Master of Fine Arts in Screenwriting

at New York Film Academy - Los Angeles Campus USA

The New York Film Academy Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Cinematography is an accelerated, conservatory-based graduate program intended for full-time study over the course of five semesters. Designed to instruct gifted and hardworking prospective Directors of Photography in a hands-on, professional environment, the MFA in Cinematography program provides a unique setting for the development of both the creative vision and technical proficiency necessary for a career as a Cinematographer.

Students will follow a rigorous program of classroom study, self-directed projects, instructor-led workshops, and school- facilitated collaboration with NYFA students across different disciplines. Upon graduation, students will be proficient with many of the state-of-the-art camera systems used by professional cinematographers today, and be able to confidently supervise the creation of sophisticated lighting schemes. Most importantly, they will be able to effectively harness the visual tools of cinema to tell meaningful stories.

The New York Film Academy (NYFA) Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Game Design is an eight semester, conservatory-based, full-time study undergraduate program. The curriculum is designed to give prospective video game designers and storytellers all the tools they need to succeed in their chosen sector of the video game industry. The New York Film Academy Bachelor of Fine Arts in Game Design provides a creative setting in which to challenge, inspire, and perfect the talents of its student body.

The educational objectives of the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Game Design are to give students an introductory education in the art and craft of professional game writing and design. Students are instructed through a strict regimen consisting of lectures, seminars, and total immersion workshops to excel in the creative art of game writing & design.

Overall, the first five semesters concentrate on building a baseline foundation in the art, technology, design, storytelling, and business of video games. The focus of the final three semesters is to build on that foundation and produce all the materials, both written and verbal, that the student will need to enter the game design industry, or pursue graduate work in the field. NYFA’s game design program is a liberal arts education that emphasis the same general education credits as other BFA programs. Throughout their time studying at the New York Film Academy, students will include courses in the humanities, social science, natural science, and the history of media. This creates well-rounded students whose expertise in game design is accompanied by general critical thinking and problem solving skills.

The educational objectives in the Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Game Design are to teach students the art and craft of game design and storytelling at the professional level. To accomplish this goal NYFA employs a curriculum of lectures, seminars, and total immersion workshops.

The New York Film Academy Bachelor of Fine Arts in 3D Animation & Visual Effects is an eight-semester conservatory-based, full-time study undergraduate program. The curriculum is designed to immerse gifted and energetic prospective 3D Animation and Visual Effects Artists in all aspects of the discipline. The New York Film Academy Bachelor of Fine Arts in 3D Animation & Visual Effects provides a creative setting in which to challenge, inspire, and perfect the talents of its student body.

Students follow an intensive curriculum and achieve multiple learning goals.

The structure of this program emulates the workflow and pipeline of a professional production in the industry, which will provide students with the following:

• Preparation for a competitive professional environment
• Knowledge directly applicable in current work field using the latest software and technology
• Practical skills developed from intensive discipline and practice
• Ability to deliver a project from the beginning to the end in the manner used in actual professional production

The program will also be dedicated to strengthening fundamental visual storytelling knowledge. Students will dissect principles and techniques rooted in the real world and discover how they apply to a CG-generated world. This will enable students to have the choice to mimic reality and photography or to create more stylized imagery.

The Academy makes the MFA Acting program's accelerated 20-month schedule possible by creating an extended academic year, allowing students to complete all five semesters of the program in under two years.

The first semester of NYFA's MFA Acting program concentrates on building a foundation in the craft of acting, using training techniques rooted in the theater but applicable to the screen. Students participate in an intensive array of core classes that guide them to find the actor within, simultaneously training their instrument to do the kind of technical, emotional, and physical work necessary for film acting. Acting for Film students will shoot a short film project on location with a professional staff.

An MFA in Photography program at the Photo Arts Conservatory at the New York Film Academy (PAC at NYFA) is an accelerated, conservatory-based, graduate program designed for full-time study over the course of four semesters. We provide a creative setting in which to develop, challenge, and inspire the skills and talents of prospective photographers in an immersive, stimulating environment. By combining seminars and lectures with intense, hands-on classes, students acquire a sound understanding and appreciation of still photography and learn to integrate knowledge and professional experience.

At the Photo Arts Conservatory at NYFA, students engage with a diverse international student body and a core faculty of working professionals. This master's degree program includes visits to museums, galleries, and studios, along with guest lectures and critiques by photographers, artists, and curators. PAC embraces all lens-based media, offering a unique curriculum that includes digital and film-based photography. Though all MFA candidates must take two semesters of Lighting, Imaging, Printing, and Introductory Theory, beginning in Semester Two students are able to choose the rest of their course load themselves.

PAC faculty are committed to our Photography students and their futures as successful image-makers. Through demanding, hands-on coursework, instructors help students keep pace with technological change and push them to excel in all the areas needed to compete in the ever evolving marketplace.
Applicants to the program who have graduated from NYFA’s One-Year, Two-Year, or BFA in Photography programs, or an equivalent program from another institution, may attempt to test out of certain foundational courses within the MFA program. All evaluations and decisions are at the sole discretion of the department chairs, and are final. Students who successfully test out of any courses will substitute other courses in their place, and must fulfill the 63 total credit minimum, as well as all course category requirements.

It is geared to students with little or no experience in producing, but who recognize that an intensive and demanding program, much like the job of producing itself, will provide them with the knowledge they seek.

Students are treated as Producers throughout the duration of the course, and are challenged at each step of the way. Students are encouraged, but not required, to bring a piece of intellectual property - a book, screenplay, show concept or treatment-at the beginning of the course that will be used throughout the year as the foundation of their final project. Students take this project through the various stages of development: pitch, treatment, script, talent search, budget, schedule, and plans for marketing and distribution. Students learn the real-word strategies for successful producing and are encouraged to develop the professional network needed within the film and television industry.

Students must be prepared for full-days of intensive work throughout the entire program. They must be committed to a fast-paced, intensive learning and production schedule, and willing to work collaboratively with our filmmaking, screenwriting, and acting students.

Producers are confronted with a number of visual, dramatic, financial, legal, logistical, managerial, and technical challenges in the process of filmmaking. From the first day of class, students are immersed in a hands-on education on how to work through these challenges. Through an intensive sequence of classes and workshops, and with professional insights and encouragement from their instructors, students rapidly learn the fundamental creative and technical skills they need to produce for film and television.

Learning Goals

• Introduction to the roles, tasks and obstacles faced by film and television producers including development of script, casting and talent negotiations, budgeting, scheduling, locations, hiring of crew, payroll, contracts and deal memos, equipment rentals, applicable Union regulations and contracts, and post-production requirements.
• Master storytelling concepts of elements, conventions, structure and style.
• Understand basic principles of entertainment law.
• Introduction to filmmaking from the perspective of the screenwriter, director, cinematographer and editor.
• Hands-on study in camera, lighting, sound and editing

MFA Film Program at New York Film Academy (NYFA) is an accelerated two-year program made possible by an extended academic year. Candidates will complete three full-length semesters in each calendar year

Qualified candidates have the option of completing course work at the New York Film Academy in New York City in a one-year non-degree program and then applying their course work to be accepted for advanced standing in the MFA Film degree program. No previous experience is required for NYFA’s Filmmaking School; however, MFA Film candidates must work with self-discipline, energy, and mutual respect.

Mfa Filmmaking Program Experience
Beginning on day one, our MFA Film candidates participate in an intensive sequence of classes in Film Directing, Screenwriting, Cinematography, Digital Editing, Directing Actors and Production. While the theory they learn in the classroom is important, the heart of program is the production of original, short 16mm films. Candidates will team up to make these films, working in crews of three of four where each candidate will gain experience in writing, producing, directing and editing.

The New York Film Academy recognizes the critical role writers play in the creation of every film and television show. Yet writing talent alone is not enough to create successful work in these mediums; screenwriting is a learned craft. A writer must write every day to train for the demands of this field, and to truly understand the elements that make a screenplay or teleplay functional as well as engaging.

In addition to learning the conventions of the writing craft, students are given the support and structure to write and meet deadlines. Students write intensively throughout the course and complete several projects with the assistance of constructive critique from instructors as well as peers. To that end, BFA in Screenwriting students learn how to create great stories, and to tell them with a confidence and clarity that befits a professional.

The core screenwriting courses of the BFA in Screenwriting are supported by a full complement of courses in the liberal arts and sciences. These are designed to broaden the writers' education, feed their inquisitiveness, and give them the critical, analytical, and communication tools needed not just to be great writers, but also more fulfilled human beings.

The BFA in Screenwriting offers a well-rounded collegiate education in the arts and humanities and social and natural sciences, with a comprehensive study of, and practice in, the art and craft of screenwriting and related filmmaking disciplines.

Overall, the screenwriting courses concentrate on developing the tools required to create believable characters and stories in several major fields of screenwriting (film, television, web series, playwriting, and elective choices including comic books and games). The program builds to a final thesis project, either a television series pilot script or a feature film screenplay. This is plotted, written, and rewritten, with guidance and feedback from a thesis committee in a manner designed to reflect the development processes in the entertainment industry.

In the liberal arts and sciences, students complete the majority of the required Foundation Studies in the first two semesters. Courses taught in the area of Foundation Studies focus on communications, analysis, and deductive reasoning. Students practice critical thinking, scholarly research, writing, and reading. These courses build a foundation for more specialized subjects requiring advanced written and oral communication skills in later semesters. The skills mastered will prepare students for the advanced coursework of constructing an authentic voice in their writing projects. Coursework in physical and mental wellness provides focus on the theory and practice of lifelong wellness in a stressful industry.

Subsequent courses in the liberal arts and sciences bolster students' understanding of world history, political science, art history, social and natural sciences, mathematics, English composition, and literature.

The New York Film Academy recognizes the critical role writers play in the creation of every film and television show. Yet writing talent alone is not enough to create successful work in these mediums. Screenwriting is a learned craft, and a writer must write every day to train for the demands of this field, and to truly understand the elements that make a screenplay or teleplay functional as well as engaging.

In addition to learning the conventions of the writing craft, students are given the support and structure to write and meet deadlines. Students write intensively throughout the program and complete several projects with the assistance of constructive critique from instructors, as well as peers.

Students in the New York Film Academy’s Screenwriting programs generate a lot of written material, building a portfolio of writings that span several mediums. There is a focus on film and television, but MFA students will also study comics, web series and games. Upon completion of the program, students not only understand story structure, character, conflict and dialogue, but also leave the Academy with finished products that they can pitch, produce, and try to sell.

In the MFA Screenwriting program, students are taught the art of screenwriting through workshop courses that have them learn by writing, but also in skill-building courses that focus on film history, film genres, and specific skills, like scene construction, adaptation, and character building.

Students also study filmmaking, acting and editing, to get a complete sense of how cinematic stories are told. In addition to stories, treatments and scripts, students will also create, direct and edit their own short film and their own web series pilot.

NYFA’s degree programs in Screenwriting have business classes that teach students the reality of the industry; how to find work as a writer, how to work in the industry to support yourself, how to find an agent or manager, and how to pitch your stories and story ideas. These classes require students to get an internship in the industry.

The MFA Program culminates in a Pitch Fest, where students get to pitch their thesis script to agents, managers, executives, and/or producers.

The Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree Program in Filmmaking employs a total immersion approach to the subject, where students develop a powerful arsenal of skills in directing, screenwriting, cinematography, editing, and producing. Students work in all formats from 16mm and HD to 35mm and RED Dragon as they write, direct, shoot, and edit their own films. A strong grounding in the liberal arts and sciences serves to inform students' work and give them a well-rounded undergraduate education.

The New York Film Academy's Bachelor of Fine Arts in Filmmaking is unlike any other film school; it is an accelerated intensive degree program that can be completed in three years. One benefit of this is that students may begin internships or professional work a year earlier than they would in a standard bachelor's program, and of course save a year of tuition and expenses. It requires a rigorous schedule; students are in class or production for eleven months of the year. There are short breaks between each each of the three years, and a two week winter break during the holiday season.

A Bachelor of Fine Arts degree (BFA) is distinguished from a standard Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree by its in-depth study of and professional training in the arts. In the BFA, two thirds of the degree is devoted to study and practice in fine arts and one third to general liberal arts and sciences (that ratio would be reversed for an art major in a traditional BA program). The BFA student has opportunity for deep exploration and mastery of their art.

Our BFA in Filmmaking offers a well-rounded collegiate education in the Arts and Humanities and Social and Natural Sciences, with a comprehensive study of — and practice in — the art and craft of filmmaking. During the three years of study, each student will write, shoot, direct, and edit 12 film projects of increasing complexity. In addition, students will work in key crew positions on their classmates' films.

BFA Filmmaking graduates will complete the program with a solid academic foundation in the arts and sciences, and an in-depth understanding of film production. They will enter the field with critical thinking and research skills developed in their academic classes as well as essential knowledge from the study of literature, art history, psychology, and philosophy. This specialized degree will prepare them to pursue their own paths in film and related fields as