Where creative education meets professional practice.
Overview
A School built around practitioners, standards and real creative questions.
The School of the Arts is COOL ACADEMY’s first actively developing School. Its founding areas of practice grow from the experience of the Founding Fellows.
Craft belongs alongside professional judgment, collaboration, rights literacy and the understanding of how creative work moves from idea to delivery.
Screen & Interactive CompositionCreative Producing & Music SupervisionMusic Supervision, Clearance & AdministrationMusic for Visual Media & Creative EnterpriseSongwriting & Vocal ProductionMusic Production & Audio PostMusic Production & Artist DevelopmentCreative Direction & Artist DevelopmentDigital Media & Creative Production
Fellowship
FELLOWSHIP IS NOT AN AWARD. IT IS AN APPOINTMENT TO STEWARDSHIP.
An appointment to stewardship.
Fellows bring the knowledge of working practitioners into the life of the institution. Their contribution can include mentorship, selective teaching, critique, program insight and institutional counsel.
The founding generation.
Inaugural describes when someone joins. Founding describes what someone helps build. The Founding Nine are the inaugural practitioners helping establish the School’s professional and intellectual foundation.
Community or rank
Institutional meaning
Academy Member
Participation in the wider Academy community.
Resident Fellow
Demonstrated achievement and developing educational or institutional leadership.
Senior Fellow
Established expertise and stewardship that helps build people, standards and capacity.
Distinguished Fellow
The highest active Fellowship rank, reflecting exceptional professional distinction and sustained institutional contribution.
Academy Laureate is a separate exceptional distinction. Founding, Visiting, Honorary, Executive, Fellow-in-Residence and Emeritus are designations, not additional ranks.
Class of 2026
THE FOUNDING NINE
Knowledge lives in people. Their areas of stewardship describe what they help the Academy become capable of teaching, understanding and developing.
A still from 93 ’Til · A film from Momentum Film Works.
Case study / 001
93 ’Til
Professional-practice learning experience in developmentOfficial film poster
Real creative decisions. Real professional standards.
COOL ACADEMY is developing a professional-practice learning experience around 93 ’Til, an independent film from Momentum Film Works. The film offers a context for examining music supervision, composition, rights, clearance, audio post and the professional delivery process.
The experience is being shaped to connect creative decisions with the professional systems required to bring a film to completion.
Film recognition
The work has traveled.
The film’s festival recognition reflects the achievement of its filmmakers and cast. COOL ACADEMY’s proposed professional-practice experience is a separate initiative in development.
Awards won
05
Best Feature FilmDetroit Black Film Festival
Best Director — Alterik MillerNewark International Film Festival
Best Female Actress — Sophia Lucia ParolaNewark International Film Festival
Best Feature FilmThe People’s Film Festival
Best Feature FilmReel Sisters Film Festival
Nominations
08
Best FeatureBronzeLens Film Festival
Best Male Actor — Petey McGeeBronzeLens Film Festival
Best Feature FilmNewark International Film Festival
Two struggling Philadelphia artists meet at a job fair and spend one perfect day falling in love—no phones, no filters, just presence—before a toxic ex and a violent robbery tear them apart, forcing them to search the city to find each other again and choose love despite uncertainty.
Festival circuit information supplied by the filmmaker
ABFF · BronzeLens · Reel Sisters Film Festival · MVAAFF · Newark International Film Festival · Detroit Black Film Festival · Oak Park Black Film Festival · The People’s Film Festival · Urbanworld Film Festival · Greater Cleveland Urban Film Festival · XL Fest · HBCU First Look Film Festival · Essence Film Festival · Cultural Connections Film Festival.
