The Best of FAME Week 2021
The Los Angeles Film School Spotlight Award at the Hollywood sign
Top Highlights from FAME Week at L.A. Film School
The 3rd Annual FAME Week celebration and Spotlight Awards were a huge success! The annual event showcased some of the biggest names in the entertainment and tech space. Google, Facebook, Roland, and many other companies joined The L.A. Film School during FAME Week to host live gear demos, virtual panels and giveaways. One of the most popular events of FAME Week every year is the gear expo. Students got a chance to win big prize giveaways from some of our event partners including a one-year subscription to the winner’s software package of choice from AVID, a Q50R2 light from Quasar, and a Sony FX3 professional camera kit. Students and alumni also got the chance to win one-of-a-kind Spotlight Awards merch from our student store. Thank you to all the community partners who participated as well as the students and alumni! Here are the top moments of FAME Week 2021 and our Spotlight Awards Ceremony.
PAINT JAM
The virtual Paint Jam battle featured original art submitted by students from The L.A. Film School. Bobby E. won the 2021 Paint Jam for his illustration work “Old Traveler” using Procreate software. All the contestants who submitted original artwork did an amazing job showing their work during our virtual Paint Jam event. Check out all the art showcased at the event on our YouTube channel.
LARS LIVE: FAME WEEK EDITION
This monthly event series is hosted by our Entertainment Business program. LARS Live: FAME Week Edition showcased student artists and creators from all programs. The event streamed live on our L.A. Film School Facebook giving our students the chance to show their music, poetry and art to the online world.
BREAKING DOWN A COMEDY SCRIPT
L.A. Film School instructor Michael McCafferty chatted with comedy writer/director Matt Mazany about comedy scripts for previous sketches. For the live YouTube event, these two film aficionados discussed 5 comedy scripts and the process of shooting the scenes.
Matt Mazany guided us through his time at Funny or Die working on a program called Test Tube, where he worked with a team to shoot a handful of episodes with DJ Faucet. Mazany ran down one of the spoof videos called “Netflix” which is a seduction sketch between two actors in an apartment. The idea for this sketch came from the popularity of Netflix in the mid-2010s.
Mazany explained how he creatively worked on videos with narrators and actors who performed these comedy sketches to create comedy gold. The main writing tip Mazany shared was that if you are going to do a parody, try to be as spot-on as you can. As a comedy writer, Mazany is a big believer in what he calls “direct parody” meaning you create a shot-for-shot remake of something that already exists (i.e. a ridiculous commercial). Watch the full video with Matt Mazany on YouTube.
VIRTUAL GEAR DAY
The 3rd annual Gear Day is always one of our most popular FAME Week events. It’s a special gear expo that gives students an inside look at prominent companies like Sony and AVID’s latest tech and software. The Gear Day included demos from Roland, Sony, Quasar Science and many more!
Virtual Gear Day kicked off with our amazing community partner, Roland Corp! Roland is a top-tier software and instrument manufacturer for music lovers and professional artists who want to make their music sound distinct. Our friend Jim Stout from Roland took us through the product selection that Roland Cloud has to offer for recording engineers. Jim Stout shared a tone of new synthesizers and instruments during the virtual chat. If you are interested in learning about terms specific to the synth world, look no further than The A-to-Z of Synthesizer Terms from Roland.
Watch the full lineup of companies that presented during Gear Day on YouTube.
RECORD PLANT SESSION WITH JEFF BARNES
Jeff Barnes, Record Plant President and 2008 Recording Arts alum (pictured left).
Jeff Barnes is an alum of our Recording School and has flourished in the music industry throughout his career. Before he graduated from the Recording Arts program in 2008, Barnes sent his résumé out to companies in Hollywood and landed a job as a runner at Record Plant. Barnes credits his success with having both live sound and in-studio experience. These elements of sound experience have helped Barnes immensely in his career.
Now, Jeff Barnes is the president of Record Plant, a go-to recording studio for top recording artists. Founded in 1968, Record Plant is best known for being the studio that has created more hits and Grammy-nominated projects than any other studio. Several LARS alumni have gone on to work on multi-Grammy winning and Grammy-nominated projects that were recorded at Record Plant. From Stevie Wonder to Kanye West, Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga, Pharrell Williams, Usher, Christina Aguilera, Madonna, J. Cole, Rihanna, Bruno Mars, Zayn, Justin Bieber, Nikki Minaj the artist roster goes on. Watch the full chat with Jeff Barnes and Joe Byron on YouTube.
3RD ANNUAL SPOTLIGHT AWARDS
The main event, our Spotlight Awards Ceremony, honored six talented alumni who were inducted into the Spotlight Academy Class of 2021. On Thursday, September 2, Angelina Faulkner, Alex M. Ferrufino, Ari Levine, Corey Drake, Daniel Zaidenstadt, and Kevin Atkinson officially became members of the 2021 Spotlight Academy. Watch the entire show hosted by Tammy Elliott, President of The L.A. Film School, and Joe Byron, Alumni Relations Director.