Anaheim University

Do you like Japanese films? Here is the schedule for an online Japanese movie festival: Japan Connects Hollywood 2020. There is a filmmakers panel on Saturday night with Masaya Kato, who has been in many productions in both the US and Japan. Supported by the Anaheim University Akira Kurosawa School of Film: https://www.japanconnectshollywood.com

Enroll in Anaheim University's online Doctor of Education in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (Ed.D. in TESOL). New terms begin every 10 weeks. Join any term. Go to https://anaheim.edu//gra/doctor-of-education-in-tesol.html and click the How to Apply tab to learn more

Anaheim University's virtual 2020 TESOL residential session / Multicultural Education Conference in Anaheim (MECA) full schedule confirmed: https://anaheim.edu//ne/2241-2020residential-mectokyo.html

The Multicultural Education Forum has been announced as part of the virtual Anaheim University 2020 TESOL Residential / Multicultural Education Forum https://anaheim.edu//ne/2241-2020residential-mectokyo.html Multicultural Educators as Agents of Change in a Covid-19 Moderator:... Dr. Shartriya Collier Panelists: Dr. Sandra McKay Dr. Julie Choi Dr. Tamara Myatt Dr. Raphael Raphael

Additional speakers confirmed for the virtual Anaheim University 2020 TESOL residential session / Multicultural Education Conference in Anaheim: https://anaheim.edu//ne/2241-2020residential-mectokyo.html

Anaheim University is hosting our 2020 Residential session online from August 27th - 29th. We are pleased to announce that 5 of our sessions will open to the public and offered at no charge: Dr. David Nunan, David Nunan TESOL Institute Director, founding Dean of the AU Graduate School of Education & former President of TESOL International Association Dr. Rod Ellis, AU VP for Academic Affairs & Ed.D. in TESOL Program Designer... Dr. Hayo Reinders, AU Graduate School of Education Chair of Research Dr. Brian Tomlinson, AU TESOL Prof & Materials specialist Dr. Ken Beatty, AU TESOL Prof Attendees may receive a direct zoom link to the open sessions by completing the brief Registration form below: 2020 Anaheim University TESOL Open Sessions See the schedule here: https://anaheim.edu//ne/2241-2020residential-mectokyo.html

Vikram Channa, Anaheim University Akira Kurosawa School of Film Associate Dean and Vice-President on Production and Partnerships at Discovery Asia, spoke to AU’s MFA in Digital Filmmaking students during the virtual residential session today. Vikram, who in addition to having a Master's in Film and Television Production and a Master's in History, earned his MBA from the University of Chicago and brings strategic thinking to the film set and innovation to the classroom. Vikra...m and his team produce approximately 100 hours of programming every year. Vikram first joined Discovery in 1995. He has taken on various roles within the company from on-air promotions to programming and production. Together with his team, he executive produced over 500 documentaries, several of which garnered accolades at events such as the Asia Television Awards, New York Festival, Omni Intermedia, and the Academy Awards. Vikram began his working career in India as an independent producer of short films. See more

Anaheim University Akira Kurosawa School of Film MFA in Digital Filmmaking students welcomed Cannes Film Festival Palm d'Or recipient and Juror, film director Naomi Kawase to their virtual residential session today. One of Japan’s most prominent directors, Naomi Kawase is best known for her documentary-style and semi-autobiographical filmmaking. As a graduate of the Osaka School of Photography, now the Osaka Visual Arts College, Kawase became the youngest person to win the Ca...méra d’Or at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival for her film Suzaku. At the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, she took home the Grand Prix for her film The Mourning Forest. Since then, Kawase has served on the Cannes Film Festival jury and gone on to found the Nara International Film Festival in her hometown of Nara, Japan. Her upcoming developments include a new film, True Mothers, that is scheduled for an October 23, 2020 release and was chosen for the Cannes International Film Festival Official Selection 2020 and her role in producing the official film for the Tokyo Olympic Games. On June 30th, Homemade, was released on Netflix. This compilation of 17 short films made by acclaimed international filmmakers during the COVID-19 pandemic featured Naomi Kawase’s piece that was filmed in Nara, Last Message, is a surreal look at a boy in Japan who contemplates the value of life after learning how many people are left on Earth. See more

Thank you to Hollywood miniatures specialist Fon Davis for speaking with MFA in Digital Filmmaking students from the Anaheim University Akira Kurosawa School of Film. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, Fon Davis is an alumnus of the Industrial Light and Magic Model Shop and has worked on over 30 feature films from the Star Wars, Matrix, Terminator, Mission Impossible, and Jurassic Park franchises, as well as Starship Troopers, Galaxy Quest, and Pearl Harbor. In addition to his work in ...visual effects, Fon has also worked in Disney's art departments as a concept designer/model maker, and on several stop motion projects including The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Coraline. More recently, Fon worked on Interstellar, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Neill Blomkamp’s Elysium. Fon is currently a creative director at Fonco, a celebrity judge on ABC's BattleBots, an instructor at the Stan Winston School, a guest host on nerd shows and a content creator, frequently using his broad knowledge in entertainment and visual story telling. Fonco was founded in 1997 in San Francisco by Fon Davis as a design and fabrication studio specializing in miniatures. Over the two decades in business, Fonco has been joined by an amazingly creative and motivated group of artists, many of whom have worked for companies like Lucasfilm, Industrial Light and Magic, and Disney. Fonco has grown into a 16,000 square foot facility that includes production, art department, set/prop fabrication, model shop, costume, wardrobe, glamour and SPFX make-up, performance capture, combat training school, fight choreography, green screen, sound booth and stages. Fonco can support a part of, or run full productions from early design and story development through post production, always with a focus on visual story telling.

Thank you to today's guest speaker Randall Fujimoto for speaking to online MFA in Digital Filmmaking students in the Anaheim University Akira Kurosawa School of Film during this week's virtual residential session. Randall spoke on "Using Gaming in Filmmaking and Storytelling" Randall Fujimoto is the Executive Director of GameTrain Learning, an educational nonprofit organization that promotes game-based learning in schools and organizations. Randall designs and develops variou...s game-based educational and training programs, including educational immersive theater projects and educational escape game workshops. He also teaches game-based learning in a certificate program that he developed for CSU Fullerton's continuing education program. Previously, he was an executive producer in the video games industry and has master’s degrees in education (instructional design) and business (MBA). Randall is the producer of Redefining Community: The Evolution of Sawtelle Japantown, a machinima documentary (short animated documentary film) about the history of Japanese Americans in the Sawtelle area of Los Angeles (now officially recognized as Sawtelle Japantown). The documentary is intended to appeal to people of all ages because of its engaging animation style. The movie consists of animation, historical photographs, archival video footage, and audio narration in a documentary-style format. The animation is created using the video game Minecraft, which is used to recreate a 3D virtual environment of Sawtelle in the 1930s-70s along with animations of people living there. Narration of the machinima come from over 20 oral history interviews of people who resided in Sawtelle before and after World War II. The use of the oral histories as narration in the machinima brings to life the significant stories embedded throughout these first-person accounts of the history of Sawtelle. See more

Thank you to Academy-Award-Winning Director Steven Okazaki for speaking to Anaheim University Akira Kurosawa School of Film's Online Master of Fine Arts in Digital Filmmaking students during this week's virtual residential session. The Director of the documentary, "Mifune: The Last Samurai", based on the life of Toshiro Mifune, the star of several Akira Kurosawa films, Steven Okazaki's films explore a wide range of subjects -- from drug addiction to nuclear war, from Tokyo po...p culture to the Minnesota State Fair. He is the recipient of numerous honors, including an Academy Award, four Academy Award nominations, a Primetime Emmy, the George Foster Peabody Award, the Camerimage "Outstanding Achievement Award," and the City of Hiroshima's "Honorary Citizen Award." His films, produced for HBO, PBS and NHK, are explorations of the extraordinary lives of ordinary people caught up in dramatic historical events and troubling social issues. See more

Thank you to today's guest speaker for the Anaheim University Akira Kurosawa School of Film's virtual residential session for students of the Online MFA in Digital Filmmaking program. Shin Koyamada is a Japanese-American actor, producer, philanthropist, entrepreneur, martial artist, and a member of Anaheim University’s Film Advisory Council. Mr. Koyamada immigrated from Japan to the United States in June 2000 and is best known for his roles in The Last Samurai, as the son of... Ken Watanabe’s character and the Disney Channel original movie Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior, which become one of the highest rated original movies on the channel, and was a regular for three season in the Disney Channel Games which supported various charities. He has also produced numerous movies, shows, comics and video games through his production company Shinca Entertainment. He also acted on stage in the Japanese stage production Ai No Shizuku, which was attended by then-Japanese Crown Prince Naruhito and nationally televised. In addition to his acting work, Mr. Koyamada is also known for his philanthropic efforts in youth leadership, humanitarian aid, gender equality, subnational diplomacy and Sustainable Development Goals, through Koyamada International Foundation (KIF). He has been appointed appointed as a U.S. Department of State Cultural Envoy, Tourism Ambassador by Okayama Prefecture in Japan and as the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics Ambassador for Karate. Shin Koyamada holds black belts in Japanese and Korean martial arts, and has also won U.S. national championships in Chinese martial arts. Shin Koyamada holds Third Degree Black Belt in Karate, Second Degree Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do, First Degree Black Belt in Kung Jung Mu Sul. He has also trained to use 18 traditional Chinese classical weapons. Other martial arts systems and styles he has trained include; Kyudo (Japanese archery), Kendo (modern Japanese swordsmanship), Iaido (traditional Japanese swordsmanship), Yabusame (archery while riding a horse) and Aikido. See more

Thank you to acclaimed Japanese casting and film director, producer and lyricist Yoko Narahashi for speaking to MFA in Digital Filmmaking students of the Anaheim University Akira Kurosawa School of Film today. She won Best New Director at the Japan Movie Critics Awards in 1995 for Winds of God She has been a casting director for Hollywood feature film productions since she worked with Director and Producer Steven Spielberg on Empire of the Sun in 1987. Her Hollywood casting... credits include Angelina Jolie's "Unbroken", Carl Rinsch's "47 Ronin", James Mangold's "The Wolverine", Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's "Babel", Rob Marshall's "Memoirs of a Geisha", and Edward Zwick's "The Last Samurai". She was also Associate Producer for The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe, and more recently, was Producer for the 2013 World War II film Emperor, starring Tommy Lee Jones and Matthew Fox. She was also lyricist for the rock group, Godiego. Yoko Narahashi was educated in Canada and grew up learning Japanese, English, and French. She co-founded the Model Language Studio, highlighting the importance of language and acting by promoting the teaching of English to Japanese students through drama. See more