LOS ANGELES, March 2007 -Ford Motor Company continued its commitment to education with the presentation of a $10,000 grant to the F. Gary Gray Filmmakers Workshop: Project Watts at the recent NAACP Hollywood Bureau (NHB) 3rd Annual Symposium. Titled, Who’s Running the Show: Creating Heroes, the symposium featured diverse cast members of the popular television show, Heroes, and was one of the key events leading up to the 38th Annual NAACP Image Awards presentation.
Bruce Gordon, former president and CEO of the NAACP and Pamela Alexander, director of Community Development and Business Operations, Ford Motor Company Fund, presented the check to two student participants of Project Watts, on behalf of F. Gary Gray (director, Friday, Set It Off,The Italian Job), the workshop’s founder. Project Watts is a 10-month filmmaking workshop for at-risk elementary and high school students from South Los Angeles. The workshop provides students with the opportunity to tell their unique stories through the art of filmmaking and introduces them to highly successful industry professionals who challenge them to produce their own work.
The evening’s symposium featured moderator, Emmy-award winning broadcaster Ed Gordon, host of TV One’s Our World with Black Enterprise, who led a lively panel discussion that included industry
executives, Tim Kring, executive producer/creator, Heroes; Bruce Evans, vice president, current series, NBC Universal; and Marc Hirschfield, executive vice president, casting, NBC Entertainment. Also on the panel were four of the diverse cast members of the popular NBC show, Heroes,including Sendhil Ramamurthy, Mohinder Suresh; Tawny Cypress, Simone Deveaux; Santiago Cabrera, Isaac Mendez; Noah Gray-Cabey, Micah Sanders; and Leonard Roberts, D. L. Hawkins. The symposium discussion focused on the how to’s of creating a successful television show for today’s diverse culture and how diverse organizations can influence greater minority participation as it relates to working in front of and behind the camera.
“We feel privileged to be a sponsor of the NAACP Image Awards’ diversity symposium and to support Project Watts as they both play an important role in educating minorities on the skills needed to work in the television industry,” said Alexander. “Ford Motor Company continues its commitment to develop relationships with organizations that support educational programs.
ABOUT FORD
Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader based in Dearborn, Mich., manufactures and distributes automobiles in 200 markets across six continents. With about 280,000 employees and more than 100 plants worldwide, the company’s core and affiliated automotive brands include Aston Martin, Ford, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lincoln, Mazda, Mercury and Volvo. Its automotive-related services include Ford Motor Credit Company. For more information regarding Ford’s products, please visit www.fordvehicles.com.