During the third month, students are introduced to new digital video technology. With its ease of use, the digital video cameras will allow the students to delve deeper into the director's craft. Each student directs three digital projects. These projects and in-class production workshops challenge students to explore the dramatic mechanics of motion picture story-telling and the critical collaboration between actors and directors. Supporting classes include Screenwriting, Directing Actors, Directing, Production Workshop, and Documentary Filmmaking. The combination of these classes and the digital productions prepare students for the second semester and production of their thesis films.

SEMESTER ONE OBJECTIVES

PRODUCTION GOALS

• Write, direct, and digitally edit four short non-synchronous 16mm films. The fourth film can be up to 10 minutes in length with multiple tracks of sound.
• Be a cinematographer, gaffer, and assistant camera on your crew's films.
• Write a short film script with dialogue (for 2nd semester production).
• Write, direct, and edit three digital films. The third film may be up to ten minutes with multiple tracks of sound including dialogue.

LEARNING GOALS

• Learn the art and technique of visual storytelling including directing, cinematography, editing, and post-production sound design.
• Learn the fundamentals of digital video production and digital editing.
• Survey of the documentary format with focus on styles, techniques and elements of storytelling.
• Fundamental training in acting craft and directing actors.
• Immersion in screenwriting craft.

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BUDGETING AND SCHEDULING
This course teaches students how to break down a film script for budgeting and scheduling purposes. Students learn how to use all the necessary forms for use in their own short films. The importance of having a finished script before going into a shoot is stressed as it applies to creating realistic budgets and schedules.

HANDS ON CAMERA AND LIGHTING - DIGITAL VIDEO
This course is designed to help students master digital video photography including white balance, shutter speed, focus, video latitude, gels, and filters. Through hands-on exercises, students will explore digital video and learn how it differs from film. Working with boom-poles and external shotgun microphones, students learn how to get the best quality sound recording.




DIRECTING ACTORS: INTRODUCTION
This course helps students learn how to communicate and collaborate with their actors. Students learn how to identify a screenplay’s emotional "beats" and "character objectives" to help improve their actors’ performances. Through exercises, both in class and on location, students learn how an actor trains his/herself physically and emotionally to "crawl inside a character." Sensory work, emotional recall, and improvisation are the tools to which the students will be exposed to understand how an actor is able to live out a character’s reality.

SCREENWRITING II
As students take part in the Digital Camera classes and Directing Actors classes, they also begin an intensive writing period. In Screenwriting class, they develop a premise for their second semester project and then take the necessary steps to complete a final shooting script of up to fifteen pages. This will be achieved through a combination of one-on-one consultations with their faculty mentors, in-class readings and supportive discussions.

DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKING
This course is an elective, however, it is mandatory for all students who would like to make a documentary as their final project for the year. Subjects include: documentary styles, shooting approach, methods of interviewing, documentary structure, theme, documentary editing, importance of research, "truth and objectivity," point of view, ethical questions and reenactment.

SPECIAL LECTURES

• Director’s Vision
  The Director’s Vision lectures expose students to the unique ways great directors have approached visual storytelling and how they have used mise-en-scene (the task of staging scenes and moving actors within the frame). The class will look at the idea of the director as author of the sequence. Students are shown, by example, how silent film construction relies on scenes in conflict or collision. This concept is expanded by showing the relevance of these ideas to modern films, particularly for sequences involving tension or suspense where extra emphasis or shock is required. There will be a broad presentation of film technique as individualized by a number of directors. Numerous examples of directing styles are shown along with a discussion of their relevance to beginning filmmakers.

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SEMESTER TWO OBJECTIVES

PRODUCTION GOALS

• Direct and edit a sync-sound narrative film of up to 15 minutes. (16mm, HD, or 35mm)
• Participate as a crew member on fellow students’ films and group projects
• Shoot and edit scenes on 35mm film using Panavision cameras

LEARNING GOALS

• Advanced filmmaking craft including directing, casting, producing, sync-sound production, color cinematography, editing and sound design.
• Learn fundamentals of 35mm and HD

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CINEMATOGRAPHY
This class immerses students in the technical and creative demands of cinematography. Color film stocks are tested to help students make the best choice for their films. The use of color correcting filters and gels is practiced through shooting tests. Lighting and contrast ratios are reviewed. In addition, students learn the most economical ways to light a scene by shooting set-ups from their own storyboards. A special focus on lighting for and shooting with HD teaches students how to achieve a film look and maximize possibilities of working with this format.

35mm filmmaking
This class will use Panavision 35mm cameras and accessories- the gold standard in motion picture photography.

All the fundamental creative skills and concepts students have learned working with 16mm film and digital video apply fully to 35mm filmmaking. The 35mm class is an opportunity for students to see how the wider frame and higher resolution of 35mm affects their shot design, framing, composition, staging, camera movement, lens choice, and lighting. The class will explore the process of designing, shooting, and editing scenes on 35mm. Students will digitally edit the scenes shot in class.

The following subjects will be covered in the 35mm classes:

• Loading and operation of 35mm cameras
• Lighting for the 35mm frame
• 35mm aspect ratios
• 35mm tripod head
• Working with advanced dolly and track
• Lenses for 35mm
• Anamorphic photography (super wide screen)
• After completing their instruction in 35mm, students may shoot their final projects on 16mm, 35mm film, or HD

SYNC-SOUND EDITING
Film dailies and HD media from Production Workshops are imported to Final Cut Pro where students learn to sync and edit with dialogue. This experience provides students with the hands-on technical training they need to edit their own projects. An even greater benefit is the creative discoveries students make when they compare the very different versions that are edited from the same material. With this hands-on practice in sync-sound editing, students will go into production on their own films with a full understanding of the challenge that awaits them after the shoot.

PRE-PRODUCTION, PRODUCTION & POST-PRODUCTION
Students start the second semester with a finished script of up to 15 pages. They continue to improve these scripts in one-on-one consultations with their mentors and as they work with scenes from their scripts in their other classes. During the instruction period they find locations, cast, and design their shoots. They continue to meet with instructors in one-on-one advisement sessions to get feedback on their shooting script, casting, storyboards, floor plans, schedules and budgets.

Each student receives five shooting days, according to a production schedule designed in class. Students work on their classmates’ films in the principal crew roles. Schedules are designed to allow for days off between productions and for last-minute preparations for the subsequent shoot. The production period is as intense and demanding as a professional feature film shoot.

After the production period, students begin editing their films. They screen rough-cuts of their films for the directing instructor and their mentors and receive feedback before presenting their finished films to an invited audience at the end of the semester. Throughout the post-production period, the editing instructor is available for consultation. Students may use up to 300 hours of individual editing time. They finish their films with a digital sound mix on the computer. Some students may choose to do more elaborate sound work and take their films to a professional sound mix.

Final screenings

At the end of the One-Year Filmmaking Program, a final screening will include a diploma-granting ceremony and will be open to friends, family and invited guests. Students will take their finished films with them and are free to submit their work to the many film festivals in the U.S. and abroad.

LIFE AFTER THE NEW YORK FILM ACADEMY

There is no single path or formula for creating a career in filmmaking. Our filmmaking graduates have gone on to win awards at film festivals, start production companies, become cinematographers, film editors, screenwriters, directors, producers, and even actors.

We have an open door policy for alumni. With campuses all over the world, former students visit us and seek advice from our staff and faculty. Graduates also find that their most valuable professional network is one another.

During the last weeks of the program, students explore the many different possible roads to a life in film. Guest filmmakers share their experiences with students.

Subjects may include:

• Building your reel
• Film festivals and grants
• The studio system and alternatives
• Contracts, negotiations, and deals
• Networking and jobs in the industry
• The internet and new media
• Multi-camera studio shooting

Film Project-Four

First Quarter Film
From the first week of the program, students begin developing their scripts in Writing class for their fourth film.

Each student must complete a production book that includes the following:

• Statement of Objective: idea of the film and stylistic approach in a concise statement.
• Scenario, shooting script, storyboards and floor plan.
• Analysis: Intention, realization, mistakes, crew work.

This fourth film is more ambitious in scope than the previous exercises. It builds upon the foundation of skills and knowledge gained in the first part of the semester. There is a pre-production period during which students meet with faculty for consultation. There are two weeks of postproduction. Students may use sound effects, music, voice-over and ambient sound to help tell their stories. The final project may be from 3-10 minutes in length, keeping in mind, "less is more."

Films may be of any genre, and can be narrative, documentary, or experimental. The fourth film project may be shot on 16mm film or digital video.

• Allotted shooting time: two days
• Editing time: 40-60 hours
• Screening time: 3-10 minutes

Film Project - Five

Text & Subtext
This projects challenges students to explore the relationship between dialogue and dramatic action. It serves as the students’ first foray into directing a film with dialogue recorded on set. Students are provided with short dialogue-only scripts with no description of physical detail or action. The student director determines the "who, what, where, when, and why" of the story. Above all, each student director identifies the character objectives and dramatic beats of the scene.

Students will find that these elements determine the meaning of the dialogue and should deepen their understanding of text versus subtext.

When the finished projects are screened in class for critique, students will discover how different directorial interpretations of the same scene reveal the characters and the impact and meaning of the story.

• Allotted Shooting Time: Four hours
• Editing Time: Two 4-hour slots
• Screening Time: 1 to 3 minutes

Film Project-Six

POV
Each shot in a film expresses a point of view, and in narrative film, the point of view changes often, sometimes with each new shot. For the most part, point of view-- which is often called narrative stance-- is largely invisible to the audience, though the accumulated effect of the changes profoundly affects the way the audience interprets any scene. Students will analyze different ways to create a point of view through visual means: POV Shot Construction, Camera Placement and the 180 Degree Rule, Shot Size, Shot Constructions such as Over the Shoulder Construction, In Depth and Linear Staging and Blocking, Lens choice, and Sound Design, etc..

The POV project is designed for students to explore the various techniques directors use to create a character’s point of view in a scene. Each student receives a scene from a feature script from their directing teacher that features two characters. Each student will design and direct the scene from one’s characters’ point of view on digital video. Students must employ at least three different techniques in the scene they direct.

• Allotted Shooting Time: Five hours
• Editing Time: Three 4-hour slots
• Screening Time: 1 to 4 minutes

Film Project-Seven

Semester One Film
The Semester One Final Film is a narrative digital film project of up to ten minutes. This film should build on the lessons and techniques students have learned in their Acting for Directors classes, production workshops, and individual exercises of the second quarter. It should be a performance driven film with no more than three characters and one or two locations. The “story time” of the film should be limited to minutes or hours not days, weeks, years. Students also have the option of producing a documentary film as a semester one film.

• Allotted shooting time: 2 days
• Editing time: 40-80 hours
• Screening time: Up to 10 minutes

Film Project-Eight

YEAR ONE FILM
This project is the culmination of the year’s work. Each student’s goal is to produce a fully realized short film that demonstrates his or her own artistic vision and point of view. Students work with larger crews and with more time allotted for pre-production, production and post-production than the previous projects. Students prepare for this project with the assistance of all classes in the second semester, including the producing class, which is specifically designed to guide students through the pre-production of this project. Students must prepare detailed production books and receive a “green light” from the faculty to check our for their shoots. Each student can choose to shoot this film in one of three formats - high definition digtal video, 16mm film or 35mm film.

• Allotted shooting time: One week
• Editing time: Three to four weeks
• Screening time: Up to 20 minutes