{"id":271822,"date":"2026-04-17T02:07:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T02:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/271822\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T02:07:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T02:07:13","slug":"sca-announces-director-jason-reitman-and-cinematographer-alice-brooks-to-speak-at-commencement-annenberg-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/271822\/","title":{"rendered":"SCA announces director Jason Reitman and cinematographer Alice Brooks to speak at commencement \u2013 Annenberg Media"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Oscar-nominated director Jason Reitman will return to USC\u2019s School of Cinematic Arts (SCA) to deliver this year\u2019s commencement speech for the class of 2026, Dean Elizabeth Daley announced Tuesday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Reitman, an SCA alum, is the Oscar-nominated director of the films Juno and Up in the Air. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Aiden Cullen, a second year MFA student in the John Wells Division of Writing for Screen &amp; Television, said he is a fan of Reitman\u2019s movies and looks forward to hearing from him at graduation. Cullen previously attended one of Reitman\u2019s career talks at SCA last spring.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Jason Reitman is also the son of Ivan Reitman, who is best known for directing the \u201cGhostbuster\u201d series. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cIt was really cool,\u201d Cullen said of Reitman\u2019s USC visit. He said something really funny about being a \u2018nepo baby.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Other speakers announced include Alice Brooks, cinematographer for the Wicked franchise and In The Heights. Brooks is set to receive the <a href=\"https:\/\/marypickford.org\/education\/usc-mary-pickford-foundation-alumni-awards\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mary Pickford Alumni Award<\/a>, which honors graduates whose achievements in the industry have brought distinction to the university. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cWe are excited to welcome two of our accomplished alumni back to USC to help usher our latest cohort of graduating students into the professional world,\u201d Daley said in <a href=\"https:\/\/cinema.usc.edu\/news\/article.cfm?id=73162#:~:text=Created%20in%201995%2C%20in%20partnership,university%20and%20to%20the%20industry.\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a press release.<\/a> <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The dean also said that the two speakers are responsible for some of the school\u2019s \u201cmost beloved films\u201d over the last few years. She added that they \u201c are having the kinds of careers our students dream about.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Wesley Ahart, a third-year student obtaining a master of fine arts degree in film and television production. A cinematographer himself, Ahart is set to graduate in May. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">He said he was excited to celebrate Brooks\u2019 \u201chigh level cinematography\u201d next month. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cShe\u2019s made history in a lot of ways with what she\u2019s done,\u201d Ahart said. \u201cI think her work is just so beautiful.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Ahart said he feels honored to be in Brooks\u2019 presence at the graduation ceremony. He said he hopes her speech will highlight her journey from SCA to success. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">SCA\u2019s graduation ceremony is set to take place at 1 p.m. on May 15 at the Shrine Auditorium. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oscar-nominated director Jason Reitman will return to USC\u2019s School of Cinematic Arts (SCA) to deliver this year\u2019s commencement&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[65304,30149,1758,8600,48,52,51,47,50,49,48465,25879,66715,3533],"class_list":{"0":"post-271822","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-alum","9":"tag-cinema","10":"tag-director","11":"tag-graduation","12":"tag-la","13":"tag-la-headlines","14":"tag-la-news","15":"tag-los-angeles","16":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","17":"tag-los-angeles-news","18":"tag-oscar","19":"tag-sca","20":"tag-shrine","21":"tag-usc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}