Learning to make movies
— yaya • October 9th, 2007
Wanna be the next Spielbergs? well, now you pursue your dream by joining schools that specially designed to teach those who want to learn how to make movies.
The Hollywood Reporter spotlights big 3 institutions that represent good investments for aspiring industry players of all types. (Note: Except where indicated, tuition figures are rounded and cover two full semesters of undergraduate education, minus living expenses and fees.)
American Film Institute Conservatory Tuition: $32,000 (for one year of a two-year master’s program)
Unique advantages: Industry-trained faculty; an intense first-year “cycle project” that has students making three 20-minute films in quick succession
Ideal for: Talented film school graduates looking for a coat of polish. AFI yearly admits no more than 28 students each in its directing, screenwriting, producing and cinematography programs, and 14 each in the editing and production design programs. But those handfuls of students are the cream of the crop, and everyone gets a chance to collaborate with budding specialists.
Bob Mandel, the conservatory’s dean, says, “We don’t think of editors as ‘cutters,’ or cinematographers as ‘people who light.’ We think of all of our fellows as filmmakers.”
A word from an alumnus: Director Mark Waters (2005’s “Just Like Heaven”) cites the cycle as the highlight of his stint at AFI, saying, “You get ripped to shreds by your peers during the evaluations, but you compete by doing good work. Once you get out into the real world, you realize that this kind of scrutiny is nothing.”
American University-School of Communication, Film & Media Arts Department
Tuition: $31,000
Unique advantages: Strong, socially active documentary studies; access to network news organizations; “Summer in L.A.” internship program
Ideal for: Politically active storytellers. Larry Kirkman, the dean for the School of Communication, touts AU’s blended curriculum, which gives equal emphasis to filmmaking, journalism and public communications.
Kirkman also cites the school’s embrace of cutting-edge media like mobisodes, and ultimately, he says, “Hollywood or Washington, you use the same tools.”
A word from an alumna: Danielle Gelber, senior vp original programming at Showtime, says, “I found it to be the most personalized, hands-on program. You could go to school in the ivory tower in the morning and then drive down the street that afternoon and be field-producing stories for network news.”
Boston University-College of Communication, Department of Film & Television
Tuition: $35,000
Unique advantages: The “BU in L.A.” internship program; a curriculum that treats television and online media as seriously as it does film.
Ideal for: Movers-and-shakers-to-be. Although BU has “the strong tradition of the kind of independent filmmaking one expects on the East Coast,” notes Charles Merzbacher, chair of the Department of Film & Television, the school has become famous for turning out Hollywood execs like Joe Roth and Lauren Shuler Donner.
A word from an alumnus: David Dinerstein, president of marketing and distribution for Lakeshore Entertainment, jokes that he’s constantly surprised when he runs into fellow alums at lunch meetings and weekend barbecues, but he’s quick to emphasize that BU is “not a trade school” and that he received “an incredibly well-balanced liberal arts education in addition to an extraordinary filmic education.”
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