Dubai's budding film makers get a healthy boost

Students enrolled in Manhattan Film Academy's current 'Film Making Programme' are working entirely on Macs and cutting-edge Final Cut Studio 2 in the weeks running up to DIFF 08.

Joe Sfeir, Marketing Manager of Arab Business Machine Ltd (ABM) says, "Our involvement in the Manhattan Film Academy forms part of our continuous commitment to the film making industry and further positions Final Cut Studio 2 as the leading and most powerful production suite on the planet.

"Manhattan Film Academy's objective to help develop world-class Film Makers from among the UAE Nationals and residents is a cause that caught our attention as, with world class expertise on offer, the MFA is contributing enormously to the emerging film industry in Dubai."

Currently studying at MFA, Rashid Al Marri says the easy workflow provided by Final Cut makes it possible to capture, edit, do effects/composition, audio mixing and mastering all on one machine.

Final Cut Studio 2 was specifically designed to enable the rapidly growing community of over 800,000 Final Cut editors worldwide to animate, mix, grade and deliver their work as a natural extension of the editorial process.

"The nature of Mac hardware and software makes it more stable and reliable, which is very important for production work," he adds.

Also studying at the MFA, Tarek Rahbani, son of renowned production house guru, Marwan Rahbani added that the high definition provided by Mac is the best there is.

He said, "The MFA's Film Making Programme is currently under the patronage of the Dubai Studio City & Dubai Cultural & Art Authority's - it is great for us to be able to contribute to their vision for the region."

MFA boasts award winning film makers as faculty including: the only female director twice nominated for Oscar, Agnieszka Holland, Oscar nominee cinematographer, Slawomir Idziak, Oscar winning art director, Allan Starski, two-time EMMY nominee sound designer, Ira Spiegel, cinematographer for the TV series MONK, Joe Pennella, renown American film historian and professor of film, author of sixteen books on film and theatre, Foster Hirsh.