The Back room
Since we launched the Back Room Project in 2020, we've been thrilled with the wonderful films and music resulting from this collaboration between the students at the University of Georgia's Grady College and the Jerusalem Academy of Music & Dance. Now we're delighted to share a taste of 3 films whose makers and composers participated in the 2021-22 Back Room (we can't show you the entire films yet, because they are still on the festival circuit!).
Click on the links below to a preview of the results of three of these collaborations: Little Drummer Boy by filmmaker Sheldyn (Sam) Moore with music by Tom Zylberstein; Stay by filmmaker Elias Saliba, music by Zohar Elnatan; and Breach by filmmaker Nalani Dowling and music by Hadassa Daniels.
We'll post the entire films as soon as festival season is over, so check back periodically for that! In the meantime, enjoy these trailers:
Little Drummer Boy
filmmaker Sheldyn (Sam) Moore with music by Tom Zylberstein
Stay
filmmaker Elias Saliba
music by Zohar Elnatan
Breach
filmmaker Nalani Dowling
music by Hadassa Daniels
When Covid travel restrictions grounded us in 2020, we turned to the virtual world, launching online screenings of Israeli and American student films and hosting a super-successful online masterclass on film scoring with The Jerusalem Academy of music and Dance (JAMD). This led us to a eureka moment: How great would it be to pair American film students with Israeli music composition students to create original scores for their senior capstone films! Thus was born The Back Room, a joint initiative with JAMD: In November 2020, The Back Room kicked off its first virtual meeting between film students at the University of Georgia's Grady College of Entertainment and Media Studies and students in the Masters of Composition program chaired by Amit Weiner at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. The first year of pairing film students from UGA's Grady College with composition students at JAMD was so successful that participation doubled in 2021-22. We've been delighted to host 4 master classes with Peter Golub, Jeff Beal, Mitchell Cannold, and Emilio Schenker for participating students. And on July 27, we hosted a live Zoom conversation with 3 pairs of the film and music students and our extra-special guest, composer George S. Clinton. Before you watch and listen to that conversation, have a look the video we made about the Back Room, below!
Now you can watch our July 27 Conversation on Creative Cross-Cultural Collaboration with 3 sets of student filmmakers and composers in the US and Israel! Paired through our Back Room Project, these emerging filmmakers from the University of Georgia's Grady College andcomposition students from the Jerusalem Academy of Music & Dance, have been collaborating for several months on original scores for their films. We discussed their work together and watched short clips from their films: Sheldyn Moore 's "Little Drummer Boy", with music by Tom Zylberstein; Eli Saliba's "Stay", with music by Zohar Elnatan, and Jackson Mulkey's "Let Go", scored by Neil Pessach. And we were super-fortunate to have a special guest, composer George S. Clinton, who has scored over 100 films and has won multiple awards, who shared his expertise with the students and gave us all detailed insight into how music and film intertwine to make great storytelling!
On April 12, composer Peter Golub, whose career travels between theatre, concert and film music (including The Laramie Project, Songs My Brothers Taught Me and Frozen River and, with James Newton Howard, The Great Debaters) gave a presentation on music and film from the composer's perspective.
Peter Golub
On November 4, producer Mitchell Cannold (whose credits include Dirty Dancing; Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey; Marvin Hamlisch: What He Did For Love) gave an online lecture to the group on the importance of music in film, from the point of view of the producer.
Mitchell Cannold
On November 11, we switched that perspective with our special guest Jeff Beal, 5-time Emmy Award winning composer (whose credits include House of Cards, Blackfish, HBO's Monk and many more), gave a class in music in film and other visual media from the point of view of the composer.
Jeff Beal
On November 18, director and producer Emilio Schenker, gave an online lecture to the group on the importance of music in film, from the point of view of both a director and a producer.
Emilio Schenker
Although these are master classes for the film and music students at Grady College and The Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, we welcome a limited audience.
If you're interested in joining the class as an observer, please email wendyrevel@backstorygroup.org
With the participation of
