Programs include undergraduate degrees in film, journalism, professional photography, and B.S. 900 Arkadelphia Road Birmingham, AL 35254. UCLAs School of Theater, Film and Television has spawned alumni both venerable (Francis Ford Coppola, Eric Roth) and au courant (Gina Prince-Bythewood, Steven Canals, Marielle Heller, Justin Lin) and if they were there now, theyd start the year attending classes remotely. BIRMINGHAM, Ala.--Birmingham-Southern College has been ranked No. Gary Rizzo won Oscars for sound mixing for both 2011s Inception and 2018s Dunkirk. In 2019, more than 200 Full Sail grads worked on Emmy-nominated shows, including Game of Thrones, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Ozark and The Handmaids Tale. Notable alumni include director/writer/editor Steven C. Miller, director/screenwriter Darren Lynn Bousman and assistant director Larry Katz. Also Read: Watch 3 Teen Filmmakers Tackle COVID in Ghetto Film School Competition Winners (Exclusive), Mojave Ghost by Roxee Jeong from ArtCenter College of Design course The Power of Pleasure, taught by Matthew Rolston, 10. Rutgers Filmmaking, part of the Mason Gross School of the Arts, operates on a conservatory model at a Big Ten research university of 40,000 souls. But in a time of turmoil, they are educating the storytellers we need, and we salute them all. Two hundred applicants vie for 26 spots in Rutgers film program, which is located at its New Brunswick campus, and applications are growing 28% annually. Alumni: Jay Leno, Richard LaGravenese and Adele Lim (Crazy Rich Asians). Alumni include Michael Bay, Joss Whedon, Akiva Goldsman, D.B. Syracuse University You can deconstruct Coen brothers films in a Visual Literacy in Film course taught by The Wire writer/co-director Joy Kecken, or take ArtCenters newest course, Powerful Black Voices in Film, by writer/director Shannon Bennett. Johns Hopkins University partners with Maryland Institute College of Art for a film program centered at the $10 million, 25,000-square-foot Hopkins- MICA Film Center. The universitys production workshop experience places students in a writers room environment to create episodic content, which is then filmed on historic locations and studio backlots for an immersive professional experience. Once a week, we also had lessons where we were taught about production, setup and even worked on content for their social media platforms., Also Read: How the ShortList Film Festival Finalists Overcame Dark Subject Matters, Unexpected Production Challenges (Video), Stanfords Jeff Orlowski photographed by Chris Loupos for TheWrap. Boulder loves analog filmmaking: Along with a state-of-the-art digital cinema experience (including the RED camera, green screens and AVID), students can work in forms that include Super 8, 16mm, 35mm, hand-drawn and stop-motion animation. Meanwhile, Biola University returned to the list after dropping off last year, and Pepperdine made it into our rankings for the first time. He calls the department a really great mix of both the theoretical and the practical both of which have been essential to getting a foot in the door in Hollywood., Also Read: SXSW 2020 Canceled After Austin Mayor Declares 'State of Emergency' Due to Coronavirus, Will Packer and Kevin Hart at Florida State University / Getty Images. 48. Alumni include South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, director Derek Cianfrance (I Know This Much is True, The Place Beyond the Pines), producer Alexis Martin Woodall (Glee, American Horror Story) and film editor Nick Houy (Little Women, Lady Bird). The programs take students to the Cannes Film Festival annually and offer summer internships and an annual screenwriting contest that arranges for the winners to pitch their scripts. School of Visual Arts Or midcareer alumni on the business side: Sonys John Weiser, Orions John Hegeman and Epixs Rachel Brill. Also Read: USC, NYU Lead in 2020 Student Academy Awards, Chapman Dean Stephen Galloway, center / Chapman University. Also Read: 11 Best Back-to-School Movies, From 'Animal House' to 'Mean Girls' (Photos), Trey Parkers student film from the University of Colorado, Boulder, Giant Beavers of Southern Sri Lanka. 23. Another reason UCLAs future is bright as Hollywood enters the rainbow era: More than 60% of its students and teachers are people of color. YOU'VE REACHED YOUR MONTHLY ARTICLE LIMIT. A graph of 234 citations received by 28 academic papers made by 3 universities in Alabama was used to calculate publications' ratings, which then were adjusted for release dates and added to final scores. 39. Hofstra University In her last job as cinema/TV chair at Cal State Northridge, she built a department with a growing reputation and comprising more than 50% women. Alum Liz Hannah, after working in development for Charlize Therons company, struggled for years as a screenwriter, then had her spec script The Post land at No. Alumni include Kristy Guevara-Flanagan, the late Barbara Hammer, Debbie Lum, Steven Okazaki, Jonas Rivera, Cauleen Smith and Steven Zaillian. But it also found that students praised their close advising relationships with faculty, and it seems likely UCLAs multiprize-winning film team will take off the gloves, find peace under a new dean replacing Teri Schwartz (who left after 10 years in 2019) and soar again, while its interim dean, Brian Kite, pilots the program through the choppy waters. Also Read: '-Ship: A Visual Poem,' 'No More Wings' Take Top Prizes at TheWrap's ShortList Film Festival 2020. Interim dean Jack Powers, who advises CBS, ABC, FOX and Netflix on new shows (and even appeared on Modern Family and The Odd Couple), says students should prepare to do the following: 1) Spend a semester abroad in London or elsewhere interning; 2) spend a semester in Los Angeles as part of our L.A. UC Santa Barbara University of Colorado, Boulder 16. Her CCC students are mentored by professionals in serious facilities, work on production lots in Chicago and Los Angeles and tap an engaged alumni network. Florida State University Pratt sent two films to Sundance this year: alum Michael Dwecks The Truffle Hunters and professor and writer/director Eliza Hittmans Never Rarely Sometimes Always, which won honors there and also at the Berlin and Zurich film fests. New courses: First Person Narrative, geared to individual and family stories; New Korean Cinema; and Storytelling Strategies: From Aristotle to Beyonc and Beyond. Los Angeles Film Schools Spotlight Awards / Getty Images. UCLA Founded in 1967, the School of Cinema teaches history, theory, criticism and production to develop students personal voices. students. Today, Penn offers a full curriculum in production, animation, screenwriting, virtual reality, game design and history and theory. Its 1,700 students dont just enter a school, they get entre to what constitutes a miniature version of the film industry it impacts on a scale no smaller school can match. Rhode Island School of Design 29. LMU Its a real community: When the pandemic shut down mixing stages, prof Lisanne Skyler got her Emmy-winning sound mixer friend Scott Weber (Westworld, Lost) to create a virtual mixing platform connecting UA filmmakers to his Burbank studio to complete their films in Dolby 5.1 for the first online edition of its annual film showcase I Dream in Widescreen normally a capacity event at the Fox Tucson Theatre. Also Read: AFI Fest 2020 to Close With Errol Morris Documentary 'My Psychedelic Love Story'. Now 15 years old, the Ringling Film Department headed by Bradley Battersby has a new Studio Labs Soundstage and Post-Production Complex, permitting students to continue film production while allowing for 36,000 square-feet of social distancing. RTF is one of the biggest UT departments, with 1,000 undergrads and 160 grad students; it boasts a TV Writers Room class that creates a season of a new show that is then pitched to major networks. In one week this July, PBS aired two docs worked on by Berkeley students, both from its Chronicling COVID-19 project, and Netflixs recent doc The Trials of Gabriel Fernandez came from UC Berkeleys Investigative Reporting Program. Rutgers Noted for a tradition that blends the practical and the wildly experimental, UMW produced Willem Dafoe and The Lord of the Rings Oscar-winning VFX man Jim Rygiel. UNCSA And with gifts from zillionaires like David Geffen, things are looking up on the financial end, too. 2 on the Black List and get snapped up by Amy Pascal for Steven Spielberg to direct. I went down the film route, said Orlowski, who used film to change the world. The $10 million Marcus Fund for Excellence in Cinema renovated facilities, bought new ARRI, 16mm and VR/AR cameras and endowed two new Chairs in Social Justice Fiction Filmmaking (Mayuran Tiruchelvam) and African American Cinema Studies (Artel Great). The Stony Brook Manhattan Center for Creative Writing and Film, led by Magdalene Brandeis, boasts artistic director Christine Vachon of Killer Films and TV writing chief Alan Kingsberg, who was lured away from Columbia and has created a new MFA program. Its less than 30 miles away, so teachers and visitors have included Robert Altman, Morgan Freeman, Dick Van Dyke, Garry Marshall, Amy Ephron, Lester Holt, Randall Wallace and WGA Wests Chuck Slocum. Norman Lear provides four-year scholarships for gifted students from underrepresented backgrounds. The UT Moody College of Communications Department of Radio-Television-Film (RTF), located in what MovieMaker magazine claims is the best U.S. city in which to make movies, is certainly one of the lowest-cost schools with a first-rate reputation and starry alums: Matthew McConaughey (who teaches there, too), Wes Anderson, Rene Zellweger, the Duplass brothers, Tommy Schlamme, Jordan Levin, Jennifer Howell, Michael Barker and Get Out executive producer Raymond Mansfield. CFS is, said director Brian Steward, dollar for dollar, the best bargain in film schools and the best film school for 800 miles in any direction. State residents can get a two-year certificate in film for $9,500. 30. University of Michigan Northwestern University Though BUs College of Communications film and television programs have been impacted by COVID-19, the school has managed to continue teaching production courses in person to 650 undergrads and 80 M.S., M.A., and M.F.A. Located in the historic RCA Building and environs on Sunset, the for-profit Los Angeles Film School is at the heart of the industry and offers both online and on-campus instruction. Please note that our approach to topical rankings is based on scientific outputs and heavily biased on art-related topics towards institutions with computer science profiles. 47. Schools were chosen based on their overall ratings, reputation, notable alumni, internship opportunities, faculty accomplishment, and more. The Department of Film & Media Departments new chair is Jeffrey Knapp, who used to run Berkeleys English department (ranked No. Columbia College Chicago Yes, the list compares apples and oranges, mixing undergraduate and graduate programs and including schools with more than 1,000 students and ones with less than 400. The acting/directing faculty boasts Galina Boulgakova, a graduate of the Moscow Art Theater School, where the Stanislavski System originated. Then he made a social-media doc, The Social Dilemma, with his Stanford pal and Google ethicist Tristan Harris. 28. While youre still young, maybe its time to become a virus yourself a good kind of virus, one fueled by the years of hard work you put in at the incubator known as the School of Visual Arts. There are concentrations in environmental and wildlife filmmaking; political, cultural and social impact; art in entertainment; or games and interactivity. SUs Department of Transmedia has produced industry leaders now running things at DreamWorks, Pixar, Sony Pictures, Yahoo, Apple, Showtime and HBO. 1 in America) and who just published his first movie book, Pleasing Everyone: Mass Entertainment in Renaissance London and Golden-Age Hollywood. Clearly, the scholarly side of this Bay Area cinema hotbed, where Film Quarterly and at least three other major journals were born, is in good hands. USC-trained former USC and LMU film prof Adam Collis said, While ASU is not at the USC/LMU level, something very special is happening in Tempe.. Theres a new No. 50. The program is interdisciplinary and draws on a variety of methodological approaches from varying subjects and from faculty in multiple departments and diverse fields, so students get more than just an education in film. Animation, Blue Sky Studios, Nickelodeon, Lucasfilm Animation and Sony Pictures Animation. At the nations red-hot political center, its all about films impact on society. RISD is re-imagining itself during COVID by de-densifying its campus and instituting disinfecting regimens. Alexis Auditore, a member of SCAs first graduating class, directs physical production at Marvel Studios Streaming; alum Daniel Willis grew up on the South Side and now directs for Greys Anatomy.. 8. The three-building complex provides five large soundstages for set construction and production, multiple edit suites, dubbing and Foley stages, live mix and pre-recording suites, a color correct theater, classrooms and meeting spaces. Not all the learning happens inside the classroom either. Theres never been a better time for a film grad to get outta Dodge and into Hollywood. They write for black-ish, House of Cards and One Day at a Time. The program at Michigan really helps prepare you for the industry, said Kelci Parker, senior manager of comedy originals at Hulu. EduRank.org is an independent metric-based ranking of 14,131 universities from 183 countries for 246 topics. Also Read: Spike Lee on the New Wave of Hit-Making Black Filmmakers: 'I Hope This Is Not a Trend'. And the proximity to the Stanford-spawned Silicon Valley scene cant hurt. (Girls Raised in the South) / SCAD. CalArts is well-known for its minimalist documentary style, exemplified in the work of multidisciplinary artist Deborah Stratman and experimental filmmaker Laida Lertxundi. ArtCenter College of Design NYU Heading the Games Division is Lindsay Grace, who won the Games for Change Festival Vanguard Award. Despite COVID, UCSBs Carsey-Wolf Center, endowed by Marcy Carsey and Dick Wolf, is still an important place in the film world it recently hosted New York Times critic Manohla Dargis and Alison Kozbergs virtual lecture Moviegoing in the Age of COVID-19. UCSB hosts the excellent AFI Routledge film book series and gives students entre to Hollywood. The programs newest faculty members, Champion and Robert Corna, visiting instructor of media and film studies at BSC, have graduate degrees from two of the finest film schools in the country--the University of Southern California and Columbia University. I am thrilled that our college has been recognized along with some of the countrys premier film programs, said Dr. Teddy Champion, visiting assistant professor of media and film studies at BSC. In January, professors take students to the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, where they get a backstage look at independent film production. RISD was recently rated the fifth-best art school in America, and that context informs its film/animation/video department. All film classes will have a remote option, with opportunities for small group or one-on-one meetings on campus, and the school has introduced strict production rules to promote student safety. SCADs entertainment dean Andra Reeve-Rabb was CBS Primetime New York casting director, film and TV chair D.W. Moffett is a SAG- and Peabody-winning actor/director (Traffic, Bosch, Chicago Med, How to Get Away With Murder). Want diversity? It enrolls about 1,300 students from more than 30 states and 15 foreign countries. At SVAs 2020 commencement which was virtual instead of at Radio City Music Hall speaker John Waters hailed the graduates as COVID-19 commandos and said, You can change history with one ludicrous idea. Students and grads work at SNL, MUBI, CNN, Disney, CBS, Sony Pictures, Panasonic, NBC, BBC, Searchlight and the Tribeca Film Festival and recent grads are working on Debra Graniks next film. Chapman University San Francisco State University Ithaca College Most of the students and 40% of the faculty are nonwhite, including screenwriting prof Michelle Amor Gillie lead author of the famous #DearHollywood letter that helped change the place. When you look at the films that have come out of this program in the last 10 years, you realize a good story and a little savvy go a long way, said Adrian Meyer, a 2020 grad from UAs School of Theater, Film and Television. Columbia University School of the Arts, whose 72 MFA students focus on directing, writing or producing in either traditional film or the Digital Storytelling Lab, are all out to follow in the footsteps of alumni Kathryn Bigelow, Jennifer Lee, Phil Johnson, James Mangold and Making a Murderer writer/directors Moira Demos and Laura Ricciardi. Ten new teachers, including four faculty of color. But director Jean de St. Aubin said the school is not in jeopardy. Distinguished grads include Oscar-nominated editor Martin Pensa (Dallas Buyers Club, Wild), Emmy-winning Saturday Night Live director Osmany Rodriguez and computer animation grad Damian Szeibert, a 3D modeler and sculptor who brings Disney and Pixar characters to life. 33. Now we can say they are COVID-ready, meaning they know how to work remotely and in virtual environments. But boy, will it be better when everyone can return to campus and get back to the hard work of taking over the world. Film is a device for communication and a platform for change, said current student Maia Buljeta, who made the animated documentary Dreamcentered with classmate Kaija Harrison using illustrations by kids from Providences refugee center. Thanks to the recently opened New Brunswick Performing Arts Center, Rutgers Filmmaking now has a 300-seat movie theater. Dilek Ince 18 won a DGA Student Award and the BAFTA for her short film Amal; Jared Whites 100 Years From Home premiered on PBS; and MFA screenwriting grad Talicia Raggs is writing the CBS pilot for Never Tell, an upcoming series based on Stacey Abrams best-seller.