Some notes for Y13 IB Film/Media Studies students from a talk in Hong Kong given primarily by Anthony Fabian, director of the film Skin (2009) on film courses in the United States.

1. U.S.A Film Related
Courses
A Talk by Anthony Fabian
Wednesday, March 4, 2009

2. Top Film Schools
• UCLA- University of California, Los Angeles
(Part of University of California system)
• USC- University of Southern California
• AFI- American Film Institute
• NYU- New York University
• All offer scholarships...(Business, Art etc
which may relate to your discipline...
Wednesday, March 4, 2009

3. UCLA
• Indie filmmaking school
• Less commercial
• More thoughtful filmmaking
• A tradition in academic theory
• Don’t do film for 2 years as first you have
to be undergraduate in whole number of
other academic areas
• Scriptwriting can get you into the film
course
Wednesday, March 4, 2009

4. UCLA Film
Department
• 2 years film course, after initial 2 years in
another discipline
• Strong focus on authorship and auteur
theory with textual analysis
• Professors quite competitive with students
Wednesday, March 4, 2009

5. USC
• A great place to break into Mainstream/
Hollywood filmmaking
• Very expensive
Wednesday, March 4, 2009

6. AFI (American Film
Institute)
• 2 years AFI Masters, working collaboratively
in a number of areas (cinematography,
editor, sound designer etc...25 places per
role)
• More vocational, specialist system focusing
on production roles
Wednesday, March 4, 2009

7. NYU (part of the Tisch
system)
• Tisch School of the Arts is one of the 15
schools making up NYU
• very prestigious but selective film school
• Accepts only 5% of applicants (36 students)
for MFA directors programme
Wednesday, March 4, 2009

8. San Francisco State
• Encouragement of film history
• Film theory
• Life experience...tell your own story
Wednesday, March 4, 2009

9. Learning to Deal with
A Crew...
• Short Film- 20/30 crew
• Feature Film- 100 strong crew
Wednesday, March 4, 2009

10. Some tips...
• Use of film festivals as a way of creating a
network (producers, actors etc)
• Winning prizes at film festivals is a crucial
part of the process
• Skin (d. Anthony Fabian) took 8
years...based on a true report from a radio
programme (partly financed by the BBC
who commissioned docu’s in the
Wednesday, March 4, 2009