Fall 2026 Registration

For Spring 2026, students should familiarize themselves with the schedule offerings and all prerequisites for their desired courses. If you intend to submit a petition, please refer to the instructions below.

Petition Policy

Petitions are used primarily to attempt to waive prerequisites or apply a transfer credit to a degree requirement. Students can submit a petition using the form available here. The deadline for petitions for Fall 2026 registration will be the add/drop deadline for the Fall 2026 semester.

Please note that students cannot petition to have any film and television courses taken outside of the FTV department count towards their Additional FTV Studies requirement. Any petitions of this nature submitted will be denied. See here for a list of courses each semester that will count towards this requirement.

Registration Update Regarding Production 3 for Fall 2026

Students interested in having their short script chosen for FT 468 (Production III) in the Fall of 2026 must register for a section of FT 430 (Writing the Producible Short) in Spring 2026.  All scripts for Prod III will be selected from those written in FT 430.

Directed Studies

Students can complete a Directed Study in Film and Television by filling out this form. Directed Studies cannot be production courses and are not approved for use of FPS or studio equipment. Students may not check out FPS or studio equipment to use on personal projects or Directed Studies.

Waitlist

Information regarding the Fall 2026 waitlist will be sent to students after registration via the FTV newsletter.

Fall 2026 Special Topics

Mondays and Wednesdays, 2:30-4:15pm
The prerequisite for Death and TV is FT303.

Graphic depictions of death draw negative attention from parents’ groups and policy makers, particularly in relation to the presumed vulnerability of young audiences, but death on television is more varied and nuanced than popular reactions may suggest. This class argues for the televisual, cultural, and industrial significance of death across scripted and unscripted TV and asserts that the diversity of TV programming not only offers myriad constructions of death but also offers myriad modes of engagement with it. Rooted in the regulatory history of TV, this class enhances its approach to death by putting TV Studies in conversation with Death Studies. Students will examine death across multiple types of programming from multiple time periods in order to understand how and why death has taken shape on a historically family-friendly medium. 

Mondays, 2:30-5:15pm
The prerequisite for Late Nite Laughs is FT310.

Late Nite Laughs is a mega comedy writing class. If you’ve ever wanted to write for late-night TV, or just get a sense of what it’s like, then you’ve come to the right class. We look at what it takes to write for some of the major network “comedy-variety” shows, like Last Week Tonight, with John Oliver, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and Saturday Night Live, to name a few. We’ll look at what makes good monologue jokes, as you write a ton of your own – and get feedback on them. You will scour the topical news stories of the day to come up with comedy “rants,” like what you’ve seen in Full Frontal, with Samantha Bee. We do many creative comedy writing exercises, as well as group work, sketch writing and some video projects. You will also outline ideas for your own late-night show.

Thursdays, 12:30-3:15pm
The prerequisite for Advanced TV Genre Writing is FT514 or FT516

An advanced, reading- and writing-intensive course in which students develop and write an original hour or half-hour television pilot in a chosen genre. Possible genres include – but are by no means limited to – procedural drama, murder mystery, political satire, horror anthology, dark comedy, and children’s sitcom. After studying the conventions of their chosen genre, students will pitch a show concept and then write a treatment, outline, and pilot script. Students will also create a leave behind document detailing where the pilot goes in series. In lectures, discussions, and script workshops, we will examine current television genres and also explore story structure, character development and other essential screenwriting tools.