Will Fritz is easily seen around campus - at 6’8”, he stands out in the crowd, even when he is hunched behind a video camera filming a production. A senior in the Dreyfoos Communication Arts department, Will’s interest in filmmaking began when he was eleven years old in Dallas, Texas.

“I had been playing tennis since I was eight and one day while I was playing my growth plate in my heel fractured. I couldn’t do anything for six months. Due to the boredom of sitting around all the time I asked my mom to sign me up for acting classes, which led me to join a behind the scenes program at the Dallas Young Actors Studio. I was interested by all the equipment and I wanted to learn more about how everything worked. I have continued that mind-set and that has helped me learn something new every time I work on a project.”

Still active in sports, Will has been on the Dreyfoos basketball team and plays tennis competitively. “I have learned valuable lessons about leadership and group cooperation through team sports which benefit my arts career. I’ve had a lot of fun with tennis and even wanted to pursue it as a career. But tennis made me realize that film is the most important thing I do and helped push me over the edge to fully pursue a career in the film industry.”

On track to make that career a reality, Will has an internship lined up this summer at Keslow Camera in Los Angeles and has had two summer internships with Radical Media, a commercial production house in Santa Monica, California. “I worked as a production assistant and helped with anything necessary in the office or on a set. I met many people through this internship and learned about Los Angeles and how the filmmaking industry currently works. I have also attended many summer camps in Texas at the Dallas Young Actors Studio. I worked on their summer program from when I was eleven until fifteen. It was a great hands on experience of an intense full feature length production all condensed into two weeks including 20 hour shoot days.”

This semester, Will has been hard at work on his own project, “Destination”. “In short it is about a RideX (Uber) Driver that was left at the alter which left him with psychological trauma which eventually leads him on a mission to find his fiancée and get his revenge. I’ve been in production on this film for the entire second quarter and we started to write it at the beginning of the school year. We had six shoot days spread throughout three weeks. Everyone involved in the project was either a current Dreyfoos student or a Dreyfoos Alumni.”

Will says that he has been influenced by “watching and analyzing many different genres of television and film, the ambition of wanting to produce content that surpasses high school standards” and is thankful for his time at Dreyfoos that has helped him actualize those goals.

“Dreyfoos has offered incredible guidance of my career and has influenced the way I think and approach a subject before I put all my effort into producing it. The teachers here care about what you do and help you with what you need to accomplish in order for you to get accepted to your dream college. This school has given me freedom to think creatively with confidence in my art of filmmaking. I thank my mentor's/teachers Ancil Deluz and Christine Tieche for their guidance and philosophy. They have truly helped to develop me as a storyteller. Dreyfoos has enabled me to pursue my dreams - dreams that are attainable thanks to all of those who have made Dreyfoos School of the Arts accessible to Palm Beach County high school students.”

When he graduates, Will hopes to attend the Art Center School of Design in Pasadena, California to study film production to fufill his dream of becoming a Director of Photography.