Commercial Television and Films, Trustee Grants
| Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 |
$371,000 |
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| This grant will enable the School of Drama at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) to continue supporting selected film students who write screenplays about science and technology. Also, as a one-year pilot, four science and technology teleplays will be developed for broadcast in a one-hour slot on public television. The grant includes two major screenwriting awards each year, as well as an annual science and film symposium featuring renowned scientists, engineers, and technologists. A distinguished professional screenwriter will be invited each year to work with CMU's Sloan students on their scripts. Graduate students who have written science and technology scripts will attend the annual Los Angeles Showcase of New Talent, a career development opportunity for students to meet agents and other film industry representatives. For the pilot public television effort, four teleplays by CMU film students will be produced with professional actors and broadcast in one hour during prime time on Pittsburgh's PBS station, WQED. Television writer-producer John Welles, a CMU graduate, has agreed to mentor this pilot project, ensuring high quality and visibility. Project Director: Milan Stitt, Head of Dramatic Writing, School of Drama. | |
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| Columbia University New York, NY 10027 |
$192,000 |
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| With this grant, Columbia University's School of the Arts will continue for another three years to support select film students who write screenplays and produce films on science and technology themes. The grant includes two annual screenwriting awards and one film production award each year. It also supports an annual science and film symposium and stipends for science advisors for each submitted script. The annual Sloan Symposium has become a high-profile event, featuring science and film notables. This year, all three winners of the Eastern region Student Academy Awards were Columbia students. Project Director: Dan Kleinman, Chair, Film Division, School of the Arts. | |
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| Tribeca Film Institute Inc. New York, NY 10013 |
$281,100 |
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| With this grant, the Tribeca Film Institute will host the third triennial Sloan Film School Summit. The two previous meetings, hosted by the American Film Institute, took place in Los Angeles, so this would be the first meeting in New York. Columbia and NYU, the two New York film schools in the Foundation's film program, will serve as co-hosts. The two and a half day meeting brings together all six schools participating in the Sloan film program, Sloan award-winning screenwriters and filmmakers, film faculty, and science advisors. Representatives from the Hamptons, Sundance, and Tribeca film festivals and the Foundation's main theater partners, Ensemble Studio Theatre and Manhattan Theater Club, are expected to attend. Prominent members of the film and entertainment industry and leading scientists and engineers will also participate. Special events will include an evening screening of award-winning short films and staged readings of award-winning screenplays by professional actors. A logbook of all Sloan scripts with biographical information about screenwriters and a compilation video of Sloan short films will be produced. An award update luncheon gives students an opportunity to talk about their own experience writing or making films in the Sloan film program. Project Director: Madelyn Wils, President and CEO. | |
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| Commercial Television and Films, Officer Grants | |
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| The Culture Project New York, NY 10012 |
$45,000 |
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| To develop a screenplay for a feature film on Nikola Tesla. Project Director: Bob Balaban, Actor/Film Producer. | |
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| Jon Palfreman Lexington, MA 02420 |
$43,405 |
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| To develop a treatment for a one-hour PBS documentary about Tommy Gold and the deep hot biosphere. Project Director: Jon Palfreman, documentary filmmaker. | |
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| TalkingScience, Inc. Stamford, CT 06906 |
$39,730 |
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| Support for a strategy meeting on starting a science cable channel. Project Director: Ira Flatow, science correspondent, TV journalist. | |
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