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Where the average person might just see a fancy new building in the Academy for Creative Media Student Production Center at the University of Hawaii West Oahu, others see a launching pad for huge dreams for their students as well as the state.
For government and business leaders, the $37 million college academy, which held its grand opening Friday, represents a major step in Hawaii’s growth in entertainment, esports and digital media. They see potential to build a workforce for media jobs on the islands, build an adjacent production studio and more than double the $400 million a year in direct spending that TV and film projects alone attract to the state.
For students like Mikaela Briones, a junior at UH West Oahu, the addition of the academy on the Kapolei campus is a boost to the often-beleaguered reputation of her nearby hometown on Oahu’s Waianae Coast. And as Briones, who dreams of one day animating for movie giant Pixar, is now getting her general creative media degree, she sighs happily: “I don’t have to leave home.”
For instructors like Marion Ano, who teaches app development, the state-of-the-art academy is an opportunity to put powerful tools in the hands of Native Hawaiians and other people so they can solve human problems and their stories and cultures can be immortalized.
“That’s why I continue to teach,” said the part-Hawaiian lecturer.
And for the academy’s kamaaina founder, Chris Lee, former head of entertainment giant Columbia TriStar, the Academy for Creative Media’s official launch after years of painstaking research, lobbying, planning and construction means finally having a connection to the 16 creative media programs he directs at all 10 UH campus.
“I am excited for the students. I’m excited because this is a truly state-of-the-art, industrial-ready production center that’s as good as any other school in the world has to offer,” Lee told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
“From the beginning, my mantra has been, if all I’ve done is create something that sent more kids to the mainland, I feel like I’ll have failed. But if it’s populated our local economy, where digital workers fill the needs in the creative economy, and they stay here, that’s really my goal.”
Visitors to the Academy for Creative Media are first drawn in by a massive LED screen on the facade that illuminates an outdoor amphitheater. Its cavernous lobby, with a small amphitheater and another giant LED monitor, serves as a central hub for spokes in classrooms and suites: on the first floor, a massive sound stage built to industry specifications; a “mill shop” for building sets and other projects; a Dolby Atmos 100-seat screening room and mixing stage; an eSports arena with 24 gaming stations; digital post-production suites; and an “emerging media lab.”
Upstairs there are classrooms and an artistically decorated “incubator space” called the hatchery.
Construction on the 33,000-square-foot building was completed in 2020, and classes quietly began in 2021, but the covid-19 pandemic delayed the grand opening.
Friday’s celebration drew more than 300 guests and featured choral music by UH West Oahu students, a blessing by kahu Hailama Farden and rousing speeches by Lee, Gov. David Ige and UH President David Lassner. A celebrity panel discussion followed, with praise for the Academy from actors Ronny Chieng, Mark Dacascos, Amy Hill and Kimee Balmilero, and producer Bird Runningwater.
The Bachelor of Arts in Creative Media is now UH West Oahu’s fastest growing degree program, with more than 300 student majors; the university’s goal is to grow to 500 majors in five years.
A quarter of the academy’s majors claim Hawaiian ancestry. Along with the rest of the creative media programs across the UH system, Lee said UH has “the first majority of Native Hawaiian, Asian American and Pacific Islander media programs in the world.”
Majors at UH West Oahu Academy choose from four concentrations: Communication and New Media Technology, Design and Media, Video Game Design and Development, and General Creative Media.
Students are prepared for jobs in moving image, video production, design and social media as well as digital content creation, video game design and development, and the integration of storytelling and technology, a UH statement said. Hawaii’s creative sector, which includes the film, music, digital media and arts industries, already accounts for nearly 54,000 jobs statewide.
And more growth to come for academia and society. Already, the academy has been a catalyst for half a dozen Hawaii high schools’ creation of feeder programs and early college courses in creative media and new industry partnerships, said UH West Oahu Chancellor Maenette Benham.
“There are many ways in which this particular program is not only good for our students and their families in terms of their careers, but how the program reaches down to K-12 and reaches into a much larger business environment as well as the community,” said she.
Additionally, a “Phase 2” for the academy, including an adjacent film production studio, is already in early discussions, Lassner and Governor-elect Josh Green separately confirmed.
“We are looking at developing a commercial studio,” Lassner said in his speech at the ceremony. “We do not expect to ask for government funding for this; we are looking for a private operator who knows how to build and do it. And our conversations are very positive.
“And we want to take it much further, really create a destination around the studio that can support not just local filmmakers, but global filmmakers can come here, create jobs, create opportunities, create commercial activity, provide housing – there’s so much we can do here with this 500-plus acres in this lower part of UH West Oahu. So we’re beyond excited.”
Green said he expects the state to welcome the development of a studio along with nearby homes.
“Having the capacity to actually house people here means a lot more production can occur,” he said. “It’s a priority because this could very well be the next piece of our economic stool.”
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