15 March 2006

NYU/Stern MBA Students Get a Taste of the Film Business

The Stern School of Business has joined forces with NYU's film school to give MBA students a taste of what it's like to manage and produce a film.

Many business schools offer joint programs with other colleges or professional schools housed in the same university. However, Stern's partnership with the Tisch Kanbar Institute of Film & Television is an unusual and possibly unique venture that gives MBA students hands-on experience with managing a creative film project.

The program, ProMotion Pictures, pairs MBA students with graduate film students from Tisch. They work on teams to plan and produce 'mini movies' that market products for designated clients. To date these have included Ford Motor's Volvo division, Verizon, and Unilever.

Student teams compete against each other to win the client's nod for their project. This year's competition, which asked teams to pitch ideas for a three- to seven-minute film extolling Unilever's Axe brand of deodorant, garnered 27 entries. The 3 winning teams each received a $40,000 grant to produce their films, which will be used by Unilever later this year in its marketing campaigns.

Film students look after the creative side of the project, filling the roles of screenwriters and directors. MBA students look after the business side of the venture, doing everything that real-life producers do.

"We have to use our skills in project management, people management and cash management" to produce the film on budget, a second-year MBA student who is working on one of the winning Unilever films told the Wall Street Journal College Journal. In past years, MBA and film students have shown great ingenuity in producing quite sophisticated films on a tight budget.

The client for last year's ProMotion Pictures project, Verizon Communications, asked students to produce films illustrating the transformative power of broadband communications. The winning entries – "Grey Woman," "Back Home," and "The Adventures of Modem Boy" – were rolled out at a Los Angeles premiere hosted by Verizon last fall. The films are still available for viewing online at www.verizonbroadbandfilms.com.

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