This fall, Virginia Filmmakers, a student group based in the Department of Drama, presents a series of Film Craft Workshops for all UVA student filmmakers and aspiring filmmakers. Learn all the skills you need to produce a fantastic film.

Leading professional filmmakers will lead eight workshops, demonstrating film concepts and techniques utilizing a script for a One Minute Movie. In the seventh workshop, we’ll shoot the film and publicly post the footage so that filmmakers across grounds can try their hand at editing it. In the final workshop on editing technique, we’ll screen student versions of the finished film and vote on a winner!

Virginia Filmmakers president Ben Feldman and film directing instructor Paul Wagner will introduce each workshop.

Workshop Schedule

• Casting Actors for Film with Erica Arvold
  • Monday, Oct 1 • 5-7pm • Drama 115B

• Production Design: Set, Props, Costume, Hair/Make-up with Jay Taylor
  • Tuesday, Oct 16 • 5-7pm • Helms Theater

• Sound Recording & Camera/Lenses with Eric Hurt
  • Monday, Oct 22 • 5-7pm • Drama Helms Theater

• Film Scheduling & Set Management with Jack Steinberg
  • Tuesday, Oct 30 • 5-7pm • Drama Room 115C

• Directing Actors on Film with Richard Warner
  • Tuesday, Nov 6 • 5-7pm • Drama Room 115C

• Camera Placement/Framing/Movement & Lighting with Eric Hurt 
  • Monday, Nov 12  • 5-7pm • Drama Building

• Filming the Scene with Eric Hurt, Jack Steinberg, Jason Mitchell, Jay Taylor
  • Tuesday, Nov 13 • 5-8pm • Drama Building

• Editing the Scene – screening student edits of the One Minute Movie with Ben Feldman and Paul Wagner
  • Monday, Dec 10 • 5-7pm • Drama Building

Filmmaker Bios

Erica Arvold has been in the film business for nearly 30 years and has worked as a casting director on hundreds of projects including Loving, Turn: Washington’s Spies, House of Cards, Lincoln and Permanent. She is a member of the Casting Society of America, Producers Guild of America and the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

Eric Hurt has served as camera operator on Homeland and Turn: Washington’s Spies and as cinematographer on the feature films Coming Through the Rye and American Dreamer. Eric shot and directed House Hunting, The Machinery of Dreams and several shorts. He recently won the International Cinematographers Guild “Emerging Cinematographers Award.”

Jack Steinberg has served as assistant director on several Hollywood feature films, including Planet of the Apes, Terminator 3, The Last Samurai, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and HBO’s John Adams series. Jack won the DGA Award for his work on the pilot of HBO’s Six Feet Under. He has also served as a producer on Virginia-based independent feature films.

Richard Warner is an actor, director, and educator who has taught acting and directing in the UVA Drama Department for 30 years. He has performed over 100 roles on stage in New York and regional theater and on screen in Homicide, Life on the Street and Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln. Richard is a member of AEA and SAG-AFTRA and the winner of UVA’s Outstanding Teacher Award.

Jay Taylor is the event and venue coordinator for the UVA Department of Drama. But he also has wide experience as a designer and technical director on theater and film productions. From his base in central Virginia, Jay has specialized in creative approaches to low-budget film production design and set work, including production design of Eric Hurt’s latest feature The Machinery of Dreams.

Jason Mitchell is a professional film gaffer and lighting designer. He has led grip/electric crews on many dramatic and documentary features and shorts. Jason works regularly with director/cinematographer Eric Hurt.

Ben Feldman is a film writer and director, a fourth year at UVA, and the president of Virginia Filmmakers, an organization based in the Department of Drama that serves as a coordinating body for student filmmaking activities at UVA, supporting the work of filmmakers and filmmaking organizations on grounds.

Paul Wagner is an Academy and Emmy Award-winning independent filmmaker who has directed more than forty films over a forty-year career. His documentaries and feature films have screened at the Sundance, Toronto, Telluride, and Rotterdam film festivals. Paul teaches screenwriting and film directing at UVA.

Supported by an Arts Enhancement Grant from the Office of the Provost & the Vice Provost for the Arts