Pennsylvania State University Film Program

Instead of placing the greatest emphasis on liberal arts, as many other universities do, the film program at Pennsylvania State University places an emphasis on communications. Their communications program is the largest accredited communications program in the United States. This helps to provide their students with a strength in that field. The education that film students at Pennsylvania State receive is one where subjects in liberal arts will be explored; however, the majority of classes will give students a strong background in applied and conceptual communications theories.

Those who wish to pursue film as a major must apply for admittance into the program. Penn State only allows students into this program during the fall semester and only during their junior year. Thus, students will take the requisite liberal arts and communications preparatory classes during their first two years, then end their undergraduate experience with two years focused on film and video production. The application for the film school includes an essay and creative writing exercise--both of which will be judged by faculty members.

Once accepted into the film program, students have the flexibility to decide upon their specialization. The three fields offered are screenwriting, narrative fiction, and non-fiction production. Along with the classes which focus on their specialization, students will take classes which highlight the theoretical and aesthetic properties of film-making.

Unfortunately, Pennsylvania State does not have a specialization dedicated to editing or post-production practices. An additional drawback to their program is that they do not have any classes specifically devoted to editing. This particular drawback can be rather disappointing for those who wish to pursue editing, but it is important to note that the vast majority of American universities which offer a major in film/video do not have a specialization in editing. While Penn State does not offer this particular specialization, they do cover aspects of editing in many of their film-making courses.

The first opportunity students will have to learn how to properly edit a film is in their introductory film-making class. This class will cover the basics in modern film-making, including lessons on editing. There are also more advanced classes which utilize editing as a component of the learning process. They offer a course in alternative and documentary film-making which explores the theoretical and practical methods used in these two art forms. Additional courses include an introduction to multimedia production and an intermediate course in film and production techniques.