Best Teachers in Entertainment: Film, TV and More

Affonso Beato

Image Credit: Courtesy of Affonso Beato

Art Center College of Design
Pasadena, Ca

The acclaimed director of photography, whose feature credits include collaborations with Pedro Almodovar and Stephen Frears, brings a half-century of filmmaking experience to cinematography courses at Art Center. Among his most important lessons to aspiring DPs: “You serve the project,” he says. “It’s not a matter of imposing your own style and tastes, but to adapt to the requirements of the script and director.” Such insight has helped earn him the college’s Great Teacher Award in 2011, given by a committee of students to a professor that has provided “significant and life-changing contributions towards student learning.”
Robert Bradbrook

Image Credit: Courtesy of Robert Bradbrook

National Film and Television School Beaconsfield
Buckinghamshire, U.K.

As head of animation
at NFTS, Bradbrook has trained students who have gone on to earn Oscar nominations, work for Aardman Animations (“Wallace & Gromit”) and for the past five years, win BAFTAs for British Short Animation, including directing MA student Paloma Baeza and producing MA student Ser En Low for “Poles Apart” this year. Key to nurturing such top talents is encouraging classes to “find their voice in animation,” he says. “Most stories have been heard before, but our films are unique because of how we tell this story, and that can only come from the students and their point of view.”
Ted Braun

Image Credit: Roberto Gomez

MFA USC School of Cinematic Arts
Los Angeles, Ca

Braun’s list of professional accomplishments — he directed the NAACP Image Award-winning documentary “Darfur Now” in 2007 and more recently, “Betting on Zero,” and serves as the Joseph Campbell Endowed Chair in Cinematic Ethics — is as exceptional as his commitment to and belief in his writing students. “We’re fortunate to get the finest students from all over the world,” he says. “It renews my hope that, despite the many forces pulling us apart, our work in cinema and television will bring people together around a shared sense of humanity.”
Zina Camblin

Image Credit: Justin Barbin/Northwestern School of Communication

Northwestern U.
Evanston, Ill.

The driving force and co-coordinator of the university’s new comedy arts module, Camblin teaches her students to pitch, write and produce sitcom pilots, and often accompanies them to set visits, including “Veep” (Julia Louis-Dreyfus and husband Brad Hall are regular donors to the sitcom initiative). She’s also the first professor in many years to focus her teaching on LGBTQIA writers, characters and writing: “The most inspiring part of my work is when I see students step outside of themselves and take risks that reinforce to them that they are capable of doing the very thing that scares them the most.”
David Clawson

Image Credit: Courtesy of David Clawson

Loyola Marymount U.
Los Angeles, Ca

In his first semester at LMU, Clawson, who serves as clinical assistant professor of screenwriting at the university’s School of Film and Television, had a teaching experience that he says “hooked me for good” as an educator. The novelist and screenwriter was working with a student whose script was strong in structure, but lacked character and execution. After a long notes discussion, he found that her piece had been transformed to such an extent than an unexpected plot twist brought him to tears. “Pride is not a word I’ve ever felt comfortable using in relation to my own work, but to hers, it’s simply what I felt,” he says.
Gina Kim

Image Credit: Courtesy of Gina Kim

UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television
Los Angeles, Ca

An accomplished author and filmmaker whose virtual reality project, “Bloodless,” received the Venice Film Festival’s first award for virtual reality story in 2017, Kim brings a keen understanding of the future of entertainment technology; she is developing a VR series on transnational violence against women, and the importance of maintaining “the intellectual development of filmmaking” to bring new forms of communicating their perspective to these mediums. “The industry changes almost daily,” she says. “But the filmmaker’s vision and how s/he sees the world has to lead the way.”
Jim McCampbell

Image Credit: Courtesy of Jim McCampbell

Ringling College of Art and Design
Sarasota, Fla.

During McCampbell’s two decades as head of Ringling’s computer animation department, its enrollment has doubled and 13 of its animated short films have earned Student Academy Awards, while more than 40 of his graduates worked on Oscar winning and nominated projects in 2017, including “Coco.” He has also authored a BFA major in virtual reality development and serves as chair of the game art & virtual reality development program. “My charge is to design and deliver a well-structured pathway to success,” he says. “[For students], theirs is to throw themselves into that experience with every fiber of their being.”
Andra Reeve-Rabb

Image Credit: Courtesy of SCAD/Justin Chan

Savannah College of Art and Design
Savannah, Ga.

As SCAD’s dean of entertainment arts, Reeve-Rabb drew on her experience as director of CBS primetime casting in New York to develop a project-based model for the school’s degree programs, which allows for collaboration between disciplines that’s similar to how major film and TV productions operate. In doing so, SCAD has become the only university with Emmy-winning, student-produced sitcoms and its own casting office, which has placed 250 students and alumni in film and stage projects. SCAD grads have a 98% job placement rate, more than twice the national average. “Students come in with a passion,” she says. “We focus and fine-tune their passion to prepare them for work across creative careers.”
Ambrose Respicio

Image Credit: Louise Flores

Studio School Los Angeles
Los Angeles, Ca

Choreographer and dance instructor Ambrose Respicio brings more than just insight and experience to his classes at Studio School (formerly Relativity School). He nurtures both the technical and emotional aspects of the aspiring professional dancer. “It is my mission to refine and inspire the next generation of performers,” says Respicio, who also performs with Lady Gaga and is the new choreographer for the U.S. Rhythmic Gymnastics team. “It is important to me to lead by example and inspire forward thinking.”
Susan Solt

Image Credit: Brad Beckman

UC Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, Ca

As dean of UC Santa Cruz’s arts division, Solt has brought together a nationally ranked film and digital media department and continued UCSC’s half-century tradition of socially conscious, cutting-edge study through unique programs like the MFA in social documentation. She’s also broken new ground with Artist21, the Arts Division’s initiative in creative entrepreneurship, which supports diversity through internships in the entertainment and tech industries. “We aim to empower and inspire students to explore new ways to practice art, engage audiences and find new spaces where artists can both thrive and change the world,” she says.

Affonso Beato

Robert Bradbrook

Ted Braun

Zina Camblin

David Clawson

Gina Kim

Jim McCampbell

Andra Reeve-Rabb

Ambrose Respicio

Susan Solt