ACTING & FILM SCHOOL

Thus, everyone has the extensive hands-on experience of working on sixteen short films in the first two months. During the third month, students are introduced to new digital video technology. With its ease of use, the digital video cameras allow the students to delve deeper into the director's craft. Each individual directs three digital projects. These projects and in-class production workshops challenge students to explore the dramatic mechanics of motion picture storytelling and the critical collaboration between actors and directors. The supporting classes include Screenwriting, Directing Actors, Directing, Production Workshop, Documentary Filmmaking. The combination of these classes and the digital productions prepare students for the second semester and production of their thesis films.

PRODUCTION GOALS
• Write, direct, digitally edit four short non-synchronous 16mm films. The fourth film can be up to 10 minutes in length with multiple tracks of sound.
• Be a cinematographer, gaffer, and assistant camera on your crew's films.
• Write a short film script with dialogue (for 2nd semester production).
• Write, direct, and edit three digital films. The third film may be up to ten minutes with multiple tracks of sound including dialogue.

LEARNING GOALS
• Learn the art and technique of visual storytelling including directing, cinematography, editing, and post-production sound design.
• Learn the fundamentals of digital video production and digital editing.
• Fundamental training in acting craft and directing actors.
• Immersion in screenwriting craft.

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BUDGETING AND SCHEDULING
This course teaches students how to break down a film script for budgeting and scheduling purposes. Students learn how to use all the necessary forms in their own short films. The importance of having a finished script before going into a shoot is stressed as it applies to creating realistic budgets and schedules.

HANDS ON CAMERA AND LIGHTING - DIGITAL VIDEO
This course is designed to help students master digital video photography including white balance, shutter speed, focus, video latitude, gels, and filters. Through hands-on exercises, students explore digital video and learn how it differs from film. Working with boom-poles and external shotgun microphones, students learn how to get the best quality sound recording.

Acting for Directors
This course adheres to the philosophy that to direct actors one must understand and experience acting as art and methodology. In these classes, directing students become actors. Students learn how to identify a screenplay's emotional “beats” and “character objectives” to help them understand and improve their actors' performances. Students are prepared to not only communicate and collaborate with their actors, but how to actualize the best emotional outcome of a scene. Through exercises, students learn how an actor trains him/herself physically and emotionally. Sensory work, emotional recall, and improvisations are the tools to which students are exposed to teach them how an actor is able to live out a character's reality.

SCREENWRITING II
As students take part in the Digital Camera classes and Directing Actors classes, they also begin an intensive writing period. In Screenwriting class, they develop a premise for their second semester project and then take the necessary steps to complete a final shooting script of up to fifteen pages. This is achieved through a combination of one-on-one consultations with their faculty mentors, in-class readings and supportive discussions.

Script Supervision: Efficient Shooting
In this interactive course students learn how proper script supervision can help filmmakers effectively tell their stories. Students break down their thesis scripts and learn an advanced and efficient approach to the organization and management of the shooting day. Students are challenged to maximize the efficiency of shooting schedules and learn practical techniques for creating and preserving spatial and temporal continuity in their films.

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Synchronous Sound Production Workshop
In a series of sync-sound production exercises, students shoot scenes on 16mm film and HD from their own scripts with the guidance and critique of the instructor. Through these exercises, students are able to make any necessary adjustments to their scripts and shooting plans before their films go into production. These practice scenes are fully pre-produced (storyboarded, cast, scouted, rehearsed and pre-lighted) and treated as actual productions. Students gain experience working together and fill all the key crew positions (Director, Director of Photography, Sound Recordist, Gaffer, Grip, and Boom Operator). They spend a full production day shooting each scene with the same lighting, sound, and camera support they will use on their own films. They work with a grip equipment package (flags, nets, gels, stands, and clamps) and practice how to control light. Students come out of a series of production workshops with practical producing, directing, lighting, shooting, and location sound recording experience.

LOCATION SOUND RECORDING
This hands-on class teaches students how to record syncsound for their projects. Location recording, sound mixing and boom operation are practiced using scenes from the students' scripts. Sound is recorded using digital harddrive recorders, portable mixers, shotgun microphones, and wireless lavalier microphones.

SYNC-SOUND EDITING
Film dailies and HD media are imported to Final Cut Pro where students learn to sync and edit with dialogue. This experience provides students with the hands-on technical training they need to edit their own projects. An even greater benefit is the creative discoveries students make when they compare the very different versions that are edited from the same material. With this hands-on practice in sync-sound editing, students go into production on their own films with a full understanding of the challenge that awaits them after the shoot.

35mm filmmaking
Panavision 35mm cameras and accessories- the gold standard in motion picture photography-are used for this class.

All the fundamental creative skills and concepts students have learned working with 16mm film and digital video apply fully to 35mm filmmaking. The 35mm class is an opportunity for students to see how the wider frame and higher resolution of 35mm affects their shot design, framing, composition, staging, camera movement, lens choice, and lighting. The class explores the process of designing, shooting, and editing scenes on 35mm. Students digitally edit the scenes shot in class.

The following subjects are covered in the 35mm classes:

• Loading and operation of 35mm cameras
• Lighting for the 35mm frame
• 35mm aspect ratios
• 35mm tripod head
• Working with dolly and track
• Lenses for 35mm
• Anamorphic photography (super wide screen)

After completing their instruction in 35mm, students may shoot their final projects on 16mm, 35mm film, or HD.

Screnwriting: Writing Dialogue
In addition to providing an in depth study and exploration of dialogue in film, Screenwriting: Writing Dialogue focuses on the writing, rewriting, and polishing of Year One Final Film scripts. Students conduct live readings of their screenplays and engage in instructor led, round table discussions of the work. The goal of this seminar is to increase the writer's mastery of screenwriting as outlined in Screenwriting for Silent Film. To successfully complete this class, all students must achieve “script lock”. At the completion of this class, each student formally enters into Pre-Production of the Year One Final Film.

INTRODUCTION TO Critical Film Studies
Through screening and discussion this class investigates techniques used by cinematic innovators. It is the beginning of a course of study that intensifies during the second year of the MFA.

PRE-PRODUCTION, PRODUCTION & POST-PRODUCTION
Students start the second semester with a finished script of up to 15 pages. They continue to improve these scripts in one-on-one consultations with their mentors and as they work with scenes from their scripts in their other classes. During the instruction period they find locations, cast, and design their shoots. They continue to meet with instructors in one-on-one advisement sessions to get feedback on their shooting script, casting, storyboards, floor plans, schedules and budgets.

Each student receives five shooting days, according to a production schedule designed in class. Students work on their classmates' films in the principal crew roles. Schedules are designed to allow for days off between productions and for last-minute preparations for the subsequent shoot. The production period is as intense and demanding as a professional feature film shoot.

After the production period, students begin editing their films. They screen rough-cuts of their films for the directing instructor and their mentors and receive feedback before presenting their finished films to an invited audience at the end of the semester. Throughout the post-production period, the editing instructor is available for consultation. Students may use up to 300 hours of individual editing time. They finish their films with a digital sound mix on the computer. Some students may choose to do more elaborate sound work and take their films to a professional sound mixer.

YEAR ONE Film screnings
At the end of the year one, a screening of completed films is open to friends, family and invited guests. Students may use their year one films as part of their portfolio reel and they also submit their work to the many film festivals in the U.S. and abroad.

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High Definition Workshop
Similar to the 35mm workshop in Year One, students participate in a week long Workshop, camera tech, and production period featuring the use of high definition cameras and the in-depth study of high definition cinematography.

NEW MEDIA
In the ever-changing world of the motion picture industry, it is essential for a filmmaker to keep abreast of evolutions in new media technology. New media trends are nearly impossible to predict. The climate changes so quickly that often times, revolutionary new ideas face obsolescence within months of their inception. This class immerses students in this maelstrom of technological developments. Each student completes a short new media project for posting on the internet.

THE BUSINESS OF FILMMAKING
As burgeoning film professionals, Master of Fine Arts students learn the importance of balancing their artistic inclinations with a thorough understanding of the business of filmmaking and the industry as a whole. Topics such as option agreements, financing, sound licensing, film festivals, representation, distribution and marketing are covered.

PRODUCTION DESIGN
Production design plays an important role in the success of any production, as it provides the audience with the visual clues that establish and enhance the production content. The production designer works to create a design style or concept that visually interprets and communicates a story, script or environment appropriate to the production content and action. This workshop is intended to help students prepare for the design requirements of their feature film projects. Topics covered in this hands-on workshop include set design and construction, makeup design, costume design, and basic aesthetics.

ADVANCED CINEMATOGRAPHY
This hands-on study of the art and craft of motion picture photography provides the student with multiple approaches towards intelligent and artistic ways of shooting. It is an in depth analysis of painting and sculpting with light, cinematographic control of the aesthetic, and the emotional possibilities of a well designed and executed photographic image. Students who wish to crew as Director of Photography on any Year Two thesis films are strongly encouraged to take this elective. Students who choose to pursue the Cinematography thesis option are required to take this elective.

Additional semester

Students who choose to direct and edit a feature length film do so in an additional semester held after the end of Year Two. This is reserved entirely for Production and Post Production of the feature projects. Students who choose to direct a feature film as their thesis are required to pay for a fifth semester.

Students in the MFA Program write, direct and edit their own films. Nonetheless, it is essential that filmmakers understand the importance of collaboration. Therefore, in addition to directing their own films, students are required to rotate among principal production positions.

For the first four projects these positions are:
• Director
• Director of Photography
• Assistant Camera
• Gaffer/ Grip

For projects five through seven students also rotate in the role of the sound recordist.

During the second semester, the crews expand to six or more and may include the roles of Assistant Director, Sound Mixer, Boom Operator, Production Manager, and Key Grip. Crews are required to meet each week with the directing instructor to review scripts, shooting, and production plans.

The Film Academy designed the following film projects to build students' technical and creative skills. They are intended to instill in each student a degree of confidence in visual and dramatic storytelling and to provide a strong foundation in film craft. Those new to filmmaking begin to understand how the disciplines of writing, cinematography, sound, and editing work together, while those with experience can practice and refine specific craft skills.

All students should seize this opportunity to experiment freely in order to develop their ability to engage and entertain an audience.

Projects one through four are filmed on 16mm black and white film stock. However, students may choose to shoot their fourth films on 24p digital video. Projects five through seven are shot on 24p digital video. Students may shoot their final film of the year on 16mm, 35mm, 24p DV, or HD.

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Film Project - Six

POV
Each shot in a film expresses a point of view, and in narrative film, the point of view changes often, sometimes with each new shot. For the most part, point of view-- which is often called narrative stance-- is largely invisible to the audience, though the accumulated effect of the changes profoundly affects the way the audience interprets any scene. Students will analyze different ways to create a point of view through visual means: POV Shot Construction, Camera Placement and the 180 Degree Rule, Shot Size, Shot Constructions such as Over the Shoulder Construction, In Depth and Linear Staging and Blocking, Lens choice, and Sound Design, etc..

The POV project is designed for students to explore the various techniques directors use to create a character's point of view in a scene. Each student receives a scene from a feature script from their directing teacher that features two characters. Each student will design and direct the scene from one's characters' point of view on digital video. Students must employ at least three different techniques in the scene they direct.

• Allotted Shooting Time: Five hours
• Editing Time: Three 4-hour slots
• Screening Time: 1 to 4 minutes

Film Project - Seven

Semester One Film
The Semester One Final Film is a narrative digital film project of up to ten minutes. This film should build on the lessons and techniques students have learned in their Acting for Directors classes, production workshops, and individual exercises of the second quarter. It should be a performance driven film with no more than three characters and one or two locations. The “story time” of the film should be limited to minutes or hours not days, weeks, years. Students also have the option of producing a documentary film as a semester one film.

• Allotted shooting time: 2 days
• Editing time: 40-80 hours
• Screening time: Up to 10 minutes

Film Project - eight

YEAR ONE FILM
This project is the culmination of the year's work. Each student's goal is to produce a fully realized short film that demonstrates his or her own artistic vision and point of view. Students work with a larger crew, and with more time allotted for preproduction, production, and post-production than the previous projects.

Film Project - NINE

NEW MEDIA
Each student conceives, produces, directs, and edits a new media project. These short projects place an emphasis on content and storytelling. Students tailor their productions and shoots specifically for the internet and streaming video format. Although using familiar tools, these projects challenge students to think in a new paradigm. Often referred to as “Pods”, the New Media Projects can have either a non-fiction reporting aspect or be self-contained fictional films.

Film Project - TEN

Advanced Directing Project
Each student writes and directs a self contained short scene from their upcoming thesis film on digital video. Throughout the course of the semester, each student presents these scenes in class using professional actors from the community. Advanced scene work and performance techniques are refined in each class session with the directing instructor. This project allows thestudents to refine their integration of script analysis and directing actors skills before embarking on their more ambitious thesis projects.

Thesis Project:

Option A: Feature Film
Direct and edit a feature length film in a paid fifth semester of study at the end of Year Two, and fill essential crew positions on short form films directed by fellow students.

Option B: Trailer or Short Film
Direct and edit a trailer or short based on the feature project of up to 30 minutes in length, and fill essential crew positions on short form films directed by fellow students.

Option C: Cinematography
Collaborate as Director of Photography on three feature trailer films of fellow students or one feature length film.

Navigating the Industry
There is no single path or formula for creating a career in filmmaking. During the last weeks of the MFA Program, students explore the many different possible roads to a life in film. Guest filmmakers share their experiences with students; and mentors work individually with students to discuss the next step in their careers. During the last weeks of the program, students explore the many different possible roads to a life in film. Guest filmmakers share their experiences with students. Subjects may include:
• Building your reel
• Film festivals and grants
• The studio system and alternatives
• Contracts, negotiations, and deals
• Networking and jobs in the industry
• The internet and new media
• Multi-camera studio shooting
We have an open dor policy for alumni.
With campuses all over the world, former students visit us and seek advice from our staff and faculty. Graduates also find that their most valuable professional network is one another. For more information about the Master of Fine Arts program, contact Michael Young (myoung@nyfa.edu), David Klein (david@nyfa.edu), or Chad Rocco (chad@nyfa.edu).