On Thursday, July 22, Tribeca Flashpoint Media Arts Academy welcomed Mike Thomas as a part of our Jumpstart Speaker Series.

As a longtime staff writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, Mike Thomas has penned hundreds of features and profiles. Some of his subjects have included movie stars, TV talkers, professional wrestlers, opera singers, human cannonballs, bestselling authors and famous comedians.

A fan of participatory journalism, Mike has burned up the skies in a Blue Angels fighter jet, done aerial acrobatics with the Lima Lima Flight Team, piloted a 600-horsepower stock car around the Chicagoland Speedway and thrown himself out of an airplane at 13,000 feet. He also failed a Navy Seals fitness test.

An occasional contributor to Chicago Public Radio’s award-winning news magazine program Eight Forty-Eight, Mike has reported and written human interest stories and essays on such disparate topics as Rocky Balboa, the art of lawn mowing, a South Side master hatter, competitive sailing, the Irish tune Danny Boy and baseball’s only third-generation major league groundskeeper.

Mike’s national work has appeared in Esquire, Smithsonian, Playboy and on Salon.com. His first book, The Second City Unscripted: Revolution and Revelation at the World-Famous Chicago Theater, was published by Villard/Random House in September 2009 and received critical acclaim in the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune and many other publications.

On Thursday, July 22, award-winning director Todd Solondz visited Tribeca Flashpoint for an intimate Q&A session with our Film & Broadcast students.

Addressing both the art and the business of filmmaking, Mr. Solondz (Welcome to the Dollhouse, Happiness, Storytelling, Palindromes) offered advice on how to work with actors, how to work with studios, and how to stay true to your own artistic vision.

After the Q&A, students were invited to attend a screening of Mr. Solondz’s newest film, Life During Wartime, with the director at the AMC River East.