Program Description

The Film BFA Program provides highly motivated and talented students with intensive training in all aspects of filmmaking. Students develop significant skills in directing, cinematography, editing, production, scriptwriting, and film analysis. By the end of the sophomore year, students consult with the film faculty and choose to focus on either fiction, documentary, or experimental film in their junior year.

The primary emphasis of the BFA program is on directing. At the end of the junior year, however, film majors who have demonstrated exceptional talent in cinematography or screenwriting have the option of specializing in those areas, subject to approval by the faculty board of study. The board’s decision is based on demonstration of the student’s technical and artistic proficiency.

Film majors enjoy a high equipment-to-student ratio and have access to a fully equipped sound stage, mix studio, equipment store, screening rooms, digital and 16mm film editing studios, and optical printer.

More than 85 percent of Film Program alumni have found work in the film and television industries.

Program Faculty

Requirements for the Major

Acting Workshop for Film and Design/Technology
Exercises in Storytelling*
Film Workshop*
Film Editing I & II
Cinematography I, II & III
Cinematic Expression I & II
Introduction to Documentary Nonfiction Film*
Directors’ Scene Workshop*
Writing for Film I & II
Screenwriting I
The Business of Film
One of the following two-semester courses:
    Film Directors Workshop
    Documentary Workshop I & II
    Experimental Workshop
Four electives in film history, criticism, and/or theory
Senior Production: Filmmaking*
*Two-semester courses

Representative Elective Courses

Advanced Editing: Sound on Film
Advanced Picture Editing
André Bazin, Realism, and Cinema
Genres of Affect
Film in the Expanded Field
French Cinema Since 1930
Italian Cinema After Neorealism
Japanese Cinema
Meaning and Truth in Cinema
Methods in Film Criticism
New Waves of East Asian Cinema
Science Fiction in Film, Literature, and Art
The American Avant-Garde Film
The Independent Spirit in American Film
Theory and Praxis Seminars
Transcendent Visions: The Spiritual on Film

Representative Alumni

• Jessica Brunetto ’04, film and television editor; documentary feature film credits include Capitalism: A Love Story, Sicko, Trek Nation, and Courting Condi
• Ilya Chaiken ’95, director, editor, and screenwriter; films include Liberty Kid, Blackout, The 100 Lovers of Jesus Reynolds, and Margarita Happy Hour
• Austin Chick ’97, director, screenwriter, and producer; films include XX/XY, August, and Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
• Rocco Caruso ’87, producer; films include 3 Backyards, Year of the Fish, Judy Berlin, Little Red Riding Hood, and Through an Open Window
• Nick Gomez ’88, director and screenwriter; films include Drowning Mona, illtown, New Jersey Drive, and Laws of Gravity; television episodes include True Blood, Dexter, Robbery Homicide Division, Homicide: Life on the Street, The Shield, The Sopranos, Crossing Jordan, and House M.D.
• Brandon Harris ’06, writer for Filmmaker Magazine
• Hal Hartley ’84, director, screenwriter, and pioneer of the independent film movement; films include Fay Grim, The Girl From Monday, No Such Thing, The Book of Life, Henry Fool, Flirt, Amateur, Simple Men, Surviving Desire, Trust, and The Unbelievable Truth
• Azazel Jacobs ’95, films include The Good Times Kid, Momma’s Man, and I See; in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art
• Lesli Klainberg ’85, producer and director of documentaries and specials for network and cable television; owner and president, Orchard Films; consulting producer, Sundance Documentary Program; credits include Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema, In the Company of Women, The 20th Century project series (Disney ABC Television group), and The Eleventh Hour (WNET/Thirteen)
• James Spione ’85, films include Prelude (Student Academy Award–winner), American Farm, Our Island Home, Garden (starring Melissa Leo and Matt Malloy), The Playroom, and Incident in Baghdad, winner of the Best Documentary Short prize at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival
• Chris Wedge ’81, Academy Award–winning director (Bunny, Ice Age, Robots); cofounder and vice president of creative development, Blue Sky Studios

For more information, visit the Film site in Academic Programs.

Updated June 6, 2011

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