PRAGUE FILM SCHOOL - CZECH REPUBLIC

Gabriel Paletz, Ph.D (screenwriting), with a BA from Yale University and PhD from the University of Southern California, is the first PhD graduate from the University of Southern California to study film theory and practice at the same time. Dr. Paletz has taught film history, criticism and production at College of William and Mary, Duke University and USC. He has published numerous scholarly essays and articles and has acted as film commentator on various radio programs in the US. He most recently served as consultant to the Ethiopian Aids Resource Center in Addis Ababa, designing and teaching a seminar for the ARC artists on visual storytelling.

Vladimir Skalsky (cinematography) comes to Prague Film School with 40 years experience teaching top cinematographers how to become masters of their craft. He has taught with the Czech national film academy, NYU in Prague, and the Prague Yale Program, among others, and has been with Prague Film School since 2005.

Robert Gottman (editing) is a master Avid instructor with 10 years of experience teaching editing at the university level. He served as editor at NBC, KRON TV, KICU TV and KNTV. He has edited multiple award-winning news stories and specials.

Josef Pecak (cinematography) is one of the Czech Republic’s leading authorities on the art and physics of cinema lighting. Josef was the former Dean of FAMU in the golden years of FAMU’s birth of the new generation of Czech filmmakers (1992 - 1994).

James Duff (directing, documentary production, directing actors) is a graduate from USC where he received the school’s fellowship for excellence in directing actors. He comes to Prague Film School with 10 years filmmaking experience in television and film. His shorts have been screened in over 40 festivals around the world and his recent feature shot in India, Manhattan Biryani, was nominated for the “Star of India” award at the Bollywood and Beyond Film Festival. James’s first documentary, The Cycle Also Rises, was broadcast on PBS. James spent two years in West Africa directing development and human rights documentaries and has instructed filmmaking in Kenya and to Saharan refugees. He has been teaching at New York’s Digital Film Academy for the past two years and has instructed with NYU Tisch acting students in film direction.

Igor Farbak (cinematography) is the former director of Czech Panavision and Czech Vantage. A graduate of the Czechoslovakian National Film Academy, he has been shooting films for film and TV since the early 1970’s.

Harvey Parkes, (Directing, Film Analysis, Documentary) has spent the past five years working as a writer, director and media creative. Having seen critical acclaim for a variety of short feature and documentary work, Harvey is currently assigned to develop two features to be finished in 2010. Harvey has worked with BBC, Channel 4, in addition to shooting for a number of top international sports and media corporations.

Diego Fandos (screenwriting) is a filmmaker from Spain. Originally a journalist, Diego is the recipient of a number of awards and grants based on his short stories and scripts. His first feature, Cosmos, was released in May 2008. Currently, Diego is developing - under the supervision of the Nipkow Programm (Berlin)- the script of his second feature film. He is also presently preparing a historical documentary.

Zdena Skapova (film history) has been teaching film history at Prague Film School since 1995. She also lectures at the National Academy of Film and Television and is a film critic for one of the leading Czech film magazines Film and Time. Skapova specializes in the post war European cinema and "New Wave" movements, including the Czechoslovak cinema of the Sixties. She is the author of several books and studies on film history, criticism and European art cinema.

Beth Lazroe (photography for cinematography) has been operating as a professional photographer since the mid-70s. She has taught photography and visual communication at several universities, including Dublin City University, Anglo American College, University of New York, Prague. She is the author of the text book, Photography as Visual Communication: a Curriculum, 1998 and has been teaching at Prague Film School since 2003.

Julia Morrison (documentary production) is a documentary television producer based in New York City. She has produced historical documentaries for the prestigious PBS series, American Experience (Dolley Madison; Alexander Hamilton), and was an Associate Producer on the Emmy-award winning PBS mini-series, Benjamin Franklin. Julia also spent four years producing for New York Times Television. Her current affairs documentaries (including MLK Boulevard: The Concrete Dream; Someone’s Watching: American Under Surveillance; Battle For Souls) were broadcast on the Discovery Times Channel. China Rises: Getting Rich, a co-production of New York Times Television, CBC, and ZDF, received Canada’s Gemini award. Julia studied film at Wesleyan University.

Hana Pecka (voice) graduated from the Prague Conservatory and the Academy of Arts in Prague. As an opera singer she is well known as the Prague Operatic stage as a Soprano. She has sung in many venues through out the Czech Republic and also sung as a guest in Hungary, Italia, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, the former Yugoslavia, and France. She is a laureate of the Prague Mozart Competition at Bertramka and of the International Opera Singers Contest BRT TV in Belgium. As a teacher, she works frequently with actors at the National Theatre.

Nancy Bishop (Department Head, Film Acting) is an Emmy-award nominated casting director who has cast over fifty American and British films from her base in Prague. She is a member of the Casting Society of America and the European Network of Casting Directors. She has cast for major feature film including Roman Polanski’s Oliver Twist, Alien Vs. Predator, Bourne Identity, the Illusionist, Prince Caspian and Wanted. She has also cast TV series such as CBS’s Hitler on the Origin of Evil and the BBC’s BAFTA award winning Charles II. Ms. Bishop is committed to actor training and has developed a proven method for casting technique. She teaches master classes on film acting throughout Europe, the UK and the US. She has taught at top conservatories such as the American National Theater Institute and the Royal Scottish Academy of Dramatic Art. Her book, Secrets from the Casting Couch will be published in 2009. She earned her Masters in Theater History Criticism at Northwestern University and her BA is in Acting and Directing from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor).

Daniel Brown (Acting, Physical Theatre) has worked as and actor and director with theatres in the U.S., Canada and Europe since 1982. His training includes commedia dell'arte, clown, improvisation, drama therapy as well as classical theatre. He has taught acting and lectured on theatre in places ranging from prisons in America to the Royal Shakespeare Company and Cambridge University in England. Arriving in Prague in 1998, Daniel has directed at various theatres in the Czech Republic (in Czech and English) and is the founder and Artistic Director of Divadlo Miloco. As an actor, Daniel has worked in films with such actors as Peter O’Toole, Bruce Willis, Ben Kingsley, Brenda Blethyn and Johnny Depp; he has filmed over 20 television ccommercials and currently is in his 4th season on the major television serials Anne Frank and Oliver Twist and as a dialogue coach on many feature films. Daniel has a Masters degree from Cambridge University in the history and philosophy of science, specializing in the history of psychology and psychiatry.

Pavel Kriz (Film Acting) is an award winning actor in the Czech Republic. Mr. Kriz began work on a popular serial shortly following his graduation from the Prague Conservatory. He has starred in numerous TV series, shows and Czech films including Kdo se boji utika and Andelske oci . He has worked on many Prague stages. As a member of the National Theater he played Caesar in Anthony and Cleopatra, among many other leading roles. Prominent work in international productions includes supporting roes in Dune, Children of Dune for ABC and Zhivago with Keira Knightly. He has taught film acting at the Langar College, University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, as well as at the NW Actors Studio in Seattle.

Jessica Boone (voice instructor) is a company voice artist with Studio Center where she has lent her voice to the Spiderwoman web comics and numerous national commercials and campaigns. She is also internationally known for her work voicing hundreds of characters in Japanese animated series such as Hello Kitty, Angelic Layer, Princess Tutu and Azumanga Daioh. Jessica is a recognized actor/combatant by the Society of American Fight Directors and a proud member of Actors' Equity Association. Jessica will be seen as Rabia in the 2012 mid-season ABC-TV series MISSING starring Ashley Judd.

Guy Roberts (stage combat, speech and dialect)
is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Prague Shakespeare Festival. As the Artistic Director of the Austin Shakespeare Festival and the Mermaid Theater Company in the US, Guy has led professional American Shakespeare Theaters to ninety-two (92) B. Iden Payne Award and Austin Critic's Table Award nominations for Excellence ”personally receiving forty-two (42) nominations as a producer, director and actor and winning multiple awards for Best Drama, Best Comedy, Best Director and Best Actor. An accomplished fight choreographer/director, his work has been seen throughout America in various stage plays, operas and ballets as well as with the first national company of the Broadway musical big!. Guy has taught at numerous theater schools in New York, Boston and Texas. He holds a BFA in Acting from Boston University and is a member of Actors' Equity Association, the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, the Society of American Fight Directors and the Shakespeare Theater Association of America

Brian Caspe (Acting, Meisner Technique) is a professional actor who plays regularly in theater, TV, film and commercials. Motion pictures credits include Wanted, the Illusionist, Hellboy, Running Scared and Hannibal Rising. Brian also played a major supporting role in the NBC television series Revelations, opposite Bill Pullman. His most recent film is Solomon Kane with James Purefoy and Pete Postelwaite. In theater, Brian has gotten rave reviews playing in the lead in Oliver!, A Funny Thing Happened on The Way To The Forum, The Seagull, You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown among many others. Since moving to Prague in the spring of 2002, Brian has re-energized the Expat acting scene. In 2003, he founded the Prague Playhouse with the aim to give native English-speaking actors a company where they could perform and English-speaking audiences a venue to enjoy. Brian plans to tour in Ireland with The Sacred Sow a successful play he directed for the Prague Fringe. Brian also teaches Meisner technique which he studied in Los Angeles under Jeff Goldblum and Robert Carnegie (assistant to Mr. Meisner for 10 years). Over the past 4 years, many of his students have gone on to have successful acting careers and even more have learned to appreciate the power of living in the moment.

Monika Rebcova (dance and movement) is well known to Prague stages and has also performed in Holland, France, Germany, Belgium and the US. For many years she had her own dance company in Prague, choreographing in a distinctive modern/African style. She currently is the main teacher at Prague’s Dance and Music Academy, HAMU.

Martin Ferencei (animation) is a professional animator with large experience directing and animating animated shorts and commercials for TV. He is presently working on the animated short “The Lighthouse”, supported by the Film Fund of the Czech Ministry of Culture.