I have some small insights into the program. In a prior post, I mentioned that we know a current FSU film student. He graduates this spring and is actually quite critical of the program for a couple of reasons. This person is an aquaintance that we met by chance who was a great resource during the application process. He actually reviewed my son’s submission and thought he had a great shot at an interview.
(*FYI - I’m using the pronoun “he/his” generically. I don’t want to “out” our aquatintance in any way.)
First, when the arrangement with Digital Domain ceased, that caused a lot of headaches for the class of 2017. They became known as the “guinea pig” class. If you don’t know who/what Digital Domain is, Google them and FSU.
The students from the animation major in West Palm (related to the Digital Domain arrangement) were absorbed into the production major in Tallahassee. It wasn’t a smooth transition. I’m not going to pretend that I know or understand all of the details. Just that the affected students pretty much felt screwed by the administration and still have hard feelings about how that played out.
Secondly, in the student’s opinion, the Dean has an odd fascination in VR tech (he’s actually the former Dean now because he recently took a job at a production company in Atlanta; he is still listed as a faculty member). As such, he has spent a great deal of the school’s budget on that emerging technology. If that interests your applicants, great. However, the student we know believes that VR is definitely NOT going to make an impact in narrative film and is not why he attended FSU in the first place.
The student has flat out told me that if he could do it all over again, and could attend elsewhere, he would. At the same time, he has also conceded that at the end of the day he knows that he will have a BFA-Film Production degree from a program that is well known, respected, and has a great network of working professionals behind it. He also sees improvement in the program’s treatment of those classes behind the “guinea pig” class. So, by the time that these interviewees become film students, all of those kinks should hopefully be worked out. He also seems pretty psyched and proud of Barry Jenkins big win last night.