Student Experience
You’ll share a building, five sound stages, and a passion for storytelling with students from the Schools of Writing and Acting as you gain the practical skills required to be a well-trained candidate for entry into the industry.
Your classes are designed to not only teach you the concepts involved in filmmaking but also to give you in-class time to apply them. A typical day in the life of an on-campus student can include the thrill of working collaboratively on set with a team of other filmmakers. Remote students can join in as crew members, producers, and directors via iPad, allowing you to work in a professional environment from anywhere in the world.
Networking and the proper utilization of social media are key in the world of entertainment. We provide meaningful opportunities for you to develop and hone these skills via our guest speaker series and social media classes. We also host robust Instagram, TikTok, and Discord channels, where all students are encouraged to share and post their work.
Facilities
Soundstages
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You dream it, we build it. Experience the excitement of working in front of the camera in our eight professional fully equipped quality soundstages with lighting grids, with new sets designed every week.
Main Stage Theater
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Our Main Stage Theater, home to our One Acts Festival, seats an audience of 200 in the heart of San Francisco’s theater district, adjacent to Union Square.
Camera Room
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Our camera facilities offers equipment to students to use on campus or on location. We stock lighting equipment, digital and film cameras, grip and electric equipment.
Wardrobe Room
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Our wardrobe room contains hundreds of articles of clothing—everything from contemporary to period fashions. We have an extensive collection of shoes, hats, streetwear, and evening wear. Open to all student filmmakers, the wardrobe room gives you the ability to dress the cast of your film in the style of your dreams.
Editing Bays
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We have over 21 Mac editing bays and three private video editing suites available for student use, all equipped with Avid Media Composer, DaVinci Resolve, and the full Adobe Suite, including Premiere Pro and After Effects. We also have two private audio editing suites running Pro Tools and the Adobe Suite.
Summer Web Series
The Best of Both Worlds
Every spring, students work in a collaborative real-world writers’ room environment to create a multi-part web series. Every summer, their work is produced with members of the writing class serving as executive producers on the show.
Production Central
Production Central takes your writing off of the page and onto the screen. You’ll gain hands-on experience in writing festival-worthy short films, and then work with a director/producer team to take your film into production. You’ll spend time on set acting as a script supervisor and gain valuable real-world skills that will prepare you for an exciting and fulfilling career in the industry.
Events
NXTUP Film Festival
Our NXTUP Festival is the culminating event of the school year; it’s a full-blown film festival and awards ceremony highlighting the best student work across all categories. NXTUP judges are working film and television professionals who know what it takes to make it in the industry. The festival gives our students an opportunity to have their work seen by those who could potentially hire them in the future.
ALL EVENTSStudent Interviews
Hear directly from students about their experiences in the School of Writing for Film, Television, & Digital Media.
