usc film school thesis

Disclaimer: I don't necessarily recommend film school. At all. I made a very calculated decision to attend film school as a filmmaker in a small town with some previous experience but little access to resources. Those calculations led me to UCLA.Boy, I wish UCLA was as cheap as David said it is. It's actually more expensive than USC for out of state and international students (though out of state MFA students can become Calfornia residents after a year). There is a professional fee to cover equipment and facilities that comes out to about ,000 a year, so California residents actually pay about ,000/year. Still, cheaper for Californians than USC, so David does have a great point. I'm not an expert on either undergraduate program, but I'm a UCLA MFA student and my twin brother is in the MFA program at USC. I've looked around the Internet, but haven't found a single useful comparison of the two programs as we have experienced them. As a result, I have over-answered the hell out of this question. I was accepted to both programs and chose UCLA. Last week I talked with a student in a similar position, but after our conversation he chose USC. They are both great programs, and put out good filmmakers. But here are what I see as the pros and cons of UCLA v. USC, regarding their production/directing programs.Acceptance rate (cohort quality):UCLA has a substantially lower acceptance rate than USC, mostly because of its small cohort size (which I'll discuss later). But that doesn't matter—both schools are selective enough that you can be sure your classmates will be talented, diverse, and interesting. This is the single most important category for distinguishing top film schools from lesser film schools, even more important than faculty (in my ever-humble opinion). Having talented collaborators is so, so important.Verdict: I'd call this one a tie.Environment (class size.
The documentary filmmaker Ruth Fertig in Brooklyn. LOS ANGELES — One after another, touring groups of prospective students and their parents stopped late last month to pose for pictures around a bronze Douglas Fairbanks, who wields his sword in a courtyard fountain here at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. Not even the imposing Mr. Fairbanks, a founder of the film school, has kept newcomers at bay. But another round of graduates is now hitting the street, in greater numbers and perhaps better equipped than ever before, to pursue opportunities that have seldom been more elusive, at least where traditional Hollywood employment is concerned. As home-entertainment revenue declined in the last five years, studios reduced spending on scripts from new writers, cut junior staff positions and severely curtailed deals with producers who once provided entry-level positions for film school graduates. Yet applications to university film, television and digital media programs surged in the last few years as students sought refuge from the weak economy in graduate schools and some colleges opened new programs. “It’s becoming an increasingly flooded marketplace,” said Andrew Dahm, who in May graduated from the Peter Stark producing program at U.S.C. with a master’s degree and an expectation that he would work for two or three years as a low-paid assistant in lieu of the junior executive jobs that were once common. “Working as an assistant for six years is not unheard of,” Mr. Dahm said. He estimated that perhaps a quarter of the two dozen graduates in his class had lined up assistant jobs; about as many, like himself, are still looking for similar work, he said, while the rest are writing screenplays or otherwise preparing projects that might open a path into the business. At U.S.C. about 4,800 would-be students applied for fewer than 300 slots next.
Trailer for Molly Goes West, a University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts Graduate Thesis Film. Directed by Reed Simonsen. Starring.
First, let me pass along an excellent book on this subject, written by a former classmate of mine who was a journalist before he entered the MFA Film Production program at USC: Film School: The True Story of a Midwestern Family Man Who Went to the World's Most Famous Film School, Fell FlatThe grad and undergrad programs use the same basic curriculum so a description of one program pretty much describes the other. I'll be writing about the MFA program. Oh, nobody in the program refers to the school as USC or SC , to those on the inside it's the SCA (School of Cinematic Arts).Your first semester you'll be in 507 -- you can think of it as Production I although nobody calls it that. 507 is like a boot camp where you will write, direct, produce, and edit three films on your own and participate in two group project films. You will be crazy busy writing stories, getting permits, renting film equipment, auditioning actors, scouting locations, getting props, etc. There are a million little details that go into making a film and you will be doing every one of them yourself. You will be sleep deprived, overworked, and busier than you've ever been in your life -- and, if you're anything like the majority of students I knew, you will love every minute of it.Your second semester you'll be in 508 (Production II), where you'll make just one film during the semester, but somehow it's even more hard work and more time-consuming than 507. This is because, unlike 507, where there is no expectations put upon you about the quality of your films -- in 507 it's a victory just to get your film done and screened in the class -- in 508 you're expected to make the best film you can. Because of this, those students who want to have directing careers, and want to be chosen for directing projects in later semesters, feel a lot of pressure to be brilliant in 508. So even though you are teamed up.