ABOUT US

CLINTON CORNWELL

coach and co-founder

Raised on a coffee farm in Hawaii, Clinton received his BA in Film from UNLV and his Masters of Fine Arts in Film Production from Florida State, both in film production. After graduating, he moved to Los Angeles where for 7 years he worked in the entertainment industry as a director, producer, editor, location sound recordist, and cinematographer. He now is bringing the lessons learned from those experiences to help prepare his students at Tennessee State University for careers in the arts and entertainment industry. His focus as an educator is collaboration, creating community, and student empowerment.

Clinton has directed 2 feature films and 15 short films. Primarily focusing on horror and slice-of-life films, Clinton directs stories about the extremes of the human condition; from unsightly gore and intense thrills to awkward sex scenes and angry romance. He uses this theater of the extreme to shine a light on a range of human experiences that often do not have stories told about them.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clintoncornwell

Twitter: https://twitter.com/clintoncornwell

ALLEN C. GARDNER

coach and co-founder

Allen has always loved storytelling and began writing, acting, and staging performances for family and friends and shooting little “movies” at a very early age. He completed his first feature screenplay, “Heatwave”, when he was fourteen years old. He then went on to form the Memphis-based production company Old School Pictures alongside his close friends Brad Ellis, Mark Norris, and Matt Weatherly while in high school. Before graduating, the team shot various sketches, shorts, and feature films. After high school, Allen moved to Los Angeles and acted in numerous film, TV, and theater productions while continuing to write and produce independent films with Old School. He also started staging his own plays, and he began a long-running collaboration with his close friend Adam Burns as well.

After co-directing several film and stage productions, Allen formed Open Dialogue Productions and began solo directing and editing films, in addition to writing, producing, and acting in them. Under the Open Dialogue banner, Allen made “Being Awesome”, “We Got Lucky”, “Save Yourself”, as well as “Bad, Bad Men” and the recently released “Cold Feet” (both of which he co-directed with Brad Ellis). Allen is currently in post-production on Open Dialogue’s latest film, the comedy/drama “Baby Come Home”, which is also his first co-production with close friend Matthew Gilliam, whom Allen has acted with and directed in various productions. Allen and Matthew will produce Allen’s newest play, the music-fueled drama “Breaker Breaker”, in 2023 and shoot the film adaptation soon after. Allen is also in various stages of development on several other projects, including the horror/thrillers “Violent Urges” and “Sold”, the drama/thrillers “True You” and “Burn It Down”, the comedy/drama “Data Date Soul Mate”, and his first novel, “Choose Your Future”.

Over the last several years, Allen has greatly enjoyed speaking with various classes and fellow writers, filmmakers, and actors about the way he approaches his work and achieves his goals, how they can develop and refine their own projects, and striving to create work that is personal, fulfilling, and able to connect with its audience. Alongside Clinton, whom Allen has been a fan of for years, he formed Story/Life so that he could help motivate and guide more and more fellow artists, and he’s grateful to any artist who shares their journey with him.

Allen’s movies: https://linktr.ee/AllenCGardner

Allen’s Writer/Director Reel: https://bit.ly/AllenCGardnerFilmmaker

Allen’s Actor Reels: https://bit.ly/AllenCGardnerDemoReels

Trailers: http://bit.ly/AllenCGardnerFilmTrailers

Facebook: www.facebook.com/AllenCGardner

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/allencgardnermovies

Twitter: https://twitter.com/allencgardner