What I liked about the Career Connection  is that you don’t have to come from a many background, you  don’t have to have $50,000 savings or trust fund, its all about like whatever you have inside yourself is going to come out, is going to show. If you have I like that it gives you an opportunity to get in at the bottom and what America is supposed to be like you can come to America and you can work hard and you can get the American dreams. So I want to correlate that to the Film Connection and say that if  you get in the Film Connection, if you are serious, you are dedicated, you are hard working, you can get in at the bottom and you can work to the top and with the Career Connection what I like to tell people all the time is that because people have and all things have their problems, people always want to say things about oh this is that, this is that but without the opportunity that Jimmy and Career Connection gives you.  You won’t have the opportunity to get to certain places because we are not taking interns in. I know that there is a some level of a conversation that they already had with either Jimmy or Tony that this is what you need to do, I know that they are going to be on time, they are going to be hard working because they have some one to answer to and I can leave them around $100,000 worth of equipment and they think that oh I better watch this kid or because its not like a stranger off the street that I am bringing in to my facility. It’s somebody that was serious enough to put out a little bit of money to pay, to give anyone a go and have a couple of conversations before they come to me.

My name is Hazi Maleesi.  I am a student here at the Film and TV Connection. I am currently on a film that I am working on called Berne and actually how I came across the program was I was surfing through the internet and I was looking for apprenticeship programs in the film industry and I was basically sick and tired of my current job and I have always wanted to get into film. I was a s tock broker for about 4 years. And I basically dropped everything and pursued this career in film which most people I was crazy and I didn’t get much support.  But this is what I wanted to do, I always wanted to write. I love movies and this program seemed like a great program because you start at the bottom and work your way up and learn basically every aspect in film. Whether it be lighting, whether it be camera work, sound, writing, you name it. So I enrolled in the program. I spoke to Jimmy Petulla and he introduced me to a very talented writer director named Tony Travis who was currently working on his second feature film called ‘Black Butterflies’. He set me up as an intern for a movie called ‘Berne’. It scheduled for a blockbuster release straight to video. So it was very exciting. I called up the director of the project Bobby Yan, I spoke to him. He called me down to his set and I started working as his intern, helping with lighting and with sound just getting familiar with being on the set.  And it just so happens that they needed a writer because they were having problems with the screenplay. So I submitted one my shorts as an audition script. The production team read it they loved it. They called me back. Now I am the writer of the movie going to Blockbuster.