Pascal Marcotte is a passionate filmmaker who enjoys creating compelling story-driven films, and thrills at empowering students to do the same. He has taught filmmaking for the Film Department at UNLV since the Fall of 2004.

Mr. Marcotte comes to filmmaking from theatre. His apprenticeship began at the Theatre Department of Saint Louis University where he graduated magna cum laude. He went on to receive a Masters of Fine Arts degree from the California Institute of the Arts, founded by Walt Disney as the first truly interdisciplinary art school in the nation. At CalArts, students were encouraged to study many art forms, a call to action he took advantage of by studying theatre and film under the guidance of artists such as Libby Appel, former long-standing Artistic Director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Emmy Award winning producer Robert Benedetti, and Oscar nominated filmmaker Alexander Mackendrick.

Mr. Marcotte went on to become a national finalist at the American College Theatre Festival (ACTF), performing at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and winning an acting fellowship to the Shenandoah Playwright's retreat. His professional acting career ranges from working for Diane Keaton on national television in China Beach, to performing at regional theatres such as the Arizona Theatre Company in their 25th Anniversary Season, award-winning Theatre Banshee in Los Angeles, and Shakespeare L.A. among others.

His directing work in theatre has garnered Critic's Choice and Critic's Pick from the Los Angeles Times and Back Stage West. His filmmaking and television projects include dramatic short films, music video, as well as Everyday Heroes, an environmental television magazine which aired as Tatum's Wildlife Heroes on cable television in the Los Angeles and Chicago markets.

Mr. Marcotte's current creative work centers around a short digital film, "The Quest", which tells the story of a group of role-playing friends whose imagination comes to life as they battle their evil game master. One of his goals in developing this project has been to research professional production and post-production visual effects techniques, and implement them with comparatively limited resources, a skill he passes on to his students--techniques such as filming with blue/greenscreens, combining live-action footage with computer generated environments, matte painting, creating computer generated creatures and animations, motion tracking, matchmoving, and compositing. To support this ambitious effort, he volunteers to teach the fundamentals of visual effects to a group of eager UNLV film students. The final phase of research and post-production work will include creating a 5.1 surround-sound soundtrack which should make the sword fights and dragon attack really come to life!

Mr. Marcotte is an Apple Certified Trainer for Final Cut Pro 7, Level One.