Tag Archives: film festival

DFA Alumni Jamaal Green on his Award Winning web-series “Chronicles Of,” and his experience at Digital Film Academy



Jamaal Green, a former DFA student – completed both the first year and advance program in filmmaking. We spoke to him about what he’s working on, and how his experience at the school helped to shape his career in film. 

“We had access to equipment from day one which was huge and we also had some really good instructors. I wouldn’t have advanced, technically and skill set wise if I didn’t go to DFA and also because the people that I met there.”

How has DFA prepared you for life after grad?

“DFA helped me organize as a filmmaker. It helped me to be a self starter and to keep pushing, that was huge. Going there helped me realized that it’s not just going to happen for you and that you have to really push it. DFA really gave us a lot of tools, and how well you did there was  up to you. They gave you everything you needed. We had access to equipment from day one which was huge and we also had some really good instructors. I wouldn’t have advanced, technically and skill set wise if I didn’t go to DFA and also because the people that I met there. The networking was huge. I still keep in contact with a lot of the students that graduated around the time I was there. I’m still do productions with one of my classmates. We have a small production company called MG Cinecraft.“

What are you currently working on?

“My main focus right now is a web series, The concept started when I was still at DFA and web series was kind of a new thing. One of our assignments was to create a web series and so I created something, which back then was called “Chronicles Of A Profiler.” As of now its been revamped and it’s just called “Chronicles Of.” It’s basically an ensemble crime thriller about a bunch of different characters in different locations spread across the region between New York and Philadelphia, and how their lives intersect when total corruption takes over. Everything kicks off when a string of murders that starts happening throughout the tri-state sets of a chain reaction that starts to expose all the things that’s been going on politically and socially in the underbelly for a while.”



What has the response been like to “Chronicles Of?”

We just recently participated in the Winter International Film Awards in New York. We won best web series. It’s been long time, we actually started full production, maybe two years ago, and we’ve been in post production for the last year or so. Finally we took the first episode and entered it into the film festivals. We’ve been pleasantly surprised with how well we’ve done. We’ve also been in the New Jersey Web Fest, which we did well in, and as a result of how we performed there we got a direct selection into the Apulia Web Fest in Italy in May. We will be showing at the Garden State Film Festival on March 28th and also in the Miami Web Film Festival on May 14th. We’re still waiting to hear back from some others, and we’re just now starting to enter the other episodes as well. We’re very happy with how it came out. 

We have eight episodes that are about 15 minutes each and a finale that’s about 45 minutes. So when it’s all together is a two and a half hour long feature. I’ve written enough to do four seasons, depending on how it’s received. The ultimate goal is to flip it into television. 

Stayed tuned with Jamaal, MG CineCraft and Chronicles Of here – 

MG CineCraft:

https://www.mgcinecraft.com/

Instagram:

@_chronicles_of_

https://www.instagram.com/_chronicles_of_/

Facebook: 

https://www.facebook.com/Chroniclesofaprofiler/

Observe a class at Digital Film Academy!

Countdown to the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival

We’re a little over 2 weeks away from one of the most exciting film festivals of the year: the Toronto International Film Festival. And we’re here to tell you a little bit about the mighty event and what to expect from this year’s edition.

DFA + TIFF

The TIFF was founded by Bill Marshall, Henk Van der Kolk and Dusty Cohl as “The Festival of the Festivals” in 1976, and it showed a collection of the best films from film festivals around the world. In 1994, the festival’s name was officially replaced with “Toronto International Film Festival” and it started having premieres of its own – maybe “The Festival of the Festivals” was a bit too presumptuous, even for an event that great.

From that point on, the Toronto International Film Festival has premiered some of the most acclaimed films in recent history, such as American Beauty, “Ray”, “Crash”, “Slumdog Millionaire”, “Black Swan”, “The King’s Speech”, “Argo” and “Silver Linings Playbook”. In September 2010, the festival opened its new home in the Toronto Entertainment District, the TIFF Bell Lightbox.

TIFF Laurel

Here are some of the most anticipated premieres that will take place on this year’s edition:

Jason Reitman’s “Men, Women & Children”
Jean-Marc Vallee’s “Wild”
Antoine Fuqua’s “The Equalizer”
Noah Baumbach’s “While We’re Young”
Shawn Levy’s “This Is Where I Leave You”
James Franco’s “The Sound and the Fury”
Chris Rock’s “Top Five”
Jon Stewart’s directorial debut “Rosewater”

The 2014 TIFF is expecting around 400,000 attendees overall, many of them from outside Canada. The city of Toronto is about to shine bright with the amount of stars that will be showing up within the next few weeks.

Toronto

The 2014 Toronto International Film Festival will take place from September 4th to 14th, 2014.

What are your bets?

by Carol Mazzoni, Digital Film Academy‘s Marketing & Social Media Manager

The NBC Shortcuts Experience!

short cuts logoIn August 2013, I attended the NBC Short Cuts film festival. This is an event that was created to showcase the work of a variety of artists from diverse backgrounds who might not otherwise get much exposure.

At first, I was wary of anything NBC. The last time I’d been involved with them was for Stand Up for Diversity, a comedy event giving each comic one minute to make an audience laugh and impress the executives. If you impress everyone, you move on and go to their reality show for comics.

Standup-for-Diversity-Logo.jpg.600x242_q100

Any stand-up comedian would know one minute is pretty difficult. My dark humour did not go over with the judges. I guess they didn’t like pedophile and wheelchair jokes. Especially the guy in the audience who was in the wheel chair about whom I made the joke.

I digress. I’d never been to a film festival before and since it was my favorite price – free – I decided to give it a go. First thing that caught my eye was the bar with no bartenders. I found this odd. Just display drinks. So, in a moment of thirst, I stole one.

Once inside, I watched incredible short films. Since each film was a different genre, I went through a series of emotions. One film would have me laughing, and the next would have me horrified. By the 7th film, I had a taste of what it was like to be manic depressive. I had hit the spectrum of emotions lottery. Therefore, each film was effective.

Craig Robinson (center) with festival finalists.
Craig Robinson (center) with festival finalists.

At the ending of the films, I went back into the lobby. As if run by a Suddenly Salad commercial, there were snacks and bartenders. I then realized I had stolen free soda. I got to talk to Hannibal Buress, a comedian, and Steve Caple who was the recipient of the audience award for his incredible short, “A Different Tree.” I am starting to use Twitter for contacts, and I ended up tweeting back and forth with Hannibal Buress, asking him for a reference so I can get an Internship at Comedy Central. I have yet to convince him, but will keep on trying.

All in all, I will definitely go again next year and glad this program exists. Any young filmmaker in NYC should take advantage of the opportunity!

By Digital Film Academy Student Blogger Harley Page

Return to blog homepage.


® GI Bill® Is a registered trademark of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). More information about education benefits by VA is available at the official U.S. government website at www.benefits.va.gov/gibill