Virtual Film School

A full member of Woolf, a Higher Education Institution in Europe.

Accreditation:

Virtual Film School helps shape content creators for the booming Creator Economy. This reimagined film school is designed for the next generation of filmmakers, content creators, and influencers worldwide. Virtual Film School fosters a collaborative community, allowing smart, driven individuals to work together to create diverse stories without the need to relocate or sacrifice personal connections. The program provides an affordable alternative to traditional degrees, with a cutting-edge undergraduate diploma in New Media Video Production.

Dean

Peter Hawley

Peter has been a film writer/director/producer for 25+ years, and since 1995 he has been a college educator and administrator.



In his role as Director of the Illinois Film Office, Peter and his team strive to make Illinois the best state in the country for film and television production. In addition, the IFO is actively trying to build the infrastructure needed, film studios and production crews, to attract projects to Illinois from around the country and around the world.



Peter has been an Illinois-based filmmaker for more than 30 years. He has written and directed the feature film,Victimless Crimes, directed or produced numerous television commercials, music videos, and award-winning documentary films. Beginning in 1996 he began his college teaching career at Columbia College Chicago. In 2007 he was one of the original faculty members at Flashpoint Chicago, and named Dean in 2014. He became Dean of Columbia College Hollywood in 2016, merging both campuses. Peter began teaching at Loyola University Chicago in 2017. On May 1, 2019 he became the Director of the Illinois Film Office.





Academic board members

Dr Ana Faria

I am a founding member and CEO of the DoctorateHub, which is an online mentoring community for advanced and doctoral students. The DoctorateHub provides modular, efficient, and effective training and guidance on three flexible routes: Club, taught and mentored journeys.



Further to this, I am an intrapreneur and entrepreneur by nature, with over two decades of experience as Co-Founder, CEO, Project Advisor, Project Manager, Business Developer, Principal Investigator, Business Consultant, Mentor and Coach, for a variety of private and public organisations and clients. During that time, I have worked in cross-disciplinary areas of information and communication technology (ICT), innovation and the development of technology-based systems in support of change, and decision-making and sustainable development. In 2004 I was part of the team developing the first Portuguese Digital City, a €6,4M project that set the example for the rest of the country to emulate. Other large-scale projects included the Rational Use of Energy, Sustainability, and Smart Cities; where I coordinated and managed National and European Funds.

I hold a PhD from the Engineering and Innovation Department at the Faculty of Mathematics, Computing and Technology, The Open University UK. My doctoral thesis was in the area of behavioural economics, titled “The role of behaviour in the transition to more energy efficient use at home”. I also hold a degree in Economics from the Universidade do Minho (Portugal), a degree in International Management from the RSM Erasmus University (The Netherlands), and a master’s in business administration in International Industrial Management from the Esslingen University of Applied Science. The MBA program was developed to cater for the needs of international senior staff from local enterprises such Behr, Bosch, Daimler, Festo, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Kärcher, Modine, Porsche and Siemens.



https://www.linkedin.com/in/ana-faria-phd-61b382/



Dr Andreas Meiszner

For the past 20+ years I have been working in pushing the envelope on getting higher education ready for the digital age. I learned the ropes at the Institute of Educational Technologies of the British Open University from where I got my PhD in 2011 for my thesis that is titled ‘The Emergence of Free / Open Courses - Lessons from the Open Source Movement’. In a nutshell, I was already done with researching and understanding the concept of MOOCs a year before they became popular and brought up the iconic ventures like Coursera, EdX or FutureLearn. 



Since 2012 I then gathered further practical experience in the design and delivery of virtual higher education offerings. As an educator I worked with the University of Liverpool Management School (UK), in their large-scale Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) program where I have been overseeing the globally distributed faculty and also worked with 500+ professional doctoral students. This allowed me once again to learn the ropes on how globally distributed higher education can be run and managed at scale. 



I am also a founding member of the DoctorateHub, which is an online mentoring community for advanced and doctoral students. The DoctorateHub provides modular, efficient, and effective training and guidance on three flexible routes: Club, taught and mentored journeys.

Faculty, Instructors and Professional Experts

Dr Ana Faria

I am a founding member and CEO of the DoctorateHub, which is an online mentoring community for advanced and doctoral students. The DoctorateHub provides modular, efficient, and effective training and guidance on three flexible routes: Club, taught and mentored journeys.



Further to this, I am an intrapreneur and entrepreneur by nature, with over two decades of experience as Co-Founder, CEO, Project Advisor, Project Manager, Business Developer, Principal Investigator, Business Consultant, Mentor and Coach, for a variety of private and public organisations and clients. During that time, I have worked in cross-disciplinary areas of information and communication technology (ICT), innovation and the development of technology-based systems in support of change, and decision-making and sustainable development. In 2004 I was part of the team developing the first Portuguese Digital City, a €6,4M project that set the example for the rest of the country to emulate. Other large-scale projects included the Rational Use of Energy, Sustainability, and Smart Cities; where I coordinated and managed National and European Funds.

I hold a PhD from the Engineering and Innovation Department at the Faculty of Mathematics, Computing and Technology, The Open University UK. My doctoral thesis was in the area of behavioural economics, titled “The role of behaviour in the transition to more energy efficient use at home”. I also hold a degree in Economics from the Universidade do Minho (Portugal), a degree in International Management from the RSM Erasmus University (The Netherlands), and a master’s in business administration in International Industrial Management from the Esslingen University of Applied Science. The MBA program was developed to cater for the needs of international senior staff from local enterprises such Behr, Bosch, Daimler, Festo, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Kärcher, Modine, Porsche and Siemens.



https://www.linkedin.com/in/ana-faria-phd-61b382/



Frank Chindamo

Hi, I’m Frank Chindamo! I founded www.VirtualFilmSchool.org, an innovative EdTech startup with long-term economic and societal value and a focus on access and opportunity in education.



Virtual Film School™ is a Sharing Economy education marketplace. It uses virtual reality to connect students with professors anytime, from anywhere in the world. We launched in the trending field of New Media because 75% of young people want to become content creators over all other professions. We plan for rapid expansion across the arts and languages to attract new students and generate more revenue. VFS has completed 4 pilots, closing 2 sales and earning growing proceeds from the pilots. We have strategic partnerships with Amazon, Lenovo, the UN, EXedu.co, and CAA.



What if a film school could open its enrollment to the entire world? And you could attend from anywhere, anytime? Just strap on a VR headset and attend classes with award-winning film and video professors inside a virtual world. No need to relocate to Los Angeles, pay for cost-prohibitive housing, or leave your friends, family, and resources behind. Virtual Film School™ will curate your courses and your trajectory so that you learn the most cutting-edge filmmaking information from the most current instructors, websites, apps, and assets. Virtual Film School™ is higher education for the next generation.



I also run Fun Little Movies, one of the world's top producers of comedic “Advertainment” videos for the web. We’ve won over 30 awards for our work and been lauded on the front pages of Forbes Magazine, the LA Times, and in the Wall St. Journal, NY Times, CNN, USA Today, etc.



FLM has made videos and series for iconic brands including Petco, Walmart, Best Buy, Intel, Kingston Technologies, eVite, etc.



FLM won Mobile Content World’s Grand Prize, where we were awarded a Chevrolet Cruze. And I produced the video for Titanic and Avatar producer Jon Landau’s TED talk.



Finally, I'm the former Curriculum Coordinator/Instructor of New Media at Columbia College, Hollywood. I also created the courses and am an Adjunct Professor of web video production and monetization classes at USC, UCLA, Chapman U., and Emerson College. My students have included Primetime Emmy Winner Bernie Su, billion-hitter Freddie Wong, and 5SecondFilms. In 2016 I was voted the Adjunct Professor of the Year at Chapman University’s Dodge College. I co-wrote the books YouTube Success in 5 Steps. MFA: Columbia University, NY. BFA: NYU.

Natasha Cooper

Creative and prolific Ideator empowers brands for amazing returns in a digitally dominated social landscape. I help small business owners, entrepreneurs and non-profits create more engaging, more powerful and more profitable content that breaks through in crowded markets. I am the author of the Amazon release: YouTube Success In 5 Steps: Five Steps. No Limits.

Dr Andreas Meiszner

For the past 20+ years I have been working in pushing the envelope on getting higher education ready for the digital age. I learned the ropes at the Institute of Educational Technologies of the British Open University from where I got my PhD in 2011 for my thesis that is titled ‘The Emergence of Free / Open Courses - Lessons from the Open Source Movement’. In a nutshell, I was already done with researching and understanding the concept of MOOCs a year before they became popular and brought up the iconic ventures like Coursera, EdX or FutureLearn. 



Since 2012 I then gathered further practical experience in the design and delivery of virtual higher education offerings. As an educator I worked with the University of Liverpool Management School (UK), in their large-scale Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) program where I have been overseeing the globally distributed faculty and also worked with 500+ professional doctoral students. This allowed me once again to learn the ropes on how globally distributed higher education can be run and managed at scale. 



I am also a founding member of the DoctorateHub, which is an online mentoring community for advanced and doctoral students. The DoctorateHub provides modular, efficient, and effective training and guidance on three flexible routes: Club, taught and mentored journeys.