Jay Silverman is an alumni who has risen to the top since graduating from Brooks in 1975. Since graduation, Silverman has built himself his own professional photographic empire.
Silverman first learned of Brooks Institute through his high school teacher and mentor, Warren King. "When I was 16 years old going to Reseda High School in California my mentor and photography teacher, Warren King, motivated me and his other ambitious students to meet and work with famous professionals photographers and also take photography tours of Europe. These impressions as well as a passion for the medium moved me into choosing Brooks Institute. It didn't hurt that I wanted to move to Santa Barbara."
Along with Silverman, Warren King has inspired many of the future photographers to attend Brooks. He currently offers a scholarship for incoming high school students attending Brooks.
Silverman filled his dream in 1999 when he built his 40,000 square foot photography facility in Hollywood. He successfully builds a great reputation in photography with a client list that includes Fortune 500 clients such as McDonald's, Intel, Disney, Budweiser, and Coke. He became very popular and a favorite among actors, recording artists, and supermodels.
Silverman branched out his talent to directing and producing. He recently completed a Super Bowl TV Commercial for Ford Dealers, http://www.jaysilverman.com/liveAction/page.php.
Some more of his recent accomplishments include:
TVONE a one hour TV Special produced by SilverFilms, a subsidiary of Jay Silverman Productions. Starring Aretha Franklin, One On One, directed and produced by Jay Silverman on TVONE Cable. This is one in a series of specials, http://www.jaysilverman.com/longForm/page.php starring, Denzel Washington, Beyonce, Quincy Jones, Spike Lee, Hillary Clinton, Baby Face just to name a few.
On March 11th Twentieth Century FOX on DVD "THE SECRET THINGS OF GOD" was produced and Directed by Jay Silverman. http://www.thesecretthingsofgod.com/Site/Trailer.html . This is an exciting Faith Sequel to the originally very successful book and DVD, THE SECRET.
Coming out May 20th from PorchLight Entertainment, "ZAKLAND" on DVD was produced, written & directed by Jay Silverman. This is about a magical Journey into a musical world called Zakland, a mixture of Live Action and CGI with lots of healthy messages for young people.
http://www.homemediamagazine.com/index.cfm?search=zakland§ion=2-3&sec_id=search
Coming June 08 Paramount Pictures/CBS and A & E THE CLEANER, http://www.jaysilverman.com/news/page.php. Jay Silverman, Executive Producer, conducted this project that mirrors Silverman's personal life which was developed for Television. In addition Silverman Productions worked on the promotions for the show and also photographed the stars.
As a Brooks graduate, Silverman understands what you need to do to get where he is. He gives this advice to students and to the future photographers of tomorrow:
"Be patient, be organized, and be persistent. I will alway choose and employee who is persistent, passionate, and reliable. I feel so fortunate after all these years to be able give back what I have been so lucky to have learned. It's amazing how few people take you up on learning first hand. Over all these years I can count on two hands the number of aspiring students who actually followed through and shown up on time and who remained excited with internships. I grew up picking a mentor, someone to model after, someone that you respected and wanted to learn from. Today, that model seems to have faded out. Here again my belief is if you want something bad enough you have to fight to get it, that always and still works for me."
