"I started the Columbia Film Program an amateur short story writer with very little knowledge of what it actually meant to be a director. In fact, I’ll never forget sitting in Bette Gordon’s Directing I class my first year, looking around the 360-degree room, wondering: How do you know where to put the camera? The possibilities overwhelmed me! But by the end of my first year, with the help of the wonderful faculty, I learned how to go about making that choice.
It’s but one of the many questions that I asked during my time at the School of the Arts. The program taught me how to answer those questions to the best of my ability. From Tom Kalin illuminating the grammar of cinematic language, to Lenore DeKoven and June Stein illustrating how to break down a scene and communicate with actors, to Katherine Dieckmann teaching me screenplay structure and character development, to Brendon Ward imparting techniques for how to rewrite a script, my time at Columbia gave me the practical skill, knowledge and overall strength, confidence and discipline necessary to brave exploring my voice, finding my process and going out into the world to will my first feature film into fruition. I have no doubt that I wouldn’t be where I am now if it weren’t for the program."
