With theaters shuttered and streaming options growing seemingly by the day, film and television have been impacted by the pandemic unlike any other industry. Changes that were thought to be a decade away have arrived early and been widely accepted. And it's highly probable more chaos awaits in 2021.
While this uncertainty has generated a great deal of angst, it has also accelerated innovation and created numerous unexpected opportunities. The business has perhaps never been more driven by its audience and the data that tracks and predicts their behaviors and tastes. In this discussion, two Georgetown alumni (and former classmates) discussed their take on what the current environment means for new graduates seeking to enter the industry.
The webinar series is sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Global Engagement in collaboration with the Office of the Provost.
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Diana Williams (B'89) is an award-winning producer and founder of the newly launched Kinetic Energy Entertainment. She produced the critically acclaimed feature film Our Song (directed by Jim McKay, starring Kerry Washington) and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. She held the position of franchise producer/creative development within the Star Wars universe at Lucasfilm. Most recently Williams was the executive vice president of content at Madison Wells Media. The chairperson of a newly-formed board for the Peabody Awards, she is also on the advisory committee for U.K.-based organizations Future of Film and the Royal Shakespeare Company and on the board of Diverso (dedicated to empowering the underrepresented storytellers of the next generation).
Stu Pollard (B'89) (moderator) runs Lunacy Productions and has produced nearly two dozen indie films in his career. One of his most recent efforts, the thriller Rust Creek, spent two weeks in Netflix's top ten in December 2020. It was loosely based on an experience Pollard had as a senior at Georgetown. As a longtime film educator, he just spun off the online educational platform LunacyU. He is the 1989 class co-chair and serves on GU's Board of Regents.