A North Carolina film program's distinctive voice

The skyline is real. But it's 2,450 miles from Hollywood, and here is where a tiny regional film school at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts is churning out some notable talent these days. Among the most prominent examples are David Gordon Green, director of "Pineapple Express," a stoner comedy that opened last week to $40-million-plus box office, and Danny McBride, a rising comic actor who appears in both "Express" and the action comedy spoof "Tropic Thunder," which opened Wednesday.

The filmmaking program at this state-supported school boasts a conservatory atmosphere in a place that's way off the beaten path. And that may be one of its assets. New York? L.A.? Full of distractions. Winston-Salem? It's got old money, tobacco warehouses, and a lovingly restored historic district but not a lot going on for the 18- to 22-year-old demographic.

"It's not a party city," said McBride, whose performance in "Pineapple Express" stole the show, according to some critics. "There wasn't a lot to do there but get drunk and make movies."

Dale Pollock, a former dean who now teaches cinema studies at the School of the Arts, has a similar view, although he didn't address the drinking part. "The No. 1 attribute of this place is that we are out of the mainstream," said Pollock, a former Hollywood exec and Los Angeles Times reporter. "Every feature that comes out of here has a quirkiness, off-centeredness -- a sometimes odd, sometimes uncomfortable blend of comedy, drama, and even violence."

The school has only about 300 film students, compared to more than 700 at the film program at USC and close to 900 at the program at New York University. The North Carolina school is one of a growing number of regional film programs nationwide such as those at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Central Florida that are developing distinctive voices for film and television. The UNC School of the Arts was established in a 1963, but the filmmaking school is relatively young, having accepted its first class in 1993. The back lots and theater-sized classrooms were originally a cloth diaper factor, a testament to the declining textiles industry in North Carolina.