Film Arts Academy
A major focus of SOTA is to offer training in the film arts to Native American students. SOTA will teach Native American students career sustaining skills in the film and television industries, thus helping to build a home for the production of Native inspired content, developing stories that chronicle their culture, history, and modern life.
SOTA has partnered with the Georgia Film Academy to provide training in the film arts to Native American students.
https://georgiafilmacademy.edu
With the GFA, SOTA will provide training in all aspects of film production, leading to a Certification in the student’s chosen discipline. A unique benefit of the SOTA training curriculum will be the student’s ability to intern on actual film productions, giving real life experience and important industry connections.
The art of making movies is the result of many different skills and artists collaborating around a central theme, blending their collective talents to create a single work of art. It is in part technical, in part artistic, but in all aspects, it is a creative enterprise.
The writer uses imagination and research skills to create literature. The cinematographer uses technical skills to manipulate cameras and lenses, but with the vision of an artist to understand how framing, lighting, scope and movement are integral parts of presenting a scene. The gaffer is skilled in electronics and uses those technical skills to augment the impact of a scene through lighting and shadows and focus on specific elements in a scene. The special effects technician uses his graphic artistry to go beyond reality, creating worlds or images that only exist within the imagination. Experts in makeup, costuming, hair, all use skills to fashion a look for the actor that portrays his background, motivations, and character, all essential in telling the story. And the director blends all these elements into a cohesive whole, into the final work of art.
The common thread through all of these disparate aspects of filmmaking is that in each discipline, there is a technical side and a creative side. SOTA in collaboration with the Georgia Film Academy will teach the technical side, but just as important, it will imbue the students with an understanding of what is required to take those technical skills and create art. Students will gain this understanding in classrooms where they are taught the theory and goals of using their technical skills, and most significantly, they will have the opportunity to intern on actual major motion pictures with the leading movie makers in the world.
Central to the uniqueness of SOTA is its location on-site of Tyler Perry Studios, with access to its major sound stages and the largest backlot in the movie industry.
In the final analysis, the best teacher is experience, and that is the kind of hands-on, direct instruction SOTA students will have working on SOTA and GFA linked productions. And internships of course are in turn a direct path to full employment.