Filmmakers rolls on after summer deficit

After a shaky summer, the cameras are now rolling better than ever at Pittsburgh Filmmakers.

Pittsburgh Filmmakers, a nonprofit organization that offers for-credit film and production classes to Pitt students, hit a revenue deficit of $754,868 in May because of lost income and special project spending.

In response, John Cantine, director of the Pittsburgh Filmmakers school, said the organization laid off 20 employees. Filmmakers, which is located on Melwood Avenue, also canceled seven of 24 classes it offered this summer — according to its website.

Now, though, with an influx of students and tuition money, Filmmakers will again offer filmmaking, photography and studio arts classes to about 130 Pitt students. Looking to add revenue after the setback, the organization is also offering short classes to the public and is attempting to increase the number of classes it can offer to Pitt students for credit, according to Cantine. Pitt students can attend class at Filmmakers through the College of General Studies or the College of Arts and Sciences. When they do, Pitt transfers the money the student would have paid for a class at Pitt to Filmmakers.

Filmmakers pulls in more than 50 percent of its revenue from tuition, according to Cantine. During the summer months, that revenue stream dries up, which was part of the reason for the layoffs. Pitt spokesperson John Fedele would not say how much the school pays Filmmakers in tuition each year, but Dorinda Sankey, director of administration at Filmmakers, said the organization pulled in a total of $481,929 in tuition from nine Pittsburgh colleges and universities during the 2014-2015 school year.

Including this semester, Filmmakers usually caps Pitt enrollment at 130 to 150 students per semester, which is its current enrolment.

“From May to September, we live on what’s left over, which is always an issue,” Cantine said.

To avoid the layoffs, Filmmakers tried cutting costs and increased its line of credit, according to Cantine. Filmmakers asked 12 full-time and eight part-time employees to take a furlough for the summer on June 2, Sankey said, anticipating they’d come back in the fall.

Unlike years past, however, Filmmakers had to cover an above average number of one-time costs this year, for things such as broken air conditioners. The repair costs led to an inability to make payroll, according to Cantine. 

“It just turned out to be this perfect storm,” Cantine said.

Since the beginning of this month, nearly all 20 of the employees that left in June have returned. The financial situation at Filmmakers is returning to normalcy, although $321,101 is still in deprecation, Sankey said.

To avoid layoffs next summer, Filmmakers is initiating a variety of new classes. These will include one-day, six-week and 14-week courses open to the public on introductory topics like photography, Adobe Photoshop and film editing, Cantine said.

Students cannot receive credit for these classes, as they will be shorter than a semester.

Currently, Pitt’s film studies program requires film majors to take a production class at Filmmakers. Students can count up to five classes, including Cinematography and Directing Actors, at Filmmakers toward the film studies major, according to Pitt professor Robert Clift, who works closely with the organization.

According to Clift, he and Cantine are working to expand the number of classes students can take at Filmmakers to seven or eight, letting students spend more time behind a camera or in a production lab and allowing Filmmakers to receive more money annually in tuition. With the expansion, Pitt wouldn’t increase the enrollment cap, but would let the same students take more classes per year, according to Clift. 

The school at Filmmakers offers a sound stage, a screening theater, an equipment rental office and multiple editing offices.

For Pitt film students, Filmmakers’ rebound means they’ll still be able leave the confines of the traditional classroom. Brandi Williams, a sophomore film studies and chemistry major, took Motion Picture Fundamentals at Filmmakers last fall, where she got to create and direct her own short films.

“For many of us, that was our first opportunity to create productions of our own,” Williams said.

In Motion Picture Fundamentals, Williams created a music video for Vance Joy’s “Riptide,” in which she featured a classmate and shot Downtown.

“The classes required at Pitt are very essential in the analysis of film,” Williams said. “But [they don’t] give you the opportunity to produce films.”

The potential increase in class options within the film studies major will make strides toward bridging that gap between analysis and production, Clift said.

Nancy Yim, a sophomore biology major, took Black and White Photography at Filmmakers last fall. She said taking an off-campus class exposed her to “more interesting” people and places to photograph.

“You have more freedom to express and find your photographic style in ways that do not always include streets bustling with college students or newly renovated buildings,” Yim said.