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Training Movie Makers Now a Shenandoah Specialty
Training Movie Makers Now a Shenandoah Specialty
By Leonard Shapiro
There are now 32 film majors at Shenandoah University in Winchester, and virtually every one will have hands-on experience making real movies to be enjoyed by mass audiences by the time they graduate.
A few months ago, The Film Studio at Shenandoah University and Los Angeles-based Capital Arts Entertainment finished off a feature movie called “Miss Valentine.”
It was directed by veteran Hollywood hand Blayne Weaver (6 Month Rule, Weather Girl) and starred, among others, Paris Berelc (Do Revenge), Luke Benward (Life of the Party), Marilu Henner (Taxi) and veteran character actor Enrico Colantoni (Westworld, Veronica Mars).
Made with the Hallmark Channel in mind, it was shot in Winchester at the 2023 Apple Blossom Festival. A number of Shenandoah students were behind and occasionally in front of the camera, working with professionals involved in virtually every aspect of the production.
Paul DiFranco, profiled in ZEST’s summer issue and a 50-year veteran of the entertainment business, has been teaching these film majors since a chance encounter with Shenandoah President Tracy Fitzsimmons 11 years ago, with a Middleburg angle to the story.
DiFranco, 75 and a Bronx, N.Y. native with the accent to prove it, had recently moved to Virginia. He was attending a performance of a Tom Sweitzer play at Shenandoah with his wife Elizabeth Rice, a long time area resident. Sweitzer, founder of A Place To Be, Middleburg’s renowned music therapy program, introduced DiFranco to Fitzsimmons that night.
“I was ready to stop working,” said DiFranco, who had spent the previous 21 years with Universal Studios. “But she said, ‘you should teach!’ My brother Philip had his PHD and taught. My mother was a teacher. So I guess it was my turn to teach.”
It’s a role he obviously relishes, and his filmmaking connections have clearly paid off. Not long after meeting Fitzsimmons, one of those connections, Mike Elliott, also his son’s godfather, called and asked DiFranco, “What the hell are you doing in Virginia?”
“I casually say, ‘I’m starting a film production department at a college, Shenandoah University,’” DiFranco recalled. “He and I worked on over 200 feature films together. After a very short pause, Mike says, ‘Why don’t we make films together -- your students, our money?’ I said, ‘Okay!’”
Elliott founded Capital Arts Entertainment, a major player in making movies and TV shows. He and partner Joe Genier have also helped educate DiFranco’s potential film makers and aspiring actors.
“The first movie we did was Santa Girl,” DiFranco said of the Netflix holiday film released in 2019. “We had 83 kids from Shenandoah working on that. We had a 17-day production schedule, with four weeks of post production. It was a great experience for everyone.”
DiFranco and his students have helped make four feature films, with Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime among the distributors,“with more to come,” he said. “It’s an amazing experience for everyone. These kids come back and say ‘this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.’”
At least 15 program graduates already have gone into the film business, including acting, cinematography, casting, set design and sound production.
“The whole point is employability,” DiFranco added. “My goal is to have my students sit in a job interview with a producer and talk intelligently about that entry level job they’re trying to get.”
So far, it’s clearly been mission accomplished, and definitely “more to come” as well.
