Ever dream of making it in Hollywood? You don’t have to be an actor to have an exciting and creative career in this competitive industry. Take a peek behind the big screen with Talcott alums Greg La Salle, Robin Cloud and Benjamin Levy and join them for a candid and lighthearted discussion about the unique paths they each followed that led them into the film industry.

ADVANCE REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED

REGISTER ONLINE

FEATURED SPEAKERS:
ROBIN CLOUD
Robin Cloud is an award-winning writer and director working in television and film. A recent graduate of the American Film Institute’s Directing Workshop for Women, Robin wrote and directed the short film 2 Dollars that premiered at the BFI Flare Film Festival in London.

Her first narrative short, Out Again, was executive produced by Refinery29 as part of their Shatterbox Anthology and premiered in March of 2017 and received over 2 million views. In addition, Out Again received rave reviews and has screened at film festivals throughout the world. Her docu-series, Passing: A Family in Black & White, executive produced by Topic/First Look Media, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2019. In 2020, Robin wrote and directed This Old House which premiered on Hulu as part of their Bite-Size Halloween Series.

Cloud is a 2021 Alliance for Women Directors Black Directors Advancement Initiative Fellow, a 2017 Kickstarter Creative Fellow and, a graduate of Lena Waithe’s Hillman Grad mentee program. Robin has been featured in The New York Times, The LA Times, The Washington Post, Diva Magazine, and GO magazine’s “Top 100 Women We Love.”

She graduated cum laude from Howard University’s School of Communications where she studied film under Haile Gerima. In addition, she studied cinematography at the School of Visual Arts. Her production company, Cloud Creative Media, was launched in March of 2016 and focuses on creating independent narrative and documentary films and series. She is represented by Underground Management.

GREG LA SALLE
Greg is a life-long lover of music and the performing arts. He studied music at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston and the Hartt School of Music at the University of Hartford. During this period Greg also served as the Music Coordinator and music teacher at Talcott Mountain Academy and Science Center.

In 2000, Greg moved to the San Francisco Bay area. There he became a member of the Mova development team which won him, and three others, a Technical Achievement Award at the 87th Academy Awards for the innovative design and development of the MOVA Facial Performance Capture system.

Greg has experienced an impressive career with a solid reputation of working with talent as a facial motion capture expert in the movie industry. He has worked on over 30 feature films, such as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows, Marvel’s The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy and Gravity.

After moving to Los Angeles in 2013, Greg studied improvisation at Second City and acting with Janet Alhanti. In 2014, using an advanced facial capture system, Greg portrayed “Augustus Caesar” in Night at the Museum 3 starring Ben Stiller. He was next tapped for the facial performance for “Colossus” in the blockbuster Deadpool starring Ryan Reynolds and in the film “All I See Is You” with Ryan’s wife, Blake Lively.

Greg is currently CTO of 209 Group, where he specializes in designing and developing solutions and new technologies in Virtual Production for the film industry.

BENJAMIN LEVY
Ben Levy is a native of West Hartford and a 1990 TMA grad. He studied economics and theater at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and received his law degree from New York University. Following a five-year stint at a corporate law firm, Ben went “in-house” to investment management firm AllianceBernstein just in time for the financial crisis of 2008. At AllianceBernstein, Ben worked with the US Treasury to support President Obama’s execution of the “Troubled Assets Relief Program”, more commonly known as the “bank bailout.” In 2012, Ben moved over to Bloomberg L.P., where he looks after legal matters for several of Bloomberg’s core businesses, including the world’s leading professional financial software: the Bloomberg Terminal. In 2015, Ben helped to launch Bloomberg’s branded entertainment business, which partners with tv and movie producers to enhance the realism of finance-related scenes and themes.