<p>Hoping some of you might be able to help. My D is interested in undergrad film directing major. She's only a freshman so we have lots of time, but I thought we'd start researching! Many of the schools on the big list are film studies majors; and I was hoping for some shortcuts from "those who've been there before" with suggestions for film production-oriented BA's or BFA's. I am trying to avoid west coast schools and am particularly interested in schools in the southeast. Have looked at NCSA and that looks like the type of program which would interest her. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance to any who can help! :)</p>
<p>In the South East, NCSA and Florida State come to mind. (The thing with NCSA is that it’s going to be all film all the time and not a typical college experience that she might get someplace like USC or Chapman in addition to a very good production program.) I’m not sure of the quality, but I believe that there is also a production major at Wilmington. Your best bet at this point might be to go through the giant list of film programs at the top of this board, find the ones in your desired region, and then go online to check if they have a major that emphasizes production. If NCSA looks good, it’s not to soon to start thinking about sending her to their summer program in film production. Students are eligible to go after 9th grade. The summer program is excellent and well-supervised with college-student counselors who are very involved with their charges, and gives students a lot of opportunities for hands-on learning in many aspects of film production. Craft-oriented classes are taught by NCSA faculty. Also, they know the kids from the summer program and this might be helpful in terms of admissions to the college level program. Several students who attended the summer program with my kid are now attending NCSA for college. Finally, if your D still wants to go for a production major when it’s time for college, you might want to rethink the regional restriction, especially if it isn’t coming from her. High quality programs are flooded with applications and if it means having access to a better program with better facilities and experienced faculty, it might be worth casting a wider net. (Take a look at the number of applications they receive for production majors at NCSA and Florida State versus the number of production students they accept and you get the general idea.)</p>
<p>Thanks Nester, I appreciate the information; especially the advice regarding the NCSA summer program.</p>
<p>It’s a great program. If your D is interested, be sure to apply the minute the applications area available. She will come away with films on which she has served as editor, dp, sound person, and writer/director, as well as various other positions. (She will have a different position on each film.) The spaces fill up very quickly. Also, they have an advanced program for students who have already been there, so this is a program that can be done for more than one summer.</p>
<p>I will put in a plug for Ohio University’s Media Arts program (my son just graduated). The major advantages are:</p>
<ol>
<li>Respected program in the Scripps School of Communications</li>
<li>Several different production and business tracks within the Media Arts major</li>
<li>Great college experience, combined with in-depth knowledge of the film and broadcast crafts.</li>
<li>Excellent, guaranteed merit scholarships, depending on the GPA/ACT/SAT scores.</li>
<li>Lots of filmmaking, even as a freshman.</li>
<li>Shoot-out (big competition in the school to make a film in 48 hours).</li>
<li>And the biggest plus of all… Their MA-419 class. The last class produced a feature film based on best-selling author Russell Banks’ novel, Trailerpark, that got a standing ovation at this year’s Lake Placid Film Festival. It had a crew of over 70 students. The class the year before that produced The Dying Western, which went on to win awards at several different film festivals, including the Grand Jury Prize at the Ivy Film Festival, probably the most prestigious student film festival in the world.</li>
<li>Fantastic facilities.</li>
<li>The friendliest student body around.</li>
</ol>
<p>Finally, almost everyone in high school who wants to go into filmmaking wants to be a director. One of the most interesting things over the last four years was watching people in my son’s class find what they were really in love with: producing or editing or art direction or special effects or cinematography or casting or screenwriting or audio design or any of the other gazillion jobs you see listed in the credits of films. And with all of the production experience that the Media Arts program gives you, you get to experience these jobs in an on-set environment and maybe find out that one of these jobs is much more interesting to you than directing. It’s been fun to see people find their “true love,” job-wise (which is also much more conducive to finding real jobs after graduation).</p>
<p>Film directing is one of the most important jobs in the world. Buy your daughter a subscription to Netflix and get her on some classic directors- Cassavetes, Varda, Tarkovsky, Chaplin, Ozu, Kurosawa, Bergman, Deren, etc.</p>
<p>Tell your daughter to go to the library and start reading poetry and looking at paintings.</p>
<p>Start going to revival screenings, independent films, film clubs, etc.</p>
<p>Buy her a cheap camera (you can get an HD camera for 500 bucks nowadays) and just let her go around shooting things.</p>
<p>These are the best things to start preparing for real filmmaking. Film schools will deal with the business side, so it’s best to get her aquainted with ACTUAL filmmaking before they brainwash her.</p>
<p>Digmedia, I can’t believe your son has graduated! What did he find his “true love” to be? What are his plans now? My son is starting his sophomore year at Chapman. He still wants to direct, but he does a lot of screenwriting just on his own that’s not required for class, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see him lean more that way, even though he’s a film production major. He is good at being AD (Assistant Director), probably because of his Civil Air Patrol and ROTC experience, since that job is about managing people. He likes ADing, but he doesn’t want to get funneled into doing that all the time.</p>
<p>timely…</p>
<p>1st AD and 2nd AD are fantastic jobs and don’t get enough credit in the credits. But you are essentially managing the entire set (1st) or all of the talent (2nd).</p>
<p>My son’s passions were on the technical side, namely editing, color correction, and especially special effects. He was special effect supervisor for a feature-length film (still in post-). Since graduating, he is developing his own business, creating film production software (continuation of his thesis work), supporting himself with one-off gigs. Interesting times.</p>
<p>I’m completely ignorant - what is NCSA?</p>
<p>Digmedia, the productions S has worked on so far have been pretty small ones and they only had 1 AD. I am sure he will be very happy when he gets to be either the 1st or the 2nd! </p>
<p>It is neat seeing their gifts emerge. S is a very good people person. He said that he doesn’t know why AD’s usually try to get stuff done by yelling, because that really isn’t necessary. I think he must be doing well at it, because he has been asked to AD several times for this semester.</p>
<p>He is taking Production Management this semester and was assigned to be a producer for a senior thesis film. He’s kind of stressed about that. Apparently they don’t have a production designer yet, and an elevator has to be built because much of the film is set in an elevator, and real elevators have a bad habit of moving. They also don’t have a cinematographer. And they shoot in 3 weeks. Ahhh…the life of a film student!</p>
<p>That is very cool that your S is taking what he learned and making a go of it! It seems like a lot of film students graduate and succumb to the lure of a steady income in a “real” job, and then find it hard to press forward with their film careers.</p>
<p>Notnim – NCSA is the North Carolina School for the Arts, part of the North Carolina state system.</p>
<p>Dig – Congrats on your son’s post-graduation successes! To be working in his (very competitive) field and to function as an entrepreneur at such a young age – impressive.</p>
<p>Skep – You’re damning film school programs with pretty broad strokes. I’m wondering if there are specific issues with your film school program that it would useful for other students to know about. Is your film school emphasizing business over artistic expression? Are you not getting high quality mentoring in the artistic or technical aspects of production? Do you believe that high quality film programs don’t exist, or do you believe that students left to their own devices, reading and watching classic films widely, and shooting with “cheap cameras,” are better served than students in what others might think of as good film schools?</p>