LOS ANGELES (Reuters): Actors George Clooney has joined forces with Los Angeles education officials to open a school to train teens in skills like cinematography, lighting, visual effects, and other Hollywood jobs.
Along with Clooney, Kerry Washington and Don Cheadle also joined forces with Los Angeles education officials to open a school, which is due to launch in 2022.
The school is aimed at diversifying the entertainment industry by providing a path to well-paid jobs that have few formal entryways. “Our aim is to better reflect the diversity of our country,” Clooney said in a statement. “It means creating high school programs that teach young people about cameras, and editing and visual effects and sound and all the career opportunities that this industry has to offer,” he added.
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The Roybal School of Film and Television Production will be housed within the Edward R. Roybal Learning Center in the city’s predominantly Latino Westlake district. Teachers will have access to movie industry professionals, while students will get practical training along with academic programs and internships.
Clooney, Washington, Cheadle, Mindy Kaling, Eva Longoria, and a trio of producers will sit on the board and will cover about 20 percent of the initially expected budget of about $7 million, Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Austin Buetner told the New York Times.
Hollywood has sought to increase the number of people of color in front of and behind the camera since the #OscarsSoWhite scandal in 2016. Those efforts got a further boost last year when the Black Lives Matter protests fueled a wider debate about racism in American institutions.
