Daniel Roebuck’s latest role: Nurturing tomorrow’s filmmakers
Since he started his nonprofit entertainment company A Channel of Peace two years ago, Daniel Roebuck has been on a mission to create uplifting, faith-based films.
Now the veteran actor and director is working to find and nurture tomorrow’s filmmakers.
A Channel of Peace’s Young Filmmakers Program will get underway on Sept. 13 for freshmen and sophomores at Bethlehem Catholic High School.
It’s the latest piece to Roebuck’s nonprofit company.
“We have always had an education component,” said Roebuck, a Becahi graduate, of his nonprofit. “This is something we have always wanted to do.”
The extra-curricular program will seek to teach students about film appreciation. But this isn’t intended for students to just sit and watch the latest movies. The program is about developing tomorrow’s filmmakers, showing them from the ground up how movies are made.
“We want to go back to the language of film,” Roebuck said.
Roebuck has had a more than three-decade-long career in Hollywood, starring in hit TV shows such as “Lost” and “Matlock” as well as major films such as “The Fugitive.” But it’s his faith-based films that have brought him home to the Lehigh Valley, including “Getting Grace” and two A Channel of Peace films, “Lucky Louie” and “The Hail Mary.” (Both are in post-production.)
Despite all that experience, Roebuck admits he’s not an educator. That’s where Diana Tice comes in.
The teacher, who heads the school’s theater department, will lead the filmmakers’ program along with Roebuck and a staff of professionals. Tice expects that the new program will be extra-curricular for about two years, but the goal is that eventually, it becomes an elective course for juniors and seniors at the high school.
She said she sees the program as another way for her students to shine.
“What I would like them to take away from it is that talent comes in all sorts of forms,” Tice said. “If you have creativity you have ways of shining and expanding your horizons. You have a way of expressing yourself. This is something they can take and run with and grow from the experience. This program will give them a tool to look at the world.”
Roebuck said the hope is that by the end of the school year they have films of their own to show.
“I hope that we actually have a little hand in pushing along future filmmakers, who will take my lead and considering making positive,