The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) and Southbox Entertainment and FilmHedge founder Jon Gosier (B.F.A. sequential art) announced today a new partnership as part of the university’s innovative SCADpro program. Gosier’s upcoming action-thriller Collateral Data will be the first feature film shot on the university’s newest LED volume stage, which launched in September 2022 at SCAD Atlanta’s recently expanded SCAD Digital Media Center.
Based on Code Switch, a personal memoir about hip-hop, hackers, and Africa’s tech revolution, Gosier’s original screenplay Collateral Data examines the effects of data on privacy, public safety, and philanthropy. His screenplay caught the attention of Emmy Award-winning producer Chris De La Torre (The Square, The Great Hack), who has joined the production team that also includes Gosier, Cassidy Rast, and Jason Corder. The film will begin shooting on SCAD Atlanta’s LED volume stage this summer, with current SCAD students getting hands-on experience as part of the program.
“We are thrilled to collaborate and partner with Southbox on their upcoming feature film, Collateral Data, said SCADpro Vice President Paul Stonick.” This project will include exceptionally talented SCAD students and faculty across multiple majors, providing them valuable insights into industry trends and practices, strengthening their knowledge base and preparing them for their creative professions. The size and scope of this partnership is unique, innovative, and transcends multiple facilities, locations and resources, including SCAD’s trailblazing LED volume stage — filmmaking’s next frontier.”
Every year, SCADpro generates more than 50 industry-sponsored projects, pairing innovative companies with the brightest creative students, alumni, and professors. SCADpro integrates multiple disciplines, offering partners innovative, student-generated concepts and solutions from a wide variety of career tracks. Representing the designers, thinkers, and influencers of tomorrow, SCAD students research, develop, and deliver professional results all within an academic setting. Top brands, including Coca-Cola, Google, Amazon, Delta Air Lines, NASA, Hewlett-Packard, Coty, Deloitte, and more, have collaborated on SCADpro assignments over the last five years.
“Our film will be among those privileged few to use this leading-edge technology, which advances the way stories are crafted,” Gosier said. “To be the first director utilizing the SCAD LED volume stage for a feature is truly an honor. I had no idea that 25 years after enrolling at SCAD that I would be returning in a professional capacity to direct my first feature.”
Gosier attended SCAD as an undergraduate sequential art student, time he credits for lighting his passion for storytelling and technology. Prior to his work in film, Gosier spent 10 years in venture capital and tech, founding the ad-tech company Audigent in 2014. The company made its debut on the Inc. 5000 in the top 5% of fastest growing companies and was ranked among the top 100 fastest growing companies in the country on the 2022 Deloitte Technology Fast 500. He was named one of the new faces of Black Leadership in 2015 by Time Magazine. His 2014 TED Talk about ethical innovation has been viewed millions of times. In December 2021, Gosier’s fintech venture, FilmHedge, kicked off with a $5 million seed round, including an investment from SCADpro Fund. Complementing the university’s preeminent curriculum, SCADpro Fund invests in new ventures by SCAD alumni, helping them scale fast and solve business challenges through innovation by design. FilmHedge will support the production of Collateral Data with its financial solutions, tailor-made for feature productions with budgets between $1 million and $50 million.
SCAD is the only university in the world with two LED volume stages, which are also the largest at any academic institution in the U.S. Extended reality technologies like SCAD’s LED volume stages are groundbreaking innovations that represent filmmaking’s next frontier, combining live-action performance and real-time environments live on set to merge the real and virtual worlds.
Students from top-ranked degree programs in the SCAD School of Animation and Motion and the SCAD School of Film and Acting will be among the first in the world actively working and collaborating on LED volumes, taking their filmmaking and storytelling capabilities to new heights. SCAD Atlanta’s trailblazing LED volume is an investment into the future of SCAD students and reinforces the university’s contributions to Georgia’s multibillion-dollar film and television industry.
