No Studios and Marquette University are partnering on a new program this year designed to boost the careers of aspiring local filmmakers.
The organizations announced they will establish the Emerging Filmmaker Fellowship, which will provide mentorship, work space, equipment and funding for two filmmakers in its inaugural year.
No Studios, a creative arts hub founded by Oscar-winning filmmaker and Milwaukee native John Ridley, opened in October 2018 in the former Pabst Brewery building in downtown Milwaukee. The studio includes offices, shared working spaces and a screening room, and its tenants include Milwaukee Film, the Milwaukee Filmmaker Alliance, 371 Productions, Custom Reality Services, the UW-Milwaukee Department of Film, Independent Studios, Media Circus International, gener8tor and Marquette.
Emerging Filmmaker Fellows will receive a $2,500 stipend, shared workspace at the Marquette office in No Studios, a one-year membership to No Studios, and access to Diederich College of Communication production spaces and filmmaking equipment, including a TV studio, green screen studio, editing facilities and sound recording spaces.
Each fellow will be expected to produce a final cut of a short film, feature film or web-based series by spring 2020. They will also deliver two public talks about their project at Marquette University and hold a work-in-progress screening and regularly interact with Marquette University students, the university said.
“Collaborating with No Studios is a win-win for Marquette University’s Diederich College of Communication and for Milwaukee’s creative community,” said Joseph Brown, assistant professor of digital media and performing arts at Marquette and coordinator of the Emerging Filmmaker Fellowship program. “We’ll be giving Marquette students access to filmmakers who can serve as mentors and role models, and we’ll be providing support to fellows through office and production space and the support of our faculty filmmakers. The films created by these filmmaker fellows will enrich our local arts landscape and further discourse on topics of importance to our region.”
The two fellowships available in 2019 include an open fellowship for a filmmaker working in any genre and a social justice fellowship for a filmmaker working on a Milwaukee-based social issues documentary.
“Establishing the Emerging Filmmaker Fellowship program will help support the careers of aspiring filmmakers from the greater Milwaukee region, cultivating greater depth and diversity within our local arts culture,” said Lisa Caesar, chief operating officer at No Studios. “Partnering with Marquette University helps introduce a whole new generation of filmmakers to the No Studios creative arts hub and our vast network of connections with producers, artists, filmmakers and other creative professionals around the country.”
The 2019 fellowships, which are given to filmmakers who over over 18 and live in the greater Milwaukee area, will begin in April and run through the spring of 2020. Applications are available online.
