University of North Carolina School of the Arts recently hosted a conference on the technology and innovation behind a successful arts industry.  More than 500 students, professors, and community members collaborated with a variety of arts professionals from around the world for the first Entertainment Innovation Conference. 

More than twenty students sat in School of the Art’s Costume, Wig, and Makeup studio as Jenny Knott, the Paint Production Manager at Rosco shared tricks of the trade.  Rosco provides those in the entertainment industry with everything from flame-resistant stage paint to lighting equipment and fog machines.  Knott showed the students how to achieve various visual effects with a variety of Rosco paints she brought with her.  To test these ideas, students created their own elaborate masks. 

Crystal Heckert is a second year graduate student in the costume, technology, and production program.  She described the products that she and other students were using.  There is a crystal gel, which “creates a really flexible bond” and “dries a little shiny.”  She displayed a mask which “is just the fabric with a crystal coat which is a way that we can get this kind of pliability.  So this would be able to be adhered to the face without any heaviness.  So it looks really light, but it’s still got some structure.”     

Meanwhile, over in the Film Village, the professionals of ZFX Flying Effects were showing off the equipment they use to help Peter Pan, the cast of Wicked, and even Taylor Swift fly onstage.  Others were listening to Disney employees discuss business practices or watching Cirque du Soleil Artists recreate the makeup from their shows. 

For students who will be entering the entertainment job market in the next several years, sessions like these are invaluable.  Jennifer Collins Ritter works in New York with Davenport Theatrical Enterprises and graduated from School of the Arts with an MFA in Performing Arts Management.      

She says, “To have a conference like this where you’re getting an opportunity to meet all of these people in the industry, really get a sense of how things work, and be a part of it, and also giving the school an opportunity to show what kind of skills and education their students are getting, is going to be something that’s going to benefit these students for a very long time.”   

Jennifer enjoys working with other School of the Arts graduates.  She says they share a collaborative spirit and a mutual understanding of one another’s disciplines.  She gets the opportunity to work with other alumni fairly often too as the employment rate out of the School of Design and Production is 95%.

While the Conference focused on students, the message of the master classes and lectures included was not limited to those in the arts.  Joe Tilford, Dean of the School of Design and Production at UNCSA, knows that some of the themes and ideas that were presented are universal. 

“Any business person from any company that needs to innovate could come to these sessions and see a parallel for how they should innovate because they’re going to be hearing from people who innovate as the way they do business.”