NJ Film School to Move to New Providence

Chris Messineo couldn’t believe that there wasn’t a film school in New Jersey. Most students who wanted to study film had to go into Manhattan, he said.

So he decided to start his own, and the NJ Film School was born.

After three years of operating the school that provides more than a dozen classes in all aspects of filmmaking in Martinsville, NJ, Messineo is moving the school into a bigger facility in New Providence – his hometown.

“There was no place in New Jersey for filmmaking and no one was opening one,” he said. “And I would be really mad if it wasn’t me.”

The new facility at 755 Central Avenue will be four times the size of his current studio, complete with a sound stage, offices and a theater as opposed to just the one room he had to work with in Martinsville.

Bigger size comes with more opportunity, he said, mentioning that the school now has more than $10,000 of new equipment to incorporate into their hands-on lessons.

And the move – besides being more convenient for Messineo who lives about a half mile away – will be better situated for his students, most of whom come from the area.

The new facility is scheduled to open in October, including a 10 percent discount of classes in an effort to attract more people to attend classes in addition to the 100 students he has now.

Messineo said one of the most interesting things about his business is the amount of adults who have enrolled in a filmmaking class. His classes are divided by age into kids, teens and adults, with adults being the fastest growing area.

“They have cameras at home and want to learn how to operate them for home videos or work or whatever else,” he said.

In the fall when the new facility opens, the school will be offering classes in filmmaking, screenwriting and acting workshops taught by Messineo, a 20-year screenwriting veteran and founder of Off Stage Films, an independent production company, shooting short films and corporate videos.

Occasionally, specialty classes will be offered, like film makeup, taught by experts in the field, he said.

The classes are 10 people or less, with students encouraged to participate in all aspects to “get their hands dirty,” he said. As a person who learns from doing rather than lectures, Messineo adopted the same philosophy in his school.

This way, the students can walk away with something tangible, he said, as within the course of the 10-week class, students walk away with several projects they can say they made.

 “Filmmaking is a labor of love,” he said. “The students get to walk away with something that they made from start to finish.”

Classes begin at $375. Check njfilmschool.com for class openings and to contact the school.