hello,
I should introduce myself before i started posting. Im 19 years old, currently attending my first year in community college in LA, and hope to transfer to a UC/CSU, to pursue a career in the industry. (leaning more towards music video/commercial production)

This Forum has some great content, Im sure ill learn alot here...

I was wondering if any of you know of UCs/CSUs with good film programs...not neccessarily film schools (USC, UCLA, NYU etc.)

Here some schools I am thinking of applying to...anyone have any info on these schools?

-Cal State San Diego
-UC San Diego
-UC Santa Cruz
-Cal State Long Beach


thanks!

Well, I can tell you that UC San Diego does not have a film program, Cal State San Diego and UC Santa Cruz I'm not sure about but they are not very big if they do. Cal State Long Beach does have a fairly big one. Since you are in Southern California besides USC and UCLA you also have private schools Chapman University and Loyola of Marymount have large reputable film programs.

quote:

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Originally posted by HBKDinobot:
Well, I can tell you that UC San Diego does not have a film program.

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Actually they do. I believe it ranks #10 or #11 in the country (Of course this means very little). It's part of their Visual Arts department (Under a film/video production emphasis) so it flies under the radar of the casual scanner looking for "Film schools." It is definitely more of an avant guarde than traditional program. However, the faculty is very bright (If overly eccentric) and what you learn there is very applicable to the real world if you keep an open mind.

Students are very free to make what they want, and equipment is readily available if you're not lazy. It's a small program, and they have about 15 16mm cameras and a whole mess of video cameras.

It is a fairly intense but not very technical program. There are more production classes than film history, but you won't come out with a comprehensive knowledge of industry equipment and protocol. There are occasional major productions in San Diego that look for interns/P.A.s if you keep your eyes open. You can learn a lot of industry stuff by scrapping your way onto these shows.

UCSD students seem to have a lot of success getting into good MFA programs. From my year alone we have people at NYU, Cal Arts, USC and Rochester Institute of Technology (Hopefully we'll be adding AFI to that list shortly).

The film program at San Diego State is actually quite good as well. They offer a more technical education than UCSD.

UC Santa Cruz has a program. I don't know much about it other than they got a pretty large endowment a few years back. We had several transfers from UCSC that didn't like it.

All I know about CSU-Long Beach is that Spielberg graduated from there last year.

Good luck wherever you go!
Nota "Regrets not taking surfing in college" Mono

Though the location sucks, CSUN has a great Film program. Especially a great directing program.
UCSB doesnt have much and UCSC is ok.

why does the location suck?

Many of the Cal State schools near the Los Angeles area have pretty good programs, depending on what you make of it. If you don't want to, or can't spend mega bucks on the USC's and UCLA's, a good alternative are the Cal State film programs. CSUN, CSULA, & CSULB have decent film programs and are improving their facilities and equipment. Chapman, Loyola Marymount, SC and UCLA have great facilities. However, If you are really passionate about making films you will most likely do it on your own time. Just gather all the information you get from these film programs and put them to use on your own projects. I've worked on many projects with SC students and graduates and I definitely do not feel I'm at a disadvantage...

UCSB is huge on theory, and low on actual production. But this can be to your advantage. I made three non-sync 16 projects and edited an 18 minute sync project all before my junior year. The I made a 28 minute 16 project all as an undergraduate. It's an underlooked but great film production school at this point if your interests are in 16 mm