University of California, Los Angeles
For screenwriting and production of science and technology films by top film students
This is one of a trio of three-year renewal grants from the nation's leading film schools to continue awarding screenwriting and production awards for science and technology films and to hold an annual science and technology seminar. Many producers are now combing through all the Sloan student winners for new scripts. Our 2008 Sloan Summit, which showcased the work of student winners, attracted executives from the major studios and independent film companies. University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), which had some earlier issues due to personnel changes, has made great strides during the past three years. In the last cycle, UCLA turned in the best performance of any Sloan film school, including two outstanding scripts (The Magic Pill; The Ten Commandments of Leo Szilard). Several Sloan films UCLA submitted to festivals across the country have won awards and one production (Death Strip) took home a Student Emmy. UCLA is now next in line should we support another first feature production grant. While UCLA has increased its film production grants to offset rising production costs and added a modest stipend for more science advisors, it has compensated for these increases with other cuts so there is no net budget increase from 2006.