During Jason Weaver's “From Dream to Screen” entertainment masterclass that started on October 28th and concluded on November 1st, South Carolina State students were able to hear from veteran actor Orlando Jones on Wednesday. The pairing of Jones and Weaver in the masterclass is significant, as both starred in the 2002 HBCU classic “Drumline” opposite Nick Cannon.

Both Jones and Weaver have close ties to South Carolina State and the city of Orangeburg. Jones's father coached basketball for the Bulldogs and Weaver spent time in Orangeburg in his childhood. The acting duo also imparted knowledge to the students that they can use to jumpstart their own careers in the entertainment industry.

Jason Weaver said that it was his duty to give back and impart the knowledge he's accumulated over his career on the students.

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“It's up to us to come back to our community and to come back to our institutes of higher learning and take the experiences that we've been able to have over the courses of our careers, good, bad, and ugly, and share that with these kids so that when they now pursue their dreams, they won't make some of the same mistakes we made. They won't bump into the same roadblocks that we've run into, and their journey will be a little bit easier to where they can ultimately surpass what we've done.”

Students, such as Winston James and Tatiana Hugeee spoke to local affiliate WIS-TV about what they learned from the class.

”I’ve gained a lot of insight but mostly, I want to talk about having faith,” James said. “Jason Weaver talked about stepping out on your faith and believing in your self-worth. This helped me analyze and gain an understanding that I’m the person that I know I can be using God as my spiritual believer and it just shows that using God in my path, I can be where I want to be in life.”

Hugee added ”Being able to adapt to any environment that you’re in,” said SC State Junior Tatiana Hugee. “The different roles that you play in is where you would need to be in different characters so adaptability is definitely the thing I grasped from this experience.”

Upon finishing the three-day masterclass, students obtained a certificate of completion. JasonWeaver was also honored by Orangeburg Mayor Michael Butler, who declared Wednesday, November 1st “Jason Weaver Day”.