Psychology, and The Journal of Applied Research on Children, among others.

WAYNE SLATEN: studied art and communications at Marshall University and Methodist University. After working on several award winning short films, Slaten founded Moonlite Filmwerks in 2007 to focus on writing, directing and producing feature length movies. Through Moonlite Filmwerks, he successfully showcased his directing talents in the well received feature length film BACKROAD, distributed in 2012. He directed and co-wrote the short film COLD WAR which was selected as part of a one hundred city international film competition to screen at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. That same year, Slaten was a quarterfinalist in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting competition. Slaten recently directed the spy-thriller OSPREY and was Second Unit Director on THE COSTUME SHOP. He is now in postproduction on the feature film PATRIOT ACT scheduled for release in 2016.

BILL HOWZE: co-producer and editor of the insightful documentary, The Strange Demise of Jim Crow, which is a multi-level story of urban power and change: student demonstrators vs. segregationists; the white power structure's fear of integration vs. their greater fear of violence, embarrassing national publicity and financial losses; secret deal-making vs. freedom of the press.

  Bill was trained as an art historian and for many years produced videos for art museums, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Menil Collection, the Contemporary Arts Museum, the Kimbell Art Museum, the Amon Carter Museum, the Yale University Art Gallery and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. Bill earned a PhD from UT Austin, where his dissertation was on the influence of art on the films of John Ford. Recently, Bill has been been using his iPhone to make videos about the field of Medical Humanities.

JIM BARHAM: Director-cameraman Jim Barham began his career in the mailroom of KPRC-TV in Houston after a severe case of stage fright ended his acting career. He spent the next four years under the tutelage of Bruce Bryant and Dee Brown hiding behind the camera and developing his filmmaking skills working variously as a sound mixer, camera assistant, gaffer, cinematographer and editor.

LARRY R. MCKEE: An extremely gifted Cinematographer and Producer he has worked on such films as “Occam’s Razor,” “For Whom He Tolls,” “Divorce Texas Style,” “Key of D” and several projects that are in the making including “Suicide Notes,” and “Patriot Act.”