Faculty Pro le: Corbin Doyle A Greenhill Legend Unlocks Student Creativity

On his rst day of high school at Jesuit College Preparatory School of Dallas in August 1981, Corbin Doyle walked into his rst-period theology class and took a seat.

e instructor – a loud priest named Father Schnadelbach – handed out slips of paper containing topics for the rst big research project. Doyle drew biblical creation stories.

ree months and one stop-motion animated lm later, Doyle walked into the classroom with a little cassette player, projector and a microphone.

“I never told you to do a lm,” Father Schnadelbach protested. “You’re supposed to write a paper.”

Doyle nervously set up his projector, turned o the lights and began playing the lm.

“I’m literally thinking I’m going to be expelled on this day,” Doyle said. “Like I’m going to fail the class.”

A erward, Doyle was ordered to the head of school’s o ce. Again, he nervously set up his projector and turned o the lights as he narrated his lm in front of ve priests and the head of school.

Doyle wasn’t expelled. When Father Schnadelbach was handing back grades for the research project, he looked at Doyle, handed him a sheet of paper that had A+ written on it.

Doyle never wrote another high school essay; he simply made lms instead.

It was the beginning of Doyle’s lifelong passion for lmmaking, a journey that would eventually lead him to Greenhill and his current “legend” status as a 25-year employee.

“I just made little lms,” Doyle said, looking back on his formative days as a high school lmmaker. “And I felt like the luckiest dang guy in the world.”

A er high school graduation, Doyle followed in his grandfather’s footsteps by enrolling in the pre-medical program at Southern Methodist University. His passion for art manifested itself in scribbling doodles in the margins of his notes. Doyle’s biology teacher recognized his artistic talent and encouraged him to sign up for a drawing class in his sophomore year.

“Immediately I went from feeling like I had no family and community in my life to walking in [SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts] and seeing all the people that were doing all these di erent disciplines,” Doyle said.

A er taking the Medical College Admission Test during his junior year, he started having doubts about going to medical school. Around the same time, he received a letter of acceptance from the distinguished Yale Norfolk Residency, an intensive, 10-week summer program for artists.

Doyle says his Yale residency opened his eyes to the broader East Coast arts scene and was able to frequently travel to New York City as part of the program.

“It was this dream place that I’d always heard about, and I’m there and meeting these art heroes, most of whom I’ve never heard of before,” Doyle said. “It was just perfect.”

By the end of the program, he received an o er to go to graduate school at Yale a er he completed his undergraduate degree and spent three years cra ing a creative portfolio.

Doyle felt his creativity was constrained by faculty in the Yale graduate program and he and his wife, Trish – his childhood sweetheart – returned to Dallas a er his rst year.

“Begrudgingly, I came back to the place I swore I would never come back to,” Doyle said.

He took lm jobs that lasted a couple of months and then had weeks to work on his personal projects. He and Trish soon welcomed their rst daughter, Kalen.

During lm jobs, Doyle o en woke up early and returned home late. He barely saw his wife and daughter and soon realized he was missing Kalen growing up.

“Something had to give,” Doyle said.

In the late 1990s, Doyle was an independent lmmaker when he received an award given to artists each year by the Dallas Museum of Art. When he gave his acceptance speech, multiple Greenhill parents were in the audience. ey urged former Head of School Peter Briggs to hire Doyle to teach visual arts.

“I said I’d do it for one year and that was 25 years ago,” Doyle said.

Under his guidance, the video production program expanded from fewer than 10 students to as many as 80 students in Advanced Video Production alone during peak years.

“[Doyle] is the program,” Head of Upper School Trevor Worcester said. “He started it. He’s built it up. It is his baby, and it is going to be his legacy at Greenhill.”

What draws students into his program, both Worcester and Head of Fine Arts Terry Martin said, is Doyle himself.

“He connects with students because of his wit and his passion,” Martin said. “He seems to be able to nd a way to really connect with the students and bring out their passion in lmmaking, plus, he’s a funny guy.”

In addition to his quick-witted humor or passion for video production, Martin says that Doyle’s immense generosity towards his students makes him particularly special as a teacher.

“He’s a model teacher,” Martin said. “Mr. Doyle goes above and beyond for the student.”

Jonah Goldberg ’17, who took both Doyle’s Advanced Video Production class in high school and his Video Production summer class in Middle School, said that Doyle was “one of the three biggest in uences of my life” and a “true gi to Greenhill.”

“Doyle has sacri ced so much of his own personal time and energy and even his own personal projects he’s put on hold in order to put more into AVP,” Goldberg said. “He knows how to make a good class because he’s aware there’s no right way to do it.”

As a creator himself, Doyle has been able to tailor the course to each student’s creative needs.

“I think the best art teachers are always artists themselves,” Martin said. “Teaching artists like Mr. Doyle are always the best teachers for their artistic discipline because they have such great understanding and a passion for sharing their particular artistic discipline.”

Kate Franklin ’20, who took Doyle’s video production classes in the Middle and Upper School, echoes this sentiment. She says that Doyle’s passion for lmmaking is contagious and “makes me want to be passionate about it as well.”

Many of Doyle’s students have become successful artists within the lm industry.

“I think one of the best things that [Doyle] does with his students is he challenges them and pushes them out of their comfort zone, and I think that was something I’ve found very helpful throughout my career,” said Michael Paraskevas ’10, a lm composer currently based in Los Angeles.

Goldberg, who currently works as a freelance lm editor, says Doyle has continued to be a source of support even a er he graduated.

“At the end of the day, when you tell him something, he is listening to you,” Goldberg said. “He is hearing you, and he is always there for you.”

During high school senior year, it was Doyle who helped Goldberg formulate his plans for a gap semester before college and a future in the lm industry.

“He became more than a professor,” Goldberg said. “He’s family.”

Franklin, who is currently a Film and Television major at the University of Southern California, says she found her passion in video production under Doyle.

“Mr. Doyle’s kind of shaped everything that I do now,” Franklin said, “I have always felt kind of close to him, and I’ve really grown as a lmmaker because of him because he was my start to lmmaking.” ere was never a point in time in Doyle’s classroom that didn’t include laughter or pure joy, said Goldberg and Franklin.

“I just want joyous makers in the room making things,” Doyle said. “It’s about the process and it’s not about lm festivals. I