For the next week, aspiring filmmakers are getting hands-on experience through the Connecticut Film Industry Training Program, but program officials are concerned about the future of the program.
This crash course in film production started on June 7 at Quinnipiac University and runs to July 2. Trainees learn skills and techniques from professionals with film experience, which program organizers hope will help them secure jobs when filming is done in this state.
““We’re trying to expand the workforce in Connecticut,” Charles Miller, administrator of the program, said in a news release. “They’re going to need those people to work those jobs.”
More than 100 applicants are in Hamden, where they are receiving training as assistant directors, producing office coordinators, script supervisors and in set construction, props and dressing, locations management, lighting and grip, camera, sound and wardrobe, the Quinnipiac Chronicle reports. Once they complete the program, participants will get an opportunity to apply for internships in the industry.
Participants pay $500 for the program, and the rest is subsidized.
Miller said he has funding to operate the program for one more year and plans to ask the state for additional funding.
““With the job market as bad as it is, this is offering people the opportunity to look at a new and exciting chance to start over,” Marty Lang, the assistant director of the program and an adjunct professor of communications at Quinnipiac said. “When our economy recovers – whenever that may be – I believe the film industry will have played a large part in it.”
