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Payroll and production management firm Media Services presented the Media Services Film Production Award at NYU’s First Run Film Festival on Thursday night. Media Services President and CEO Greg Pickert was on hand to present the $5,000 award to Isabella Wing-Davey, a third-year student in NYU’s graduate film producing program. The award is part of a $100,000 endowment from Media Services to the NYU Tisch School of the Arts Kanbar Institute of Film & Television.
The endowment and award represent Media Services’ commitment to fostering film education for the filmmakers of tomorrow, particularly those on a producing track.
“We are thrilled to be presenting this award to a deserving third year student in the producing program at NYU,” said Pickert, who presented the award to Wing-Davey during NYU’s First Run Festival at the Cantor Film Center. “We always welcome the opportunity to interact with up-and-coming filmmakers, whether it is in a student setting such as this or at any of our in-house seminars.”
“We want to thank Media Services for its extraordinarily generous grant, which will help more students pursue careers in producing,” said NYU Graduate Film Program Chair, John Tintori. “I cannot express how much this means to us and our students.
The Media Services Film Production Award is presented annually to a third year student for outstanding producing work during their course of studies. After deliberation and review of students’ work, the graduate program awards committee chose Ms. Wing-Davey from what they noted was a strong pool of producer applicants.
“One of the things I’ve really valued about being in this program has been the opportunity to develop a multitude of skills,” said Wing-Davey, “through development, production, financing, sales/distribution, festival planning and packaging.
Wing-Davey intends to use her award to further the feature film projects she has in the works, including a Chilean/European co-production with a fellow student and Flood, a feature film she is developing with writer/director Katy Scoggin which has already received a Sundance/Sloan Commissioning grant.
“We know that without essential producing and financial services, many of the greatest movies in the world might never have seen the light of a projector,” said Pickert in presenting the award. “Even on student films, crafts services cost money. But it takes more than money to make a great film. A producer who has the passion to shepherd a film to its highest expression is like a guardian angel on the set.”
