<p>Hey Everyone,</p>
<p>I'm currently a film student at the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts and was asked to start a new thread to answer anyone's questions. To tell you a little about myself I have been at Chapman since fall of 2005 and am graduating in May with a degree in film production with an emphasis in producing and am currently applying to the graduate MFA/MBA program.</p>
<p>Hi, I’m currently doing a one-year film foundation course at a British university and I’m applying at Chapman. At my British university now, the course takes a very art-based approach (unsurprising since it’s an arts university) and all students are asked to keep sketchbooks and to constantly reflect, research and critique. I know that at film degree level this is less frequent, but I was wondering if some students do keep up sketchbooks? Is critical reflection and evaluation on your own work an important part of the course?</p>
<p>I’ve actually applied to Television but I’m hoping your answer might give me some indication hehe. Thanks!</p>
<p>hey im planning to transfer and just asking if you sure about having a job (industry or indie) during graduate school or after. and were you a transfer or hs-freshamn</p>
<p>Hello! I got into Chapman’s Creative Producing major, and was wondering if you had any input on the program?</p>
<p>I’m also curious about the internship opportunities for Dodge students, so any information you can give me on that topic would be great.</p>
<p>Thanks very much!</p>
<p>My S was accepted to Dodge film directing program. We are very pleased. He is trying to decide between Chapman and UT Austin’s film program. Any insights?</p>
<p>flippyadomp: As for people in the film school I do see some of them with sketch pads. Typically the individual I see with sketch pads are either the Production Design or Digital Arts majors nobody else. On the main campus I always see art majors caring their work in big folders.</p>
<p>andr3w: I was a freshman who came directly to Chapman from high school. As for getting a job in the industry I haven’t really tried because I knew I was going to graduate school but typically all my friends after graduating had jobs either in film industry or outside the industry after 4 months of graduating. </p>
<p>heshing: As for internships there’s tons of opportunities everyone I know has had an internship. And we always have industry guests come to visit Robert Zemeckis came the Monday before Thanksgiving but my favorite guests that has come was Rob Reiner when he brought “The Bucket List”. As for the creative produce program its a relatively new program because us produces were screaming that there weren’t enough producing classes so they created it. I would have switched into the program if was created sooner but I am graduating in May.</p>
<p>turdel: I don’t know anything about UT Austin.</p>
<p>Also to anyone interested Chapman has an event every year called “Women In Focus” who come and talk about getting and working in the industry. I am really excited this year because one of the individuals coming is NANCY UTLEY, President, Fox Searchlight Pictures which is where I want to work. Here’s the website for the event and the names of other people coming [Women</a> in Focus 2011 - Dodge College of Film and Media Arts](<a href=“http://ftv.chapman.edu/about/event_calendar/women_in_focus_2011/]Women”>http://ftv.chapman.edu/about/event_calendar/women_in_focus_2011/)</p>
<p>@Filmexec: thanks for your input! My D has been accepted into the Creative Producing program - thanks for screaming loudly for such a program! 
No other school offers it, and she is excited to be in it. Thanks too for bringing up the “Women in Focus” event - Chapman/Dodge’s events are not to be sneezed at. D was pleasantly surprised to receive an invitation card to the event and was very much impressed by the list of panelists. Unfortunately we live on the other side of the country and she can’t attend. But she’s now even more pumped about Chapman, if that’s possible!</p>
<p>Filmexec21:Is the event “Women in Focus 2011” mostly attracting female filmmakers? My son also got the invitation and has been accepted to Dodge Film School studying film production fall 2011.</p>
<p>No, they except anyone they just do this ever year because Chapman is all about moving forward, but not forgetting the past and strives to teach ethics and values of every human being despite race, color, ethnicity or sex. The film industry has been dominated by men and its only been in the last 20 years that women have been beginning to make there mark in the industry so they want people to understand it and recognize it.</p>
<p>thanks for replying, i have another question…how much free time do you have (on a 7 day week) to do anything else besides film. eg would be partying hanging out with friends, meeting new friends etc. and would you say that the work level for dodge is stressful yet fun and rewarding? thanks :)</p>
<p>I’m currently a community college student, and I was thinking of applying to Dodge, but I’m unsure which area I want to go in. I’m not one for actually making my own films and such, I’d rather be editing and putting together someone else’s film. The only setback is that I have no film experience. In addition, I would also like to try auditioning for the Screen Acting program. Should I just apply for the critical studies major if that’s the case? And how selective is the critical studies major?</p>
<p>andr3w: It depends on how many classes you take. A full time student is anyone who takes 12 credits (4 classes) or more. Typically everyone takes between 4 and 6 classes and that allows plenty of time on the weekends to relax and go to parties. But the one thing you need to know is Chapman’s class sizes are really small and I have had anywhere from 10 to 40 students in my classes and usually class attendance and participation are part of your grade. So if you want to be a number at school and don’t like attending class you might not like Chapman because professors I have had from my freshman year still know and remember me today.</p>
<p>Onederbread: Unfortunately, I for one have no information and don’t know anything about the critical studies major. If you are planning on transferring I’m assuming this is for an undergraduate degree? If that’s the case you can apply for film production and try taking a bunch of classes to see what like.</p>
<p>What are the GE classes like? Are they hard, time consuming?</p>
<p>FilmExec: Will you go to graduate school for film? Where do you plan on going.</p>
<p>I am not hearing much about the Film Studies major. Can anyone tell me more about the program?</p>
<p>WarehouseAtHome: All GE classes are different some are hard and some are easy. It usually depends on the professor and the course level. Typically courses with academic level 100 are more of an overview where 300 level courses usually focus on a specific area. What also helps is when I’m looking for classes I use Rate My Professor to help guide me because a professor can make easy material difficult and hard material easy it just depends. Also you need to realize that college is hard and its not a walk in the park. </p>
<p>Loophole: Yes, I am going to graduate school. I want to get a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) and and I applied to a couple of schools because I was looking for change since I have at Chapman since 2005. However, I got rejected so I’m staying at Chapman for 3 more years and am going to do the MFA/MBA program.</p>
<p>Larentia: As for the film studies program unfortunately I don’t know anything about it. Sorry!</p>
<p>I completely understand that University is hard, I just wanted to know more about the GE program because UK Universities don’t offer anything similar to it. I have a couple more questions…</p>
<p>Do you know if Chapman categorize International Applicants? </p>
<p>Does Chapman support students who wants to create a short and enter it into a Film Festival? For example, Comic Con etc.</p>
<p>How’s Greek Life there? Is it your typical Frats - party, booze and girls. I don’t mind any of those, to me they’re a plus but I am interested to find out if there are other aspects. </p>
<p>What’s the best dorm? If I do get accepted, I am planning to take Social Media Marketing as my FFC. Its linked with North Morlan, I heard Morlan is very social which again is a plus for me.</p>
<p>WarehouseAtHome: Oh, I see you should have said you were from the UK I have some relatives that live there. What do you mean “categorizing applicants” I don’t think I understand? </p>
<p>As for film festivals there’s a guy at Chapman who’s entire job is to try and get films into festivals. I have been submitting the films I produced last year to tons of festivals but to tell you the truth I cannot stand film festivals anymore. What’s really annoying about film festivals is they will take films from technically “the top” film schools USC, UCLA, NYU, AFI and Columbia before ours because their “big schools” and people know about them even though most of the time our films are better quality. Last year when I was working on my thesis films a SAG actor and I were having a conversation about other film schools and he said he always prefers to work with Chapman students more than any other school because we are much more professional and always have better equipment. I have heard this from numerous other people including studio teachers and other professional crew hired to work on films. I have said this in other posts but I have friends in the in the industry who significantly affect it it every year and when it came down for me to chose a film school I was always gun ho USC but they sat me down and told me to go to Chapman instead and they were right. </p>
<p>As for the frats and the dorms I never experienced them. I have been a commuter since my freshman year because I live close to Chapman and I was never interested in the frats because the film school itself is kind of one big frat. I can give you some incite on FFC though. Your FFC is going to be the hardest and most boring class you will take at Chapman. If you notice all FFC classes have to do with some sort of philosophy. Chapman is all about students learning who they really are, what their value system is and they try to get students to take their knowledge and better the world with it.</p>
<p>Its ashame that Dodge isn’t seen as a Top Film school, hopefully that will change over the coming years.</p>
<p>I withdraw my question about International Students, you probably wouldn’t know the answer either way. The FFC’s look alright but your right, they seem like Phil courses. </p>
<p>I am planning to apply for Fall 2012 - Creative Producing. Can you give me/us an in-depth look into the program. The website doesn’t give away a lot of information and I am really interested in the major.</p>
<p>Another question - What are the people like at Chapman University (in-general)? Final question - If I do get admitted, I am planning to dorm in North Morlan and travel by BMX to Dodge. Do a lot of other students travel by bike? Dodge is pretty far from the main campus.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the information you have already provided.</p>
<p>Hey @Filmexec21 - thanks again for doing this! It is much appreciated :)</p>
<p>So I was accepted today to the screenwriting program at dodge, and I was wondering if you could just give some honest insight on how people are liking it, what kinds of classes you take freshman year, approx. how many people are admitted to the screenwriting program every year, etc. Sorry if that’s very vague/general, but I can’t seem to find many posts or threads about the screenwriting major and I just need to know a little more about it… thanks!</p>
<p>also, I heard somewhere else that you guys don’t have Final Cut Pro because of the PCs and instead use Avid? Is this true? and if so, is that a problem for most of the students??</p>
<p>lastly, I REALLY would love to study abroad when I’m in college… does being a part of Dodge hinder that at all? I feel like the hectic work schedule won’t allow me to do that… but idk how chapman works.</p>
<p>sorry if i repeated anyone’s question already, or bombarded you with questions. haha. thanks again!!! this is SO helpful.</p>