film school

Director Ryan Coogler and composer Ludwig Göransson met in film school at USC.

For Saxon, who first wanted to become an illustrator before going to film school, his choice of mixing puppets with other mediums in his work comes from a desire to make the viewer rethink what’s possible on-screen.

It’s an impulse that goes back to his time in film school, where Saxon began crafting maquettes of characters, which turned into learning how to do stop-motion animation and eventually into making puppets and prosthetics.

Since the 2008 release of his feature film, Rivera has stayed busy: winning a MacArthur Genius Grant and cultivating the next generation of Latino filmmakers by launching Borderland Studios at the Sidney Poitier New American Film School.

“It was, ‘Why don’t I see if, with my photography, I can find something here which is a different perspective from what is happening in the film?’ ” says Lanthimos, who learned basic photography skills at film school in his native Athens, and snapped publicity shots for his early Greek features when there was no money for set photographers.