Area college teams up with Emmy Award-winning video production studio

TAMPA — The University of Tampa has announced that it has teamed up with a Tampa-based video production studio to provide its film students with hands-on experience in the industry.

The virtual production partnership with Diamond View Studios, an Emmy Award-winning video production firm, is slated to begin this spring. Undergraduate, on-campus classes will be centered around Diamond View’s Vu, a state-of-the-art virtual production studio housing one of the largest LED volumes in the world. The company recently invested about $7 million in the project. 

The university and Diamond View say the technology, which includes motion control robotics and advanced motion capture systems, provides “an ideal venue for interns and students to get hands-on experience needed to prepare students for their careers in the film industry.”

“In a field like virtual production, with ever-changing technology, a graduating student might not be ready to meet the needs of the industry,” says Gregg Perkins, associate professor of film, animation and new media at the University of Tampa, in a statement.

“This new partnership works to bridge that gap between academia and industry. This allows us to train students in a way that, right now, a lot of other schools and higher education institutions can’t. It’s a big competitive advantage for us.”  

Perkins adds that many of the university’s students are studying animation, programming, coding, filmmaking and other disciplines that will increasingly rely on virtual and digital production.

“Most students outside of the big hubs like New York, L.A. and Atlanta don’t get the same opportunities to get hands on learning with virtual production,” says Tim Moore, Diamond View’s CEO, in the statement.

“We’re really excited to be working with the University of Tampa to provide those experiences.”

Diamond View, which was formed in 2007, “seeks to inspire audiences through cinematic, high quality video.” 

The University of Tampa has about 10,000 students from all 50 states and about 130 countries, a majority of whom reside on the school’s 110-acre campus on the riverfront in Tampa.