Cerritos College film student, Dustin Ong, is steadily reaching his dream of becoming a cinematographer.

Ong realized his dream two years ago after viewing a series of videos on You Tube made by Wong Fu productions, a three-man independent production company that makes short films, music videos, and vlogs exclusively for You Tube.

With an AA degree in film pending, Ong recently finished a three-day job with Vision Matrix, an event company that makes films for business clients.

Working as a production assistant, he hopes that he made a good enough impression on the company that he will get re-hired.

“They go all over the country so I’m hoping to get another call from them if they have another event,” Ong adds.

Under the guidance of Steven Hirohama, chosen students were put into “film boot camp,” which is how Ong got in touch with Scott Hylton, a cinematographer.

These boot camps are put on by Hirohama to give film students hands on experience and to put students in touch with people from the industry.

“Most of the boot camp sessions are conducted by those who are on my VTEA film production advisory committee. I have about a dozen industry pros with experience in all areas of animation, VFX, film and television production,” Hirohama said.

Hirohama believes that in class lectures and hands on training is different, he requested grant money in order to fund these boot camps, where professionals from the industry come and help teach the students.

“These boot camp sessions are for the purpose of training students to be with industry pros outside the classroom,” Hirohama says.

Only a select few were chosen to be part of the boot camp and Ong’s determination and dedication made him stand out as a film student.

“Dustin is a hard working student and he’s focused on his studies. He has those two qualities that I don’t see in most of the others who are in my classes.

“I’ve selected [advanced] students to participate in these sessions based on their past effort and interest in working on other student projects and class exercises,” he elaborates.

These boot camp sessions will continue on to the Spring Semester.

Ong has already made a couple of movies and is currently working on a commercial for a dentist’s office.

He hopes to graduate in Spring and start working as a cinematographer, but he keeps his goals reachable.

“I want to work for TV because it seems more realistic than an actual movie, but I’d take any production job.”