<p>I’ve begun doing some preliminary research on some schools that offer MFA in film. As an undergrad, I’m doing convergence journalism and Russian. With film, documentary and based on true story sports movies would be my preferred route in movie making, although obviously don’t want to put myself in a box.</p>
<p>I searched the forums, and didn’t seem to find anything. Google didn’t turn up that good of results either (when University of Phoenix and Devry are coming up as top film schools, there is a problem).</p>
<p>As a non-major, obviously I won’t be able to get into anything that is super selective with large samples being needed like FSU.</p>
<p>The list I’ve come up with right now is:</p>
<p>University of Texas (probably my preferred choice…just love Texas, and Austin is beuatiful)
UCLA
Northwestern
Columbia College Chicago
Columbia</p>
<p>Does anyone know of any other good, reputable film programs? Good ones in the Chicago area (probably hit them both with Columbia/Northwestern), California, Arizona, Texas, Florida areas would be preferred.</p>
<p>Also would prefer a university to an art school. (Although Columbia gets an exception since it’s in Chicago, and they seem to have a big emphasis on documentry).</p>
<p>Any help would be appreciated.</p>
<p>you don’t really need an MFA in film to be a filmmaker. especially if you want to go the documentary route, your journalism degree should be sufficient. just start working for television news organizations or an independent documentary film company to get some editing and on-set experience under your belt, and move to a place where a lot of films get made. LA, new york, vancouver, toronto, austin.</p>
<p>a BA in film production would be helpful but again not necessary if you can get some on-the-job experience with equipment.</p>
<p>that’s probably not a helpful answer, is it? sorry. but i know a lot of people who work on film and television, and some of them had BAs in film production and others didn’t. they just made connections and got to work, starting at the bottom. for myself, i got a job as an assistant editor and researcher on a documentary for the history channel, and through that job got another position as a writer and PA for an independent film company. i also had the opportunity to be an assistant producer on a television documentary this year but i passed it up for a career change.</p>
<p>i have a BA in history. i hadn’t worked with film/video production since high school. just meet people and impress them and be willing to work for almost no money and you’ll climb the latter fairly quickly if you prove to be indispensable.</p>