While growing up in downtown L.A., Xavier Calderon and his mother made a tradition of heading to Regal Cinemas at the L.A. Live complex every Tuesday — drawn in by the discounted prices — and losing themselves in whatever new story played on the big screen.
“I remember thinking: ‘How can I be a part of this?’ ” Calderon says. Being among the list of names scrolling up during the closing credits — representing the hundreds of creative contributions that go into crafting the make-believe he’d watch onscreen — felt like a dream others got to chase. He was raised by a single mom who worked as property manager; neither had any industry connections nor a concept of where to even start.
He’d find an entry point just off West Colton Street, on the border of downtown and Echo Park, at the Roybal Film and Television Magnet.
Founded by a trio of entertainment heavyweights — George Clooney, producer-actor-writer-director Grant Heslov and Creative Artists Agency Co-Chairman Bryan Lourd — the specialized high school program opened in August 2022 with a formidable mission: to empower underserved aspiring storytellers while fortifying a more inclusive Hollywood pipeline to diversify the industry’s future workforce.
The push follows long-standing criticism that Hollywood remains heavily dominated by white men, including among film crews. While reports are published regularly about diversity among actors and creators, there’s much less data about crews. But union members and experts say crews lag in diversity and inclusion. And this systemic issue faces compounding challenges with production declines, budget cuts, diminished studio inclusion programs, a shift toward international production and the rapid rise of AI.
The program is backed by the major studios and streamers (Walt Disney Co., Fox Entertainment and Netflix among them), notable industry figures like Don Cheadle, Mindy Kaling, Kerry Washington and Eva Longoria who are part of its advisory board, and key partners such as IATSE, the union that represents below-the-line craftspeople, and Avid, the industry standard for nonlinear video editing and audio postproduction. And it aims to address the problem by training young people, like Calderon, who are interested in entertainment but lack the opportunity to break into its ranks and puts them on a path for production and set careers.
In between — and during — history and math assignments, Calderon cultivated his skill set, becoming part of the program’s inaugural class that matriculated in June, marking the first full four-year cohort to finish. He’s now a freshman at New York University’s Tisch program, studying film and television. And since the end of September, on his course-free days, he’s been working his first job in film as a paid production assistant on the movie “In Love,” starring Clooney and produced by Heslov, that’s currently filming in New Jersey.
“Roybal is actually giving kids who don’t have the resources or the opportunities, finally, the chance to succeed … I’m out doing food runs and helping all these different departments with whatever they need — carrying equipment, logging things, just doing anything I can to help,” says Calderon, 18. After putting in office hours as a PA, he’s now getting a taste of on-set duties, contributing to the making of a film that may someday play in the theater he used to visit.
“Honestly, I’m liking this more than college — at least so far,” he says. “I want to see George Clooney get in his zone and take the film where it needs to go — all the way from action to cut.”
While most traditional film programs focus heavily on “above the line” roles like writing, directing and acting — and are offered as courses and fields of study at college-level or adult-focused institutions — Roybal shifts the lens to “below the line” technical crafts and postproduction careers. The program is modeled after the London Screen Academy, a free state-funded U.K. academy established by Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, the founders of Working Title Films.
The program is housed within the Edward R. Roybal Learning Center in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Before its launch, the magnet was projected to be 20% to 25% more expensive to run than a standard school of its size, with an annual budget of about $7 million, of which $2 million to $3 million would come from the program’s Hollywood partners. Ultimately, the founding partners contributed more than $4 million in philanthropic funding, with the extra capital covering specialized gear, custom curriculum and program coordinators to ensure no additional financial strain on LAUSD’s ongoing operating budget, according to a Roybal spokesperson.
It is open to any student who qualifies to attend a LAUSD high school, whether they want to pursue a career in entertainment or not. The student population is predominately Latino/Hispanic (78%); 8% are African American and 14% identify under other ethnicities, according to Roybal data. For the 2026 class, consisting of 46 graduating seniors, 96% are now attending a four-year college/university or community college, while 4% have gone directly into workforce development programs with pathways into below-the-line careers, according to a spokesperson. And success isn’t strictly measured by how many students go on to enter the industry, says Blanca E. Cruz, the school’s principal.
“Kids get to see opportunities they wouldn’t have otherwise been exposed to,” says Cruz, inside a conference room on the school’s campus where a new freshman class has commenced. “They can see through these different doors whether they want to become a costume designer, or an editor or work in animation. A kid can still say, I want to be a doctor or a lawyer. But now, hey, what about an attorney in the industry?”
The program currently has 200 students across grades nine through 12; the goal is to increase that to 500 students over the next couple of years, Cruz says. If 50% of the student body gets into the industry, that’s already an improvement, according to Karen Williams, the executive director of Roybal Film and Television Magnet Production Fund, which provides support through philanthropic contributions. It starts by expanding mental boundaries, showing students who have a curiosity or interest in filmmaking — but little desire to be a writer, director or actor — that they can pursue behind-the-scenes roles as integral to the craft that can lead to a fulfilling career.
Other cities are joining in the efforts; partner programs modeled after Roybal have opened within their school districts in New York, Newark, N.J., and Baton Rouge, La., with Roybal Film and Television Magnet Fund providing advisory support, teacher professional development, the curriculum and access to industry partners.
“One thing we’re really focused on in California, now that we’ve got our curriculum, [is] how do we deploy that through similar schools in L.A. County and LAUSD?” Williams says. Because building a pipeline early, she says, that includes students from underrepresented backgrounds is just one type of structural reform to the industry’s systemic diversity and inclusion problem.
“You can’t wait until the night of the Oscars and say, ‘Oscars are so white,’ ” Williams says. “The goal is creating a strong filmmaking foundation that introduces kids to what it is, what these below-the-line career paths are, from cinematography to lighting, camera. They’re not just exposed to it. But how do we train them and make sure that the training is informed by what it takes to be ready to work on a set?”
Roybal combines standard “A-G” requirements, a sequence of 15 courses needed for entry into California’s four-year colleges and universities, with hands-on vocational training. Freshman and sophomore students learn a broad base of technical and creative skills that are integrated with standard subjects like history and literature. During their junior and senior years, students select a specific career pathway — post production (editing, animation and visual effects), technical (camera, lighting and sound) or craft (hair and makeup, costume design and set design) — and learn union-led skills, then work on projects that put those skills into practice.
For example, history teachers work with industry experts associated with A&E’s History Channel to guide students as they create a documentary about a significant individual or historical event, figuring out subjects to interview and assembling the footage, that the expert provides feedback on. There’s also an editing project involving Disney IP. Editors from the company speak with the students — who have access to industry-grade equipment and software, including Avid — and provide lessons on how to edit a piece; the students will then create their own and have a final presentation of their work, receiving coaching and feedback along the way.
Since its launch, the program continues to look for ways to expand its curriculum offerings. In the spring, all 10th grade students will take Film Production 100, which is a dual enrollment course with L.A. Trade Tech; it’s also the first intro class needed for Hollywood CPR, an IATSE-signatory training program, so any student that enrolls after graduation will already have the class under their belt. As the entertainment industry grapples with artificial intelligence in production, Williams said consideration was given to having the next phase of fundraising be around developing an AI curriculum that would focus on how to use it as a tool versus a replacement for human talent, but that objective has since reverted back to core objectives related to sustainability and growth.
The teaching is also interspersed with guidance from Hollywood figures who visit with pupils, like Oscar-winning costume designer Ruth E. Carter; acclaimed cinematographer Dion Beebe, who most recently worked on Antoine Fuqua’s biographical film “Michael”; and Cheadle, Longoria and Washington. Overall, the program averages 25 to 30 guest speakers each year. Students also partake in immersive field trips, like a shadowing experience on “The Comeback” set at the Warner Bros. lot, a behind-the-scenes look at the world-building of Universal Studios’ Grinchmas experience, and screenings that include talk-backs with creative talent.
Graduating seniors and Roybal alumni who are college freshman are eligible to apply to take part in summer fellowships organized by Fox Entertainment and Walt Disney Co. where they participate in workshops, receive professional coaching and hear from experts in various fields about their work; Roybal is in talks to expand to additional partners, according to the school’s spokesperson. The Times observed as Dan O’Connell, a celebrated foley artist with an impressive career spanning 30 years and over 500 films (2026’s “The Odyssey,” 2023’s “Barbie” and 2019’s “Avengers: Endgame”), sparked the imaginations of this summer’s fellows by way of mounds of miscellaneous items — door stoppers, pots, even a truck door — haphazardly stacked into piles littering the floor and tabletops inside a small room on the Fox Studio Lot in Century City. Think Jason Bourne throws a really mean punch? O’Connell told the students a stalk of celery is responsible for the smacking sound. At one point, the students’ eyes lit up as O’Connell demonstrated the auditory potential of a 2-in-1 back scratcher.
It’s those kinds of in-person interactions and observations that were motivating for Adan Hernandez, who was raised in Echo Park by blue-collar parents. Like Calderon, Hernandez chose to pursue a technical pathway at Roybal, focusing on lights and camera work and learning how to use equipment. Since graduating, the 18-year-old is now participating in the Hollywood CPR trainee program and has chosen the grip pathway as his area of study — a decision he made after IATSE Local 80 members visited Roybal and captivated him with an overview of their job and a hands-on demonstration of boom pole operations.
“It made me realize: OK, I want to be the one hauling all this equipment back and forth; I want to be the one building it and operating it,” Hernandez says.
Of course, the program is preparing students at a challenging moment in the industry. Even with improvements to the tax incentive program, California and Los Angeles in particular continue to grapple with how to rebuild as a production hub as movies and television series move out of state or even out of the country. And while the skills students are learning can set the foundation for a career in production anywhere they choose, they are poised to enter an incredibly tough Hollywood job market particularly as artificial intelligence fundamentally restructures the workforce.
Co-founder Heslov acknowledges the challenges the next generation faces. But working in entertainment has never been a steady, traditional career path. And while different forces redefine how film and television are made, he contends that the core human element remains irreplaceable.
“It’s really difficult, but the good news is, if you really want to do this, there are still opportunities — you go where the work is,” Heslov says. “Will AI penetrate into our business? I’m of the camp that the best stories are going to be told by humans and made by humans. What I tell the kids: If you could think of something that you’d rather do than this, then I encourage you do to that. But if you can’t, if this is what you want to do, then it’s a great world to live in.”
It gets him thinking about Calderon. And the fact that Heslov even knows Calderon’s name is the ultimate proof of the opportunities that can come from access and who you know. Calderon received his first taste of networking at Roybal. As a freshman, he went to one of the school’s board meetings that Clooney, Heslov and Lourd attended and was intent on making an impression with a clever remark:
“Hey, George Clooney, when I grow up, I want to be a billionaire playboy like you,” is what Calderon ultimately said. It earned laughs from the room, including Clooney.
“Roybal prepared me to speak to George Clooney,” Calderon says. “I don’t feel nervous around George Clooney … because I was talking to all these different people on all these sets who’ve worked on some crazy movies, like ‘Mission Impossible,’ ‘Spider-Man,’ or brand-new movies that are coming out.”
It’s served him well. When Clooney and Heslov learned Calderon was bound for NYU, he was invited him to work on “In Love.” A representative for Clooney said he was not available to be interviewed for this story, but Heslov says he hopes the job helps Calderon decide what he wants to do.
“That kid’s going to be successful, no matter what he chooses to do,” Heslov says. “I studied theater acting in college, but here I am a producer and a writer. But all that stuff along the way taught me. That’s what the school is about … to play with all the different colors and see what it is you really enjoy.”
And if all goes well, Heslov adds, and Calderon makes an impression, maybe someone working on the film recommends him for the next job they’re on.
“It’s all about the people that you meet — it’s that access,” he says.
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