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CHS alum Jon
Cortizo wins 'student Emmy'
By Kelsey Oates
Special to the Citizen
When it
comes to its alumni, Canton High School has had plenty to brag
about over the years. Now, thanks to 2007 graduate Jon Cortizo,
it can add “student Emmy” winner to that ever-growing list, as
Cortizo was recently given the award by the National Academy of
Television Arts and Sciences’ Boston chapter for his original
film “The Escape.”
 Cortizo won
for Long Form (Fiction and Non-Fiction), an award for films six
to ten minutes in length that exhibit “outstanding achievement
in a regularly scheduled or special presentation of a long-form
treatment of a single subject,” as stated by The National
Student Television Award for Excellence website.
Cortizo
described “The Escape,” which he produced and directed during
his senior year at CHS, as “an adventure/comedy about an eighth
grader’s quest to sneak out of his heavily-secured middle school
undetected to visit a girl he loves.” He said he had not even
thought about the Student Awards of Excellence until his high
school television productions teacher, Ed McDonough, suggested
it. Last year, Cortizo won first prize for drama in the 2007
Hockomock Film Festival, after having entered nine film
festivals and getting no response.
McDonough
called the honor a validation of Cortizo’s skills as a filmmaker
and as someone who understands the process behind the scenes.
“[He] really has mastered the lessons of collaboration and
networking,” McDonough said, pointing to the budding filmmaker’s
decision to work with people whose strengths cover his
weaknesses, making the story they are telling better as a whole.
In addition
to Cortizo’s award, McDonough was given an award of excellence
as a TV productions teacher. The film also garnered its cast and
crew honorable mentions and an award of excellence for CHS.
The awards
ceremony was held on June 20 at WCVB-TV Channel 5 studios, and
as part of the ceremony winners were treated to a tour of the
studios by co-anchor Bianca de la Garza and a question and
answer session with meteorologists Dick Albert and Harvey
Leonard. The ceremony also featured a talk by News Director
Coleen Marren and ended with the students watching a live
broadcast anchored by Liz Brunner and de la Garza.
 This summer,
Cortizo has been continuing his education in the filmmaking
process by working as a production assistant on “Surrogates,” a
movie starring Bruce Willis as an FBI agent who, according to
Cortizo, “becomes tangled in a murder that becomes progressively
worse.” He said his duties as a PA range from “keeping
pedestrians from walking onto set,” to “communicating
information between the production department and the other
departments of the shoot,” taking care of extras, and assisting
in the set-up and break-down of tents and chairs when switching
locations. He said the job also involves tasks seemingly
unrelated to the film, such as booking tee times for the
assistant directors and producers.
“Surrogates”
is tentatively scheduled for release this Thanksgiving, but
competition from a new James Bond film may push it back to a
later date.
Cortizo said
his aims as a director are to tell a good story and “to give the
audience the best show humanly possible.” One of his favorite
directors, Steven Spielberg, has inspired him both on and off
the screen, he said. After being denied admission to Emerson
College, Cortizo opted for Suffolk University, motivating
himself to study hard and focus by thinking about Spielberg’s
initial rejection from film school, but ultimate success.
And Cortizo’s
efforts paid off, as this fall he will be starting his first
semester at Emerson College. He said he hopes the experience
will help him progress as a filmmaker, and enable him to mimic
Spielberg not just as a student, but as a director.
July 17, 2008
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