Which One is The Best Film Academy?

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As cultural, social and technological change rock the entertainment industry, these top colleges and universities — from USC to AFI — are training the next generation of cinematic geniuses.

Over the past couple of years, film schools have been gearing up, building VR labs and greenscreen studios and stocking up on 3D stereoscopic cameras. All that technology,

USC has been churning out great filmmakers since Douglas Fairbanks, Darryl Zanuck and Irving Thalberg were teaching classes there. From James Ivory ('57) to Robert Zemeckis ('73) to Doug Liman
('92) and up to Ryan Coogler ('11) — they all learned how to point 
a camera on this Exposition Park campus.

For Ride Along director Tim Story ('91), that history was one of the school's big selling points. "It was my admiration for George Lucas," he explains why he applied, referring to class of 1969's most famous pupil (also most generous; Lucas donated another $10 million last year).

The Bachelor of film and television production program at Loyola Marymount University’s SFTV is comprised of 18 units of online or in-class work. During these classes, students will be able to complement their production, recording arts, screenwriting or animation studies. The Bachelors in Film program at Loyola Marymount University divulges deep into the history of film and TV with notable courses such as:

Since director Cathy Yan graduated just two years ago — with a dual degree in cinema and business, something no other 
film school offers — she's gone on to make the 2018 Sundance darling Dead Pigs and just got hired to direct Marvel's Harley Quinn movie with Margot Robbie.

New dean Richard Gladstein has made some small improvements to this bucolic Los Angeles campus (there's now a cafe!) and some big ones, too (hiring Juno producer Lianne Halfon as the head of the producing discipline). But perhaps the most striking transformation has been the school's focus on female filmmakers.

The Bachelors of Film and Television at Boston University is comprised of 128 credits and 32 four-credit courses. Here, you’ll learn the art of storytelling along with writing, image creation, and managing and producing films and television productions. The history of film and television is also explored, giving students the skills they need to excel in a career in film or television.
.Storytelling for Film and Television
American Masterworks
Television Drama

Not everyone's homework assignment gets watched 
by a nationwide audience. But MFA student Steven Canals ('15) sold the pilot he wrote for course 284B (Writing Television Drama Scripts) to Ryan Murphy. Today, that pilot is FX's transgender drama Pose, which was renewed for a second season

Canals isn't the only one turning schoolwork into a career: Gaia Violo ('15) sold her writing assignment, a pilot for an FBI mystery called Absentia, to Sony's global pay channel AXN (Amazon picked it up for the U.S.), while a group of seven other grad students recently collaborated on Waterschool, a documentary co-produced by jewelry company Swarovski about the world's fresh-water supply, which ended up getting sold to Netflix.

The Bachelors of Film, Photography, and Visual Arts falls under Ithaca College’s bachelor of fine arts program. IT encompasses 120 credit hours focusing on the film, photography and visual arts studies. Under this program, students will learn an array of mediums to prepare them for today’s film requirements. There is also the opportunity to travel around the world with the school’s program to learn hands-on from acclaimed film professionals including courses in Los Angles to as far away as Italy. Some of the courses students can expect to take are:

Writing for Screen Media
Thesis Cinema Production
Hollywood and American Film
Fiction Film Theory

For students looking to obtain a degree in film degrees at USC, the school offers both a Bachelors of Art and a Bachelors of Fine Arts. The Bachelors of Arts track provides the necessary skills a student would need for the art of filmmaking while the Bachelors of Fine Arts offers more extensive studies and more technical training.

Cutting-edge facilities (including an Oculus NextGen VR lab), generous donors (who gave more than $3 million to students this year) and full-ride graduate scholarships (including programs for female students from India and the Arab world) all put UCLA high on this list. "Those three years were invaluable," says Canals. "I wouldn't have a career if it weren't for UCLA."

With the Bachelors in Film Studies, students are exposed to the study of film both in a historical sense as well as in a critical review approach. The coursework is made up of a variety of genres of films in addition to learning about filmmakers, international films and filmmaking practices. To obtain a Bachelors in Film Studies, students must complete 36 credits with some classes including:

Introduction to Visual Storytelling
Introduction to Film Aesthetics
Film Analysis
History of Film to 1959

With a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Film & Television at NYU, students are giving the skills they need to be hired by studios, production companies, and television networks. The Bachelors of Fine Arts in Film & Television also provides for a student to obtain a Bachelors of Business at the same time.

It was impossible to attend a film festival this year without bumping into a Columbia grad. Six films made by alumni played at Cannes in May, including HBO's Fahrenheit 451, directed by faculty 
member Ramin Bahrani. No 
fewer than 42 alumni and faculty were represented at Sundance, with movies like Nancy, written 
and directed by Christina Choe ) and edited by David Gutnik (

The Florida State University Film School offers a Bachelors in Motion Picture Arts with the ability to focus more specifically on Production or Animation and Digital Arts. Both courses are three-year programs that include an array of class offering to provide students with the skills necessary to land jobs in the film industry. Students can take courses in:

Screenwriting
Production
Lighting
Cinematography

The most disruptive company today is Netflix, and Ted Sarandos is on my board." If being disruptive means attracting some of the biggest, most powerful names 
in the industry to your campus 
— and not just Sarandos' son, 
who recently graduated, but faculty members like former Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs — then mission accomplished

To obtain a Bachelor in Film from the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television, students are taught a liberal arts education that includes the study of film and television history as well as theory and production techniques. Students must complete a 16-course curriculum that amounts to approximately 75 units. Here, students are entertained to courses that include:

Introductory Screenwriting
Digital Media Studies
Cinematography

the school 
Walt Disney built is killing it in animation. This year, Adrian Molina ('06) won an Oscar for 
co-directing Coco, while Glen Keane ('74) won best animated 
short for Dear Basketball. Brad Bird ('76) crossed $1 billion at the box office with Incredibles 2, while Hotel Transylvania 3, directed by Genndy Tartakovsky ('92), grossed $340 million worldwide

New dean Peggy Rajski (her 
1994 short, Trevor, won an Oscar) 
is coming aboard just in time 
to christen the school's new Playa Vista campus. The spread includes three flexible studios with greenscreen backdrops, eight Avid editing rooms, a stand-alone ADR/Foley stage and — just like AFI — a new cafe.

With a Bachelor in Film Studies, students are provided an educational background on the history of film as the well as the practice of analysis, which is designed to provide a comprehensive understanding of the complexities of film mediums. Students can enter the film studies program in their sophomore year after completing the perquisites and completing two of the introductory film course with at least B+ grade.

With a Bachelors in Fine Arts with an emphasis in Film, students will have the ability to learn from a total perspective that can help them to be a fully-rounded film professional. At CalArts, the Bachelors Of Film/Video program is a four-year track that has a Mid-Residency Review in the students third semester.

LMU is also adding another major this year: Film, Television and Media Studies, focusing on theory and academics