Winston-Salem, NC — How do you make it to Hollywood? If you’re an actor, you typically move to Los Angeles, go on auditions, and wait tables until you’re discovered. If you’re a film editor, a trip to North Carolina is a big help. Specifically, a degree from the School of Filmmaking at the North Carolina School of the Arts (NCSA) and experience using Final Cut Pro will definitely open doors.

One of the 16 campuses of the University of North Carolina, NCSA is the only state-supported arts conservatory in the country. The college offers four-year undergraduate programs in dance, drama, music, and theatrical design, as well as filmmaking.

With a faculty whose credits include hundreds of the most popular films of the last several decades, the School of Filmmaking’s curriculum is highly regarded by current and future film professionals. From their freshman year on, students are immersed in the state-of-the-art technology tools and techniques that are the standard in the industry. In the Fall of 2003, all incoming freshmen in the program began working with what Dale Pollock, dean of the School of Filmmaking, sees as the most valuable tool of all: a PowerBook G4 laptop with Final Cut Pro.

“We believe that having the one-to-one laptop initiative with the PowerBook computers takes us a quantum leap forward, in terms of our ability to teach our students digital editing,” says Pollock. “Now, all students in effect will have their own editing lab on their computers. Having the laptops really liberates the students, the faculty, and the curriculum in a way that we’re very excited about.”

Faculty and Students Sold on Final Cut Pro
Several years ago, faculty members were looking for a low-cost alternative to Avid systems for the completion of senior films. Steve Gonzales, a member of NCSA’s faculty and an alumnus of the School of Filmmaking, had used Final Cut Pro to cut “George Washington,” one of the most critically acclaimed films of 2000. Based on the success of that project, says Drew Detweiler, NCSA’s postproduction manager, the school’s faculty decided that Final Cut Pro was up to the challenge of editing film footage in digital video format that could accurately be sent back to film.

Final Cut Pro is the only nonlinear editing package that makes it easy for filmmakers to shoot film, convert their footage to digital video for editing, and then (using Apple Cinema Tools on their Macs) make the telecine-process conversion back to film. Also, the product seemed ideal for the type of constant use that is the norm at NCSA. Says Detweiler, “Our editing labs are open 24/7, so kids can come in and work whenever they want. We had several Avid systems, but we had problems with them crashing all the time, and it was ridiculously expensive to replace them. We bought some Power Mac computers with Final Cut Pro five years ago, and they’ve been running ever since. Our students have produced over 1000 projects on those systems, and not a single one has died.”

Laptops Create Equitable Access
NCSA is a fairly small school. And with just over 240 slots in the School of Filmmaking, competition to stay in the program is fierce. All students are required to complete a juried portfolio presentation at the end of each year. In some instances, up to 20 percent of the participants are not invited to return the following year.

Naturally, getting the time needed on the school’s desktop editing systems to complete film projects has always been crucial. Detweiler says that requiring all students to purchase a PowerBook G4 laptop has greatly relieved the pressure.