ZON Lab starts in Austin

15 Jun 2010

Eleven participants started a two-month filmmaking program on June 3, 2010.

The first ZON Intensive Script Development Lab commenced at UT Austin on June 3, 2010. The eleven winning participants, from universities across Portugal, arrived in Austin a few days prior and moved into a campus residence hall. On their first day, students met with Sharon Strover, UT Austin|Portugal Digital Media program director, Karen Gustafson, program manager, and Christopher McConnell, techncial assistant to the Portugal project and doctoral student. After a Mexican lunch, the students boarded an amphibious vehicle known as a duck and toured central Austin on the roads and around Lady Bird Lake. After a day of orientations and meetings with instructors Richard Lewis, Stuart Kelban, and Steve Mims, the students started their two-month program.

Twenty hours of course meetings per week, in addition to assigned reading, writing assignments, and production exercises pack the students' schedules. The courses cover several primary areas of filmmaking, including scriptwriting, producing, and filming. Students are enthusiastic, despite the heavy workload. Ana Raquel Martins of the Escola Superior de Comunicação Social said she is “absolutely delighted by the (huge) amount of readings and hands-on exercises [she's] been assigned. It’s like diving into a bowl of cinema for two months.” Another participant, Danilo Nascimento of Universidade de Aveiro, plans to record his experiences on a blog and is also enthusiastic, calling the program “outstanding.”

Article below posted on May 15, 2010.

ZON Lab winners prepare to go to Austin

The Portuguese students chosen to participate in the first ZON Intensive Script Development Lab at UT Austin gathered at ZON headquarters on May 7, 2010. They discussed final details before their trip to Texas.
Nuno Cintra Torres (ZON) explained the program for the Lab and how to spend the time in Austin. The students will take part in an intensive two-month scriptwriting course with Richard Lewis and Stuart Kelban, UT Austin professors. Based on projects submitted for the competition, students will develop scripts for their own films. The films will be recorded and post-produced at their respective universities in Portugal.

The students embarking on this first ZON Lab, a partnership between UT Austin and CoLab, are:

• José Azevedo from Universidade do Porto with “Suspended Time"
• Raquel Martins from Escola Superior de Comunicação Social with “Who’s Looking at You"
• Pierre Jézéquel from Escola Superior de Música e Artes do Espectáculo with “Grounded”
• Ricardo Feio from Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema with “A Good Rascal”
• Ana Martins from Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa with “Book of Odds”
• Patrícia Brásia from Universidade da Beira Interior with “Spotlight Me”
• Fábio Veríssimo from Universidade da Beira Interior with “Lights, Camera, Robbery”
• Luís Brás from Universidade Lusófona with “As the Night Falls”
• Susana Neves from Universidade do Minho with “Love Recipe”
• Nuno Castilho from Universidade Católica do Porto with “One Day I Spent the Day Laughing”
• Danilo Nascimento from Universidade de Aveiro with “The Crayon".