Valencia Community College
Film Production Technology
Ralph Clemente : Program Director
For more info : 407 582-2413
Or on the web at valenciacc.edu
Driving up to the Valencia East Campus, I really did not know what to expect from the Film Production Technology department. I entered the building and immediately noticed the movie posters, framed articles, and cement-blocked star signatures and footprints. I soon met the Program Director, Ralph Clemente, and spent the next three and a half hours learning.
Mr. Clemente has been teaching film in Florida for 25 years. I’ve heard many a snide remark from independent moviemakers that “Those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach.” I think they should add to that statement, “Those who do both, are Ralph Clemente.”
Before spearheading the design of the Film Production Technology program at Valencia, Clemente taught at the University of Miami film school. Film school, as Clemente put it, is traditionally the business of “inspiring dreamers.” Not that there is anything wrong with that…in fact, Clemente so inspired one former student, David Nutter, that when Nutter went on to win an Emmy for directing the HBO mini-series “Band of Brothers,” he named Clemente as the person most responsible for his success. He shared the Emmy with Clemente, and the certificate hangs proudly in Clemente’s office.
But not everyone can be an award winning director. Fortunately, under the title of “director” in any given movie, there can be up to one hundred and seventy other names. Cinematographer, grip, gaffer, set designer, and many others contribute to the success of the final production. Clemente designed Valencia’s program from the ground-up, and it is set in two parts. The first part is where students learn through classroom education the academic and technical core, or foundation for the next part.
The next part, the advanced film program, takes students through film lighting, sound, editing, gripping, camera techniques, and production. All of the courses are taught by working professionals, not by teachers who have not even seen a film set since 1978. Tricks and tips that these professionals may have taken ten years to learn are immediately passed on to students.
The advanced program is a total of ten months, broken down into classes and productions. Classes are three week segments, five hours per day, five days per week. Productions are usually twelve hour days, for the duration of the production. Students can expect to work on two or three music videos, short movies, and feature length movies during the course of their education.
Valencia’s productions are not simply “student films” that end up
beside workout videos in the TV cabinets of the students’ parents.
They are commercially viable productions which the students
worked side-by-side with real industry professionals to create.
Since the program’s inception in 1988, Valencia has turned out
an impressive twenty-two feature films, including
“The First of May,” (1999) which still airs on HBO.
The list of awards and achievements of Valencia’s productions
would take up quite a few pages, but a couple of other notables
are “Killing Time,” which was accepted into the 2002 Sundance
Film Festival, “The Fountain,” a short movie by the up-and-coming
Moser Brothers which generated a ton of praise in film festivals,
and “Florida City,” an incredible feature length film shot with a
million dollar budget.
If you ever have a chance to watch “Florida City,” I highly recommend you do so. The film is absolutely amazing. It is a drama which takes place in a small town in Florida, just days before the attack on Pearl Harbor. If I had to guess the budget without knowing, I would have bet it was $50 million. I recently had the opportunity to watch it and it is by far the best movie I have seen in years.
The equipment owned and used by Valencia is nothing short of amazing. To make real movies, you need real equipment, and the $1.5 million production package used by Valencia is definitely real equipment. The school is the only one in the world with a $100, 000 generator.
Somehow, Clemente has managed to build a program that puts the word “practical” into a dream-filled career choice. Practical not only for the students, but for the school, and for the movies they produce.
It seems impossible, but everybody wins.
OK, let’s say I am a producer and I have a budget of $50, 000 (past productions have been anywhere from $10, 000 to $1.2 million). If I send my script to Clemente and he accepts it, I now have the use of a 60 person highly skilled and trained crew, $1.5 million worth of equipment, and can put that money into the rest of the production. This could be in the form of more elaborate sets, costumes, established actors, and other luxuries that would not otherwise be possible. I would not have to buy or rent the equipment and editing bays that can normally run easily into the tens of thousands of dollars.
His students then work immediately on a real production, one they can put on their resume. Instead of working on a five minute short movie that one of their classmates thought up, they are working on a movie that could be in theaters or in the video store next year.
The school takes in return a percentage of what the movie may make in the future. This percentage will go toward new equipment and scholarships for future students. Plus, the credibility of bona fide successful productions under the school’s belt no doubt attracts scores of future students.
There are many people who have great ideas. There are far fewer who take them beyond the idea phase, let alone plan and realize them to fruition. Ralph Clemente has selflessly and effectively realized his idea that will benefit thousands of people in this industry for years to come.
