SCA Retirements
Helaine Head
Associate Professor - Production Division
Helaine Head taught directing at USC School of Cinematic Arts for 25 years. Head has extensive credits as a television director, including Cagney & Lacey, St. Elsewhere, L.A. Law, Wiseguy, Law And Order, Touched By An Angel, Frank's Place, Soul Food, Sisters, Tour Of Duty, and numerous others. She taught directing courses including single-camera television along with intermediate directing and the production experience.
Head received the Directors Guild of America Award for You Must Remember This and directed My Past Is My Own with Whoopi Goldberg, which received the Humanitas Prize and several Emmy nominations. She also directed Simple Justice, a PBS movie about Thurgood Marshall's struggle to overcome the "separate but equal" laws. As a theater director, her work includes The Liar, Ain't Supposed To Die a Natural Death and The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds for the American Conservatory Theatre.
Midge Costin
Kay Rose Endowed Chair in the Art of Sound and Dialogue Editing - Production Division
Sound pioneer Midge Costin produced and directed the award-winning feature documentary Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound, which had its world premiere at Tribeca Film Festival and its international premiere at Cannes Film Festival in 2019. She was nominated for Best First-Time Director by the Critics' Choice Awards. The film and its crew received multiple awards and nominations including ACE (American Cinema Editors), MPSE (Motion Picture Sound Editors), Cinema Eye, and won the CAS (Cinema Audio Society) for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing.
Costin has been a feature film sound editor in Hollywood, having worked at every major studio. She has collaborated on the soundtracks for filmmakers such as Tony Scott (Crimson Tide), Michael Bay (The Rock), Kenneth Branagh (Dead Again), John Waters (Crybaby), and David Wolper (Imagine: John Lennon). Crimson Tide and Armageddon—for which she edited effects and dialogue—received Academy Award nominations for Sound Editing. Several of the films Costin has sound edited have received nominations for the MPSE Golden Reel Award. Crimson Tide won for Best Feature Film Sound Editing.
Costin worked her way up to editing sound on action/adventure films at a time when very few women were cutting FX in Hollywood, a situation which unfortunately has not changed significantly. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a past board member of the MPSE, and a long-standing member of the Editors Guild. Costin is a former world champion surf kayaker and an avid hiker and sailor.
Tom Miller
Professor of the Cinematic Arts - Production Division
Before his filmmaking career, Tom Miller, ACE, was a board-certified pediatrician and has served as a medical consultant for Sesame Street. He graduated with a BS degree from The University of Michigan and has an MD from the Medical College of Ohio, then earned an MFA from the School of Cinematic Arts. Miller has worked on documentaries and in public television since 1994. He was associate producer of the Sundance award-winning film Licensed to Kill (POV-PBS), co-produced the feature documentary Code Black, and co-produced and edited Fender Philosophers (PBS) and Camp Out (Logo). He edited the feature documentary films Good Kurds, Bad Kurds (Independent Lens-PBS), Home of the Brave (Sundance, BBC, CBC), and co-edited Rock the Boat (HBO). Miller produced, directed, and co-edited the award-winning documentaries ONE BAD CAT (Ovation) and Limited Partnership (Independent Lens-PBS). He was also supervising editor on Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound, which premiered at Tribeca and Cannes in 2019 and is now showing in film festivals and on broadcast television worldwide. Other credits include producing television films for Discovery and WNET's series on disabilities, People in Motion.
Candi Jacobs
Senior Business Officer
Candice Jacobs was the Director of Operations of the Business Office, Administrative Information Technology, Facilities, and Projection at the School of Cinematic Arts. She oversaw the budget, accounting, payroll, and personnel-related issues. The Administrative Information Technology Office was responsible for system analysis and application programming, technical planning, data administration and security, and computer hardware and software support for the administrative functions in the school.
Jacobs oversaw several major transitions for the School, working hand in hand with Dean Elizabeth Daley in the SCA Complex, the expansion of the Zemeckis Center, and every other aspect of SCA's incredible modernization.
Steve Albrezzi
Associate Professor of Practice - Production Division
Steve Albrezzi taught directing and was a student mentor. In 2013, his indie feature Commencement premiered at the Heartland Film Festival. It has subsequently garnered numerous awards including the Spirit Award at the prestigious Cinetopia International Film Festival (45 curated features from Sundance, Toronto, SXSW, Venice, etc.) and the Audience Award for Best Feature.
Albrezzi's career began as a resident director for the internationally acclaimed Actors Theatre of Louisville. In his long tenure there, he mounted several world premieres including Groves of Academe, starring Chris Cooper, and In Darkest America by Joyce Carol Oates. For the United States Information Agency (USIA), he directed the culminating event for The American Theater Exhibit in Budapest, Hungary. Albrezzi's short film Fantasy in D Minor garnered the Best Director Award at Worldfest Houston and Best of the Fest at Santa Barbara Film Festival. His co-adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates' play The Eclipse won Best Screen Adaptation at Charleston International Film Festival and was subsequently optioned by Goldie Hawn's Cosmic Entertainment and Alliance Atlantis as a Special Event Movie for CBS. Albrezzi directed three seasons of It's a Miracle for NBC/PAX TV. His directing work has also been featured on the spirit segment of The Oprah Winfrey Show and on the PBS literacy initiative Reading Rockets' video series Reading and the Brain with Henry Winkler. Albrezzi created the 2007 documentary Reel Lives in support of his foundation project for underserved youth. He has been recognized with several national and international awards and is a member of the Directors Guild of America.