Something new for students interested in a career in a variety of growing fields, including health care and entertainment.   

Stautzenberger College of Ohio Friday opened its new Michigan campus at the Unity Studios Complex in Allen Park, where students will be trained for those jobs.  

Oakwood Healthcare is the first major employer to partner with the college and will provide education, training and employment opportunities for students and graduates. The studio and campus is on Southfield Road near I-94. 

A statement from the college says classes, which will be taught for medical billing and coding, medical administrative technology, massage therapy, medical assisting, personal fitness training, and phlebotomy technician, start April 12th for the first 150 students.

“We will provide the training and curricula to enable our students to assume careers in professions that are growing in Michigan, including health care,” said Stautzenberger College President George Simon.

Unity Studios is a studio and entertainment complex project that was announced in 2009 and is expected to open soon with feature sound stages, production services, post audio dub stages, music recording stages and post video services where films, TV ads and other similar productions can be completed.

Financial aid is available for students who qualify.

Click here for enrollment and other information about the Stautzenberger Institute.

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A Fraser company needs workers and plan to hire hundreds over the next year and a half. It used to be known as “Scenic Design,” but is now “Scenic Prop and Design,” and company officials say, these days, there’s a lot of demand for what they produce.

It’s making props for film, TV, and other uses in the entertainment industry — and may mean from 200 to 300 new jobs.  The firm has been around for awhile, coming up with props for Black Sabbath, and TV shows like Extreme Makeover.

Potential candidates will need to be trained for the jobs, and to find out where and how visit www.centerforfilmstudies.com or call (248) 545-2648.

What’s on the minds of students in Michigan and across the country?  C-SPAN is in Metro Detroit this week, letting middle and high school students know about The network’s Student Cam Documentary Competition. Rebecca Stewart is C-Span’s Community Representative.

“We ask them to film documentaries that are five to eight minutes long about an issue of their choice. And, we want them to show multiple perspectives and multiple points of view,” Stewart told WWJ’s Greg Bowman. “They’ll send those into us, along with some C-Span footage, and we’ll judge them,” she said.

This year’s theme is either one of the country’s greatest strengths, or a challenge that the country is currently facing.

What is Stewart expecting to see  from students who enter the competition? 

“Last year we got almost a thousand entries from across the country, and even some international entries. The topics spanned from health care and the economy, to colony collapse disorder. As a matter of fact, one of our winners was about water conservation, and another was the honey beer and what’s going on with them in the United States,” she said.

A total of $50 thousand dollars will be awarded in cash prizes, including 75 student awards and 11 teacher awards .  The best overall entry will be awarded the $5,000 grand prize. 

The deadline for entries is January 20, 2010.

Get details on how you can enter the competition at this link.

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The Michigan film and television industry needs trained men and women for over 1,000 jobs in production roles behind the scenes. Marygrove College in Detroit is offering the course and experience that interested individuals need to get those jobs.

The Urban Film Institute will be conducting classes at two Detroit College campus locations: Eastern Michigan University Campus (Detroit Campus), 18100 Meyers Rd., Detroit, MI 48235; and, Marygrove College, 8425 McNichols, Detroit, MI 48221.

The classwork is presented by industry professional and native Detroiter, Philip (Kojo) Vaden. “The purpose of this class is to train students in production assisting so that they can obtain entry-level jobs in the growing film industry here in Michigan,” explained Vaden. The eight-week course offers a wide variety of creative and technology-based programming.

Get more info at this link.

The Center for Film Studies, (CFS,) has announced a school scholarship contest for Michigan residents, with the goal of helping to create jobs.  

At CFS, students learn the necessary skills in a hands-on environment to work on-set in film and TV production. Targeted to the needs of the film industry, 2 – 8 week intensive training is offered. 

How to enter:

To enter the Center for Film Studies scholarship contest, in 200 words or less, tell them why you should receive a free scholarship for professional training

In addition to the 200 word essay, you will need to submit a resume and up to three references. Please adhere to the word limit; longer essays will be disqualified. Only one entry – per person. The contest is open to Michigan residents over age 18.

Entries should be mailed or dropped off to the Center for Film Studies 899 East Whitcomb Madison Heights, MI 48071. Deadline for contest submission is October 1, 2009.  
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By Matt Roush

If it had been a movie, it would have been a massive crowd scene in one of those old 1950s Biblical epics.

And none of this green screen computer effects stuff either. These people were for real and deadly serious. And they came, 1,300-plus strong, to the CBS Radio Michigan Makes Movies Expo Sunday at the Rock Financial Showplace.

 View a video recap!

View photos from the event - Click here

Michigan became a major player in the movie business in April 2008, when legislators passed an incentive package calling for a 40 percent refundable tax credit for movie production costs spent in Michigan, or 42 percent if filmed in one of Michigan’s 103 core communities. Importantly, the credit only applies to costs paid to Michigan-based companies or staff — not staff temporarily imported from elsewhere.

“Movies chase incentives worldwide,” said Larry August, director and managing partner of Avalon Films. “That’s become the way they do it. So they go to Canada or Louisiana or now, Michigan. There’s more movies being made in Michigan than in California. There’s literlaly no movies being made in Hollywood right now — it’s shocking. What’s being made in Hollywood is a lot of TV shows, because most TV shows are still made in studios.”

August said the 40 percent tax credit gives Michgian suppliers an important advantage. “If you services have a built in 40 percent price advantage you would think you could price your services profitably,” he said.

The movie industry needs lots of talent in Michgian, August said, from assistant directors to heads of departments to camera operators to makeup artists to grips and electrical staff.

August said all employees in the film business start at the bottom as production assistants, and that the business purposely makes it difficult to get into its unions.

“They want people who are persistent and who won’t take ‘no’ for an answer,” August said. “But writers get a pass — if you write a great screenplay you start at the top.”

Also speaking was Christopher Coppola, nephew of the famed director Francis Ford Coppola, who has just been made an adjunct professor at Livonia’s Madonna University for his efforts to bring more film and video production training to the school, including this week’s Project Accessible Hollywood citizen film training session and film festival.

Coppola said old school film skills like writing screenplays, doing a shot list and working with actors must be combined with new school skills like getting film concepts onto different platforms like cell phones and video games. “The old school needs to tell good stories on these new school platforms,” he said.

Coppola said incentives like Michigan’s means filmmakers “don’t need to move to Hollywood now. You can do these things on stages now from anywhere.”  Read more. (more…)

A local broadcast school is now training Michigan workers to get ready for new jobs in the state’s booming film industry.

Specs Howard School in Southfield is launching a new film workshop to educate the next generation of film professionals.

The eight week “On Location Film Workshop” is being done on location at Grace and Wild Studio Center in Farmington Hills. 

Lisa Zahodne, President and COO of Specs Howard School, says they decided to start the program because they had received many calls from Specs graduates and others, asking how they can get a job in the film business.

The film workshop begins July 21st. 
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If you always thought that you should work in the movies, now is your chance. In 2009, Michigan will be rolling with new films being shot once the ice thaws.

Because training is necessary to work in various aspects of the movie industry, the Center for Film Studies is coming to Michigan cities from Farmington Hills to Ferndale, Warren, and Troy to get Michigan residents prepared.

The Center for Film Studies has entered into a training alliance with the Michigan Council of Carpenters — AFL-CIO.

The school is being launched by Michigan natives Mort Meisner, executive director, of Huntington Woods and Jack Gruskko, COO, of Bloomfield Hills. Kim Haveraneck will serve as the director of education, also of Bloomfield Hills. They are filling a void after discovering the need. Targeted to the needs of the film industry, to Hollywood standards, 2 – 8 week intensive training will be (more…)

Capital Area Michigan Works, Michigan State University and Lansing Community College are partnering to prepare Michigan residents seeking employment in the state’s growing film industry.

With a grant of $195,000 from the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth’s No Worker Left Behind program, Capital Area Michigan Works will recruit and oversee a joint training program between MSU’s Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media and Lansing Community College’s Digital Media, Audio, and Cinema program to provide on-campus film production training.

Charles Steinfield, chairperson of the MSU department, says the training program is a wonderful example of state partnership – with economic benefits.

“This training partnership demonstrates our commitment to community outreach, and also to the growth of the film industry in Michigan,” Steinfield said.

The MSU department will work with LCC faculty to provide 80 hours of training, which will prepare Michigan residents who are seeking jobs in the film industry, such as (more…)