ONE-YEAR MASTERS IN FILMMAKING

• The ability to work independently and collaboratively in a high-pressure creative environment
• An in-depth knowledge of 16mm and Digital Video cameras and motion picture production
• A working knowledge of 35mm cameras and 35mm film production
• The ability to write and pre-visualize a screenplay
• In-depth experience working as a director, producer, assistant director, director of photography, assistant cameraperson, gaffer, and grip on student productions
• Mastery of Final Cut Pro digital editing software
• Knowledge of film history and film studies
• Knowledge of aesthetic film theory and experience with practical application of the same

• Project 1 - Mise-en-scène Film
• Project 2 - Continuity Film
• Project 3 - Music Film
• Project 4 - First Quarter Film
• Project 5 - Chekhovian (Text vs. Subtext) Film
• Project 6 - Point of View Film
• Project 7 - Semester One Final Film
• Project 8 - Master’s Thesis Film

This course introduces students to the language and craft of film directing. Director’s Craft prepares students for the film exercises and is the venue for screening and critiquing their work throughout the course. The Director’s Craft instructor challenges students to find the most effective and visually expressive means to tell their stories. This course also exposes students to the unique ways great directors have approached visual storytelling and how they have used mise-en-scène (the task of staging scenes and moving actors within the frame).
Prerequisite: None

In the first week of the course, students are trained to use the 16mm Arriflex-S motion picture camera and its accessories. Unlike other film schools, our students learn to load the cameras and take light readings on the very first day instead of being handed a book. On the second day, they perform test shoots to learn about the latitude of the film stock, how to get a correct exposure, the effect of different lenses, focus pulling, and in-camera effects. In lighting class, they learn fundamental lighting techniques through shooting tests on film. As they progress through the workshop, they learn how to support the mood of the story with lighting choices and they experiment with expressive lighting styles.
Prerequisite: None

This course focuses on the fundamentals of visual storytelling and provides students with constructive analysis and support as they take a story from initial idea, treatment, and outline to a rough draft, and finally, a shooting script. The intersection of story structure, theme, character, tension, and conflict is examined through detailed scene analysis. Students are encouraged to tell their stories visually, and not rely solely on dialogue to tell the story. The scripts they write will be the basis of all class work and the One-Year Final Film projects in the second semester.
Prerequisite: None

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 for use 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.
Prerequisite: None

Editing is an art unto itself. Students will learn how to use the Final Cut Pro digital editing system. Each student edits his or her own films, and can supplement their classes with individual consultations at the computer. Students will be taught the fundamental concepts of film editing, both practical and aesthetic.
Prerequisite: None

This course helps students learn how to communicate and collaborate with their actors. Students learn how to identify a screenplay’s emotional “beats” and “character objectives” in order to improve their actors’ performances. Through exercises, students learn how an actor trains him/herself physically and emotionally. Sensory work, emotional recall, and improvisations are the tools the students will use in order to understand how an actor is able to live out a character’s reality.
Prerequisite: None

In Production Workshop students stage and shoot exercises under the supervision of the instructor. The technical aspects of filmmaking are seen as tools to realize the story. The guiding idea is that once students can articulate the objective of a given scene, the necessary craft and techniques will follow. Students design shots to heighten the emotion of a sequence and shoot it on film with supervision. In the next session, they edit the exercise and analyze it with the instructor.
Prerequisite: None

While each student in the program writes, directs and edits his or her own films, it is also essential that he or she learn the importance of collaboration. Crews function as working groups for each film project. Thus, each student not only directs a series of projects, but also works in crew positions on his or her colleagues’ films. Students edit and screen their films for critique and discussion.
Prerequisite: None

Director’s Craft 2 further explores the aesthetic elements of mise-en-scène: shot choice, composition, setting, point of view, action of the picture plane, and movement of the camera. Starting where the first semester directing class left off, students learn how to cover a dialogue scene with a series of shots as well as more sophisticated approaches to coverage including the use of dollies. Students practice different approaches to coverage by breaking down scenes from their own scripts. They create floor plans and shot lists and discuss their choices with the instructor.
Prerequisite: Director's Craft 1

Digital Camera and Lighting class sessions are designed to help students master many elements of digital video photography including white balance, shutter speed, focus, video latitude, gels, and filters. Through hands-on exercises, students will explore the possibilities of digital video and learn how it differs from film.
Prerequisite: Hands-On Camera & Lighting

Screenwriting 2 focuses on the completion, rewriting, and polishing of the scripts for the Year-One Final Film. Students will use live readings of their screenplays and engage in instructor led round table discussions of the work. The goal is to increase the writer’s mastery of those aspects of screenwriting as outlined in Screenwriting 1. In order to successfully complete this course, all students must achieve “script lock.” At the completion of this course, each student will formally enter into Pre-Production of the One-Year Final Film.
Prerequisite: Screenwriting 1

Student Producing 2 leads students through the entire process of pre-production, including scouting and securing of locations, permits, and casting. The producing instructor and the students design a production schedule for the entire class. The instructor encourages students to form realistic plans for successfully making their films. Using script breakdowns, students learn how to plan and keep to a schedule and budget for their productions. They use their own finished scripts in class as they learn how to take advantage of budgeting and scheduling forms and methods.
Prerequisite: Student Producing 1

This course builds on the tools students gained in the Directing Actors 1 course of the first semester. Students break down their own scripts by identifying the dramatic beats of their scenes and translating this into effective feedback for actors. Students learn to adjust character objectives through rehearsal. This results in specific and believable performances.
Prerequisite: Directing Actors 1

A continuation of the Film Projects, students direct 3 digitally filmed projects and a culminating Semester One Film.
Prerequisite: Film Projects

In this seminar taught from the filmmaker’s perspective, students identify techniques that they may use in their own films through screenings and discussions. They learn how filmmakers have approached the great challenge of telling stories with moving images from silent films to the digital age. The course explores ways that the crafts of directing (particularly shot construction), cinematography, acting, and editing have developed. Instructors select films for screening and discussion from among the great cinematic innovators. The course gives students an understanding of how cinema has developed to the present moment and where they find themselves in that development.
Prerequisite: None

Students are trained to operate the Arriflex 16SR camera and accessories.
Prerequisite: Hands-On Camera & Lighting

This class immerses students in the technical and creative demands of cinematography. Color film stocks are tested to help students make the best choice for their films. The use of color correcting filters and gels is practiced through shooting tests. Lighting and contrast ratios are reviewed. By shooting set-ups from students’ own storyboards, this camera and lighting-centric class provides students with a practical approach to getting the most out of their resources.
Prerequisite: Hands-On Camera & Lighting

This class will train students in the proper use and operation of 35mm cameras and accessories. 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 will demystify the process of designing, shooting, and editing scenes on 35mm.
Prerequisite: Production Workshop

This class teaches students to edit their sync-sound projects. Dailies from the exercises from Cinematography class are transferred to digital video so that students learn to sync and edit with dialogue. This gives students the hands-on technical training they need to edit their own projects. students benefit from the creative discoveries their classmates make when they compare the very different versions that are edited from the same material.
Prerequisite: Editing

This class brings together all the elements of the second semester program in a practical hands-on workshop. In a series of sync-sound production exercises students shoot scenes on 16mm film from their own scripts with the guidance and critique of the instructor. One of the course objectives is to empower the students to determine what adjustments to make 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.
Prerequisite: Production Workshop

The One-Year Master’s Program culminates in the pre-production, production, and post-production thesis film of ten to twenty minutes in length.
Prerequisite: Digital Video Projects and Semester One Film

• Narrative Statement
• Résumé
• TOEFL Scores or other means of verifying proficiency in English (if first language is not English)
• Supporting Materials (will not be returned; see below)
• Sealed Official Academic Transcripts from Prior Institution(s) sent directly from the issuing institution to the Registrar’s Office
• Two Letters of Recommendation verifying the applicant’s ability to undertake graduate study in the field successfully
• $50 non-Refundable Application Fee (check or money order only in US dollars made payable to NEW YORK FILM ACADEMY. If accepted, this fee will be applied toward tuition.)