Courtroom Television Network will run a quartet of student films in January
in an expansion of its long-running "Choices and Consequences" public-affairs
outreach.
The films will come from New York University graduate students, four of whom
were awarded grants by Court TV earlier this week.
Each film will be about 15 minutes, and all of them -- written and supervised
by Gabriella Spierer, Justin Francis, Michael Sugarman and Miguel Salazar --
will look at the impact of violence on young people.
Court TV came up with the student grants in response to a recent nationally
publicized study suggesting that too many media portrayals of violence don't
depict attendant consequences, CEO Henry Schleiff said in a prepared statement
released Thursday morning.
NYU administered the grants through its Kanbar Institute of Film and TV, part
of Tisch School of the Arts. Court TV selected the scripts from seven candidates
screened by Kanbar faculty, based on creativity and violence depiction. The
grants ranged from $4,000 to $10,000.
"We are pleased that our students will have the opportunity to become part of
this critical debate on the issue of media violence and its impact," Tisch dean
Mary Campbell said through her own prepared statement.
Choices and Consequences uses various events, TV specials and other means to
empower youth to make responsible decisions and sensitize them to the risks of
aggressive behavior.
