Clooney launches film skills school in Los Angeles to boost diversity in movie industry
GEORGE CLOONEY is launching a high school to teach Los Angeles teenagers film skills after being inspired by a similar project in London.
The initiative is the latest effort by Hollywood to increase diversity and will focus on skills including editing, operating film cameras and creating special effects. Its aim is to create opportunities for young people from low-income backgrounds in an industry that often does not have structured entry points, instead relying on personal relationships and family ties. Clooney was inspired following a dinner conversation with the British film producer Eric Fellner, co-chairman of Working Title Films.
He is one of the founders of the London Screen Academy, a state-funded sixth-form college in Islington, which trains teenagers in behind-the-camera skills.
The LSA was founded in 2018 to create a “level playing field” for London youngsters. Teachers at the new school in Los Angeles will be helped by film industry professionals and there will be practical training and internships.
The Roybal School of Film and Television Production is in the predominantly Hispanic area of Westlake. It will open in the autumn of 2022, initially with 120 pupils, and have an annual budget of $7 million (£5 million), some of which will be covered by the board.
It will be a magnet school which means pupils from across the Los Angeles Unified School District can attend.
The school district has 650,000 pupils, over 80 per cent of whom are Hispanic or black, and the vast majority are from low-income households. Schools have been closed for over a year during the pandemic.
Hollywood has been under pressure to increase diversity since the OscarsSoWhite campaign began on social media five years ago. Next year’s Golden Globe Awards have been cancelled after it was revealed there was not a single black representative on the 86-strong voting committee.
Clooney told the Los Angeles Times: “Everyone is recognising that the industry needs to do better.”
He added: “It doesn’t make sense that Los Angeles of all places, ground zero for Hollywood, isn’t more of a part of this movement to get more underrepresented people into the pipeline.”