Grad Writes Script for Success

Come Saturday (May 15), David Hall will join his classmates in enjoying the rarified pageantry of commencement, with its attendant ceremony, speechmaking and music. On Monday (May 17), he'll get back to work as another member of the New Orleans film and video industry.

Hall, who is graduating with degrees in communication and sociology, has worked since January for the local production company Horizon Entertainment. The fact that he needed to take only two courses his final semester has allowed him to work full time as post-production coordinator in charge of managing Horizon's vast resources of digital media.

While he has long targeted a career in film and video, Hall, a native of Albuquerque, N.M., couldn't have guessed that he'd snag his first job before graduation and that it would be in New Orleans.

"The immediate instinct for a lot of people is to start looking to one of the coasts, New York or L.A.," said Hall. "I was able to build great contacts and have opportunities to start my career here."

His interest in film took him in his junior year to the Czech Republic, where he studied at the Film and Television School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. While there, Hall and two friends made a short 16 mm film, Playboys, a coming-of-age story about two brothers who discover a secret about their mother.

Hall worked on the script, which was eventually translated into Czech and performed by native actors. He also did the bulk of the camera work and shared the duties of editor.

This spring, the film was accepted by the Short Film Corner, a venue for student and amateur films organized by the Cannes Film Festival, which opened this week.

Asked if he would be traveling to France, Hall said, it was a "toss up."

"The festival starts the weekend of graduation," he said. "Besides, I'm working full time."