Tuesday, February 27, 2007

UCLA Film School Review

The most logical destination for many future filmmakers is Los Angeles. There are a number of excellent editing film schools in the area, but the school to receive the most acclaim for its film and video curriculum is the University of California, Los Angeles. The Princeton Review ranked UCLA’s school for Television, Film, and Television (TFT) in first place out of 500 national programs. If, for some reason you find the Princeton Review’s opinion to be questionable, then you might want to consider the US News and World Report’s analysis which has ranked UCLA’s film school/television program in the top three for the past few years.

Alumnae of this school have gone on to win Emmys, Oscars, and Tony’s. With that said, it is obvious that admittance into this editing film school is highly competitive. In 2003, they admitted 310 students out of 3,688 applicants. Therefore, it is imperative that applicants display an attitude towards academic excellence as well as an appreciation for the aesthetics of their proposed major.

One unparalleled aspect of their film program is that this program is combined with those on the television and theater tract. No other university in the United States combines the curriculum of live-action theatre, multimedia, and video in one school. The Theater, Film, and Television (TFT) school is integrated so that students with like-minded artistic goals have the opportunity to learn, and have experience in, similar fields. The ideal result of this experiment is that the students of this program will not become cookie-cutter graduates of a mundane film school; instead, UCLA strives to have film graduates who are artists with an eye towards aesthetic innovation in film and television.

In the TFT, it is important that students receive a historical, theoretical, and aesthetic appreciation for film. Thus, the UCLA Film and Television archive is available for students to explore the rich history of their field. Additional concerns of this school are that students remain well rounded by receiving a strong foundation in the liberal arts.

The film program offers concentrations in three areas: critical studies (criticism of film, television); production (pre- and post-production of film, animation, and multimedia); and film and television writing. This concentration will be pursued during a student’s final year, however the concentration must be chosen in the spring quarter of their junior year. Those interested in film editing will take classes that revolve around film production, a class on film post-production, and a technical lab.

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