Kristina Dodge's interest in movies started simply - waving a camcorder as a kid to capture her six siblings' cornball antics.

She later tossed the camera for an MBA, but her love for movies – especially anything with John Travolta – never faded.

Kristina and her husband, Larry, decided to refocus on movies. In a very big way.

On Thursday, Chapman University announced that the Monarch Beach couple is donating $20 million to its film and television school, which will be renamed the Lawrence and Kristina Dodge College of Film and Media Studies.

"Sometimes you give and you feel so incredible about what that gift is going to do, and where it's going to go," said Kristina Dodge, 42. "That's how we feel."

The gift is the second largest in Chapman's 143-year history and represents the second $20 million donation to an Orange County university in the past two months.

An anonymous donor gave the University of California, Irvine, $20 million in December to improve the School of Information and Computer Science.

Growing up in Nebraska, Kristina and her siblings loved to film each other acting silly, putting on plays in the garage.

"We did 'The Wizard of Oz,' and our parents would come and watch us and roll their eyes," said Kristina's sister, Victoria Prismantas, 33, an actress.

Kristina Dodge put drama aside and went on to work as a sales manager in Minneapolis. She met her future husband when she was invited by a friend to a party on his yacht.

By then, Larry Dodge was already established in the banking world. Years earlier, at age 27, he became chief executive of a national insurance group. Today, he leads Irvine- based American Sterling Group, as the founding chairman and chief executive. The group – which includes insurance, banking and finance businesses – has more than $300 million in assets.

"He's a lot of fun, and he's very intelligent and masterful at everything he does," Kristina Dodge said. The two married 16 years ago.

Kristina began working for Larry, first by becoming a board member of American Sterling Insurance Co. Three years ago, she persuaded her husband to start a film-production company.

"It's another mode of disseminating information. It makes our company fun and effective," said Larry Dodge, 62.

Their first movie was "The Annihilation of Fish," a film about a sexual relationship between two elderly neighbors played by James Earl Jones and Lynn Redgrave.

"Film is one of the best venues to tell a story to the masses," Kristina Dodge said. "It's also a creative outlet for us."

Through friends like Chapman film school patron Twyla Martin of Laguna Beach, the Dodges met university President James Doti and film school Dean Robert Bassett.

"Such a dynamic group of people. True entrepreneurs, true leaders," Kristina Dodge said.

In 2003, the couple set up a fellowship that gives five promising students money to make short films.

The film school also is working on an idea from Larry Dodge to add a program bringing together scholars and community leaders to discuss the media's impact on society and public policy.

A month ago, philanthropist Marion Knott gave $5 million for a new film-school building, which will boast four sound stages, a 500-seat movie theater, and a back lot – facilities that may attract some production work from Hollywood.

The 75,000-square-foot building, to be named for Knott, will allow the film school to catch up with its rapid growth, Bassett said. The program won't grow much beyond its current 925 students.

Thursday's donation boosts Chapman's film school fund- raising to $26.5 million, less than $5 million shy of its $31 million goal. Groundbreaking on the building will occur in late summer. It will add to the growing campus. Workers are currently building a new library, residence hall and chapel and expanding a music building.

University enrollment, now at 5,000 students, could swell to 6,000 over the next few years, campus officials say.