DePaul Cinema School Grows Thanks To Hands-On Partnership With Cinespace
DePaul University is more than holding its own against more renowned film schools in New York City and Los Angeles thanks to its burgeoning partnership with Cinespace Chicago, the booming set of film studios on the West Side.
DePaul is in the fourth year of what's become a 10-year lease to rent a studio at Cinespace, recently adding a second sound stage that can be partitioned to create a third.
John Corba, director of DePaul's Cinespace Studios, calls the complex "the lab," and says its emphasis on hands-on instruction in cinematography, lighting and other technical aspects of the industry has enabled the school to act as a "pipeline" to fill positions on the many commercial productions being filmed there, including Fox's "Empire" and Dick Wolf's cottage industry of Chicago-based series for NBC that began with "Chicago Fire."
The studio has 30 stages, including DePaul's two, and all of them are fully booked.
"If I had the space, I could add probably another four TV shows right now," said Alexander Pissios, founder and chief executive officer of Cinespace.
The Cinespace partnership has led to dramatic growth in the School of Cinematic Arts, which Corba said has expanded "exponentially" in about 15 years from "a few hundred" students to more than 1,200, making it the fastest-growing major at the university and the largest outside of the business program.
The key, Corba said, is "we're a pipeline," providing technical workers to fill the growing number of TV productions at Cinespace, "sometimes even before they graduate."
Pissios said a show like "Chicago Fire"
spends $7-$10 million an episode. Multiply that by 24 episodes a season and three other NBC series and three other Fox shows shooting at Cinespace, and it adds up quickly.
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https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/2017...arts-cinespace