The Graduate Film Program at Boston University offers the Master of Fine Arts degree with separate concentrations in Film Production, Screenwriting, and Film Studies. Although candidates apply to one of these concentrations and if accepted follow its specified curriculum, graduate students participate in and gain from all three areas.

Film Production students learn to perform at a high level of professional competence while gaining a foundation in film studies and screenwriting. Screenwriting students not only master the art of screenwriting, but take an active role in both film production and film studies. Film Studies majors acquire a deep grounding in cinema history, research, and criticism, while also gaining practical experience with film production and screenwriting. All three areas provide teaching and classroom support opportunities as well as professional experience through the Los Angeles Internship Program.

Each concentration prepares students for a broad range of careers. Film Production grads work in studio, independent, documentary and alternative film in a variety of capacities including cinematography, editing, producing, and directing. Opportunities for Film Studies grads include teaching or continuing towards a doctorate. Careers outside of academia include programming, archiving and preservation, and public relations. Screenwriting, grads work in all areas of film and television as writers and story editors. An MFA also qualifies all graduates to teach at the university level.

Graduate Film Production Program

Boston University's College of Communication offers the Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) degree in Film Production, with an emphasis on training the individual to become a complete filmmaker. Our experienced and diverse faculty of award winning filmmakers is dedicated to helping each student fully develop his or her filmmaking talent and vision. This intensive two-year terminal degree program enables each student to develop his or her unique vision as a filmmaker and to graduate with a short film capable of entering film festivals, as well as a feature-length screenplay. In addition to Directing, Thesis options include Editing, Cinematography, and Producing. This is a four-semester, 64-credit program.

Graduate Film Production students learn all aspects of professional film production with a foundation in film studies and screenwriting. In addition to the required production sequence leading to the Thesis, the program offers a wide range of elective courses including acting, directing, cinematography, lighting, sound design, and digital editing. Students also participate in the department's Cinematheque screening and visitor series, Los Angeles Internship Programs, and the annual Visiting Artists and Professionals Workshop. Recent workshop guests include independent cine-maverick Jon Jost and renowned experimental filmmaker Leighton Pierce.

The program is small, with about sixteen graduate students entering each year. The equipment-to-student ratio is among the best in the world. Film students shoot on a variety of formats, including 16mm and Super-16mm, 24p and HD digital video. In the fall of 2006 we celebrated the opening the Marilyn and Jeffrey Katzenberg High Definition Center, a state-of-the-art HD post-production facility. Advanced undergraduate and graduate students now post their Super-16mm film projects on HD video.

Our graduate students have distinguished themselves winning numerous awards and accolades, including a recent finalist in the Student Academy Awards competition, and another chosen as one of the top five student cinematographers in America by the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC). We have had numerous finalists in the American Cinema Editors (ACE) student editing competition including for first place winners. Our students' films have been screened at festivals all over the world, and several have won student Academy Awards.

Our alumni include independent filmmakers such as Robert Patton-Spruill (Squeeze), big-budget Hollywood directors such as Joe Roth (America's Sweethearts) and Gary Fleder (Kiss the Girls and Runaway Jury), screenwriters such as Scott Rosenberg (Gone in 60 Seconds, High Fidelity), and producers such as Lauren Shuler Donner (You've Got Mail) and Richard Gladstein (Cider House Rules). Alumni frequently return to BU to present their accomplishments and interact with current students.

For additional information regarding this program that you cannot find at our web site or in our print catalog, e-mail the Director of Film Production Programs, Mary Jane Doherty, at maryjane@bu.edu.

For specific course requirements and Thesis policies and procedures, please download the relevant documents below.

Semester I

FT 706 - Acting for Directors and Writers
FT 711 - Screenwriting I
FT 721 - International Masterworks OR
FT 722 - American Masterworks
FT 849 - Film Production I

Semester II

FT 526 - Directing the Theatrical and Television Film
FT 713 - Screenwriting II OR
Elective^*
FT 850 - Film Production II
FT 851 - Thesis Preparation

Semester III

FT 552 - Special Topic: Line Producing (Fiction Directors) OR
FT 555 - Narrative Documentary Practicum (Non-fiction Directors)
Film Production Elective
Elective^*
Elective^*

Semester IV

FT 852 - Thesis Project
Elective^*
Elective^*
Elective^*

^* At least one of these electives MUST BE a film studies course.

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Film Studies Program

Mission and Academic Structure:

The Graduate Film Studies program is a four-semester, 64-credit program leading to a Master of Fine Arts degree.

The program is devoted to give students a solid, broad-based education in many aspects of film and media studies. Areas include:

the appreciation and comparative study of film and video as art forms
the study of film and video's historical, political, and socio-cultural dimensions
the comparative study of theories for understanding moving-image media and their various contexts

The curriculum is supplemented by two fine arts courses, a practical introduction to screenwriting as a craft, and a practical introduction to video production as a craft (these classes are mandatory, but can be waived by students with related academic background) and by an optional humanities course.

Regular course offerings include introductions to American and international cinema history (including a special course on silent film) and introductions to film and media theory. One of the program's distinguished features is its two comprehensive curricula (more than one class) in the history of American independent film and in the history and theory of avant-garde film and experimental media.

Special topics courses in American cinema history include the study of classical and contemporary Hollywood genres (the screwball comedy, the musical, noir and neo-noir, the western, the lowbrow comedy) and classical and contemporary Hollywood directors (Sternberg, Hawks, Ford, Sturges, Peckinpah, Altman) as well as film-historical phenomena (the Hollywood blacklist), particular modes of production (the Hollywood blockbuster) and minority representation (African-American representation, Gay and Lesbian representation).

Special topics courses in Global cinema history include various periods of German, French, British, and Eastern Bloc cinema, surveys and select aspects of third world cinema, and international movements and new waves, such as Soviet Revolutionary cinema of the 1920s, Italian Neorealism, the French New Wave, the New German Cinema, the Czech New Wave, and Brazilian Cinema Novo. Courses also focus on classical and contemporary auteurs of art cinema, such as Won Kar-Wai, Zhang Yimou, Abbas Kiorastami, Jean-Luc Godard, Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch, Louis Buñuel, Max Ophüls, Jean Renoir, Francois Truffaut, Chris Marker, Ingmar Bergman, Yasujiro Ozu, Michelangelo Antonioni, Andrzej Wajda, and many others.

Graduate students in their last semester may write a graduate thesis (optional) on a topic related to various aspects of film and media. Past theses include “The Films of Cary Grant,” The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky,” “Hong Kong Action Cinema,” “The Documentaries of Werner Herzog,” “Class Representation in Contemporary Hollywood Films,” “The Films of Jacques Tourneur,” “Sub-Saharan AIDS Videos,” “The Cinema of Maya Deren,” “The Films of Todd Haynes,” “Australian Women Filmmakers,” “Contemporary Film Theory's Approach to Cinematic Space,” “The City as Cinematic Character.”

Strengths, Points of Interest, Extra-curricular Opportunities:

Because the Film Studies Program at Boston University has a long tradition of and commitment to the in-depth study of film and other media in multiple forms, it has been a central catalyst for building up the media collection at Boston University's Krasker Media Center. Comprising 8500 16mm prints, 8400 VHS tapes, 5700 DVDs, and 1100 Laser discs, this collection is one of the largest in United States. The Film Studies Program is taught in a 75-seat auditorium with multiple projection technologies (35mm, 16mm, 16mm (18fps), DVD, VHS, LD). Despite the global decline of the 16mm College Campus screening circuit, the Film Studies Program has a sustained commitment to the exhibition and preservation of 16mm film as a teaching tool. In addition to constantly acquiring new electronic media, each of our courses have a generous budget for the rental of 16mm prints.

The Film Studies Program makes maximum use of its location by working closely with many of the venerable art house and revival theaters in the Boston/Cambridge area, such as the Coolidge Corner Theater, the Brattle Cinema, the Museum of Fine Arts, and the Harvard Film Archive. Film Studies graduate students have free access to screenings at the HFA, the MFA, and the Brattle and sometimes perform internships at these venues.

Film Studies graduate students are further encouraged to partake in the internship opportunities developed by the program and by the Department of Film and Television. One of the most popular recent programs is the summer internship and study program structured around the Sydney International Film Festival. Boston University Film Studies graduate students take two courses in film studies and have privileged access to the day-to-day operations of this important and large film festival.

For information regarding this program that you cannot find at our web site or in our print catalog, e-mail the Director of Film Studies, Roy Grundmann, at roygr@bu.edu.

Curriculum Guide (subject to change)

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Screenwriting Program

Students completing the two year graduate program will earn an M.F.A. in Screenwriting and be prepared to place, sell, and/or produce their work in the film and television industry. The program is small yet vigorous and nurturing. Our motto: writers write. By the time students leave the halls of the University, they will have completed three or four feature length screenplays, a television pilot, and several short screenplays. In addition, students will have a strong understanding of the film and television industry and what it takes to sell their work.

The degree in screenwriting requires 64 credit hours of classes, 40 of which are devoted to requirements. These are an intensive combination of writing and film and television elective classes. To complete the sequence, students are required to write at least three original, feature-length screenplays.

Beyond learning the art and craft of screenwriting, students interested in gaining teaching experience will have the opportunity to apply for graduate assistant positions in which they will lead discussion groups with undergraduate, beginning screenwriters. These positions hold the opportunity for tuition remission.

Screenwriting students are also eligible to compete in the yearly 'Fleder-Rosenberg' short screenplay contest, which offers cash prizes for the best short scripts and a funded trip to Los Angeles for the grand prize winners to have meetings with industry professionals. The finalists' scripts will also be made available for two production grants (The Joseph A. Lalli and Lauren Donner-Shuler Awards) in which the writer has the chance to see his or her work go from script to screen. To read the 2005/06 Fleder-Rosenberg finalists' scripts, please follow this link: http://www.bu.edu/com/ft/film/fleder-rosenberg.html#scripts

If students wish, they have the option to participate in a 5th semester, located in Los Angeles and titled “The Writer in Hollywood.” Students opting for this semester will gain invaluable experience in the business of film and the opportunity to work with established writers on TV staffs or in development departments. Please see the www.bu.edu/abroad link for more information.

Students in the screenwriting program have a fourfold requirement: to understand and practice the art of screenwriting; to learn the fundamentals of dramatic production; to understand different models of filmmaking and film history; and to comprehend the role of the storyteller and that of mythology in the dramatic tradition. Students in the program are required to write A MINIMUM OF THREE FEATURE-LENGTH SCREENPLAYS, ONE SHORT SCRIPT AND A TELEVISION PILOT.

Screenwriting curriculum:

First Semester

COM FT 702 - Script into Film
COM FT 706 - Acting for Directors and Writers
COM FT 711 - Screenwriting I
COM FT 722 - American or International Masterworks

Second Semester

COM FT 526 - Directing the Theatrical and Television Film
COM FT 713 - Screenwriting II
COM FT 730 - Principles of Adaptation
COM FT 552 - Screenwriting Pedagogy OR Elective^*

Third Semester

COM FT 724 - Screenwriting III
COM FT 514 - Writing Television Pilot
COM FT 552 - Special Topics (Screenwriting Genres)
Elective^*

Fourth Semester

COM FT 729 - Screenwriting IV (8 Credits)
COM FT 731 - Script Analysis
Elective^*

^*Elective selected upon advisor's recommendation.

Boston University's alumni include screenwriters Scott Rosenberg (High Fidelity, Things to Do in Denver when You're Dead; Gone in 60 Seconds; Con-Air;) and Bruce Feirstein (Golden Eye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World is Not Enough), studio heads Jim Gianopulos (Fox Filmed Entertainment) Joe Roth (Revolution Studios) and producers Lauren Shuler Donner (X Men, Free Willy) and Richard Gladstein (Reservoir Dogs, Finding Neverland, Cider House Rules).

For information regarding this program that you cannot find at our website or in our print catalog, e-mail the Director of Screenwriting, Prof. John Bernstein, at script@bu.edu.

For information regarding applications and financial assistance, please contact Mrs. Micha Sabovik at msabovik@bu.edu or follow this link: http://www.bu.edu/com/grad/admission/index.shtml

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