A parking shortage at Fayetteville’s Lafayette Education Center has forced the Clayton State University Division of Continuing Education to move its upcoming Film and Digital Media Industry Open House to Sandy Creek High School, 360 Jenkins Rd., Tyrone.
The Open House will still be held at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 26. The exact location at Sandy Creek High School will be in the school auditorium, which is located inside the main front entrance.
More than 200 people have already registered for the event. Individuals wishing to attend must preregister by calling 678-466-5050. The Clayton State Center for Continuing Education is open Monday to Friday, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The Open House will focus on Clayton State’s new Film and Digital Media Training Program which begins in February 2014. The training program, which consists of two 12-week sessions, is modeled after a very successful program in New Mexico.
“We are extremely fortunate to be able to offer this nationally recognized curriculum, and in fact to have one of the persons responsible for developing it as our lead faculty member,” says Janet Winkler, executive director of Continuing Education at Clayton State. “Barton Bond comes to us with 40 years of media experience, the last seven of which were spent developing and teaching the only film crew training program in the country.”
“New Mexico was the first state in the nation to offer financial incentives to attract films and TV productions from Hollywood,” according to Bond. “And also the first and to date the only state to develop a comprehensive training program to quickly get workers trained at level that would allow them to work on film sets.
“As the level of film, TV and digital media production in Georgia grows, the need for trained workers will also increase. We saw the same thing happen in New Mexico, and we trained literally hundreds of workers over the past seven years – giving the state the third largest crew base outside of Los Angles and New York. I see Georgia poised to exceed that number within the next few years.”
“In addition to preparing students for feature film and TV productions, the program will also provide students basic skills required to work in other media projects like independent films, and commercial and industrial projects,” adds Winkler.
Information about the content of the courses, schedule times, program fees and potential job opportunities will be presented at the Open House. In addition to Clayton State staff, Mike Akins, business manager for the International Association of Theatrical and Stage Employees Local 479 and other representatives of the Georgia film industry will be present.
