Student Experience
Knowing how to network and utilize social media is critical in the world of entertainment. You’ll have abundant opportunities to develop and practice these skills through our guest speaker series, social media classes, and robust Instagram, TikTok, and Discord channels, where all students are encouraged to share and post their work.
Your classes are designed not only to teach you the concepts involved in filmmaking but also to give you time in class to apply them. On-campus, students will experience the thrill of working on set with a team of other filmmakers. Remote students can join in as crew members, producers, and directors via Zoom, allowing you to work in a professional environment from anywhere in the world.
Along with your peers in the Schools of Writing and Acting, you will share an entire building, five soundstages, and a passion for storytelling that will define your Academy experience. You will collaborate across disciplines to gain the practical skills you’ll need to be confident and well-prepared as you enter the industry.
Facilities
Soundstages
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You dream it, we build it. Experience the excitement of working in front of the camera in our eight professional fully equipped quality soundstages with lighting grids, with new sets designed every week.
Main Stage Theater
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Our Main Stage Theater, home to our One Acts Festival, seats an audience of 200 in the heart of San Francisco’s theater district, adjacent to Union Square.
Camera Room
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Our camera facilities offers equipment to students to use on campus or on location. We stock lighting equipment, digital and film cameras, grip and electric equipment.
Wardrobe Room
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Our wardrobe room contains hundreds of articles of clothing—everything from contemporary to period fashions. We have an extensive collection of shoes, hats, streetwear, and evening wear. Open to all student filmmakers, the wardrobe room gives you the ability to dress the cast of your film in the style of your dreams.
Editing Bays
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We have over 21 Mac editing bays and three private video editing suites available for student use, all equipped with Avid Media Composer, DaVinci Resolve, and the full Adobe Suite, including Premiere Pro and After Effects. We also have two private audio editing suites running Pro Tools and the Adobe Suite.
Collaborations
Collaboration is the key to success in the motion picture industry and it’s also the key to everything you will do in the School of Motion Pictures and Television. On the soundstages and in class, you will work collaboratively with directors, producers, writers, production designers, cinematographers, and editors to bring stories to life. You may find yourself collaborating with students in the School of Music Production & Sound Design for Visual Media to create the sounds and scores for your films. You will work with the students in the School of Animation and Visual Effects to create worlds and characters that begin as ideas in your mind and are brought to life through the miracle of screen technology.
Outside of school, you may find credit-earning work as interns in editing houses, the production design department of the San Francisco Opera, camera rental houses, and on film and television projects. Through our Production Hub classes, you will also have the opportunity to work with San Francisco’s Fire, Police, and Sheriff’s departments, forest rangers, and a wide range of private clients to create PSAs and commercials that will be viewed around the world.
Production Hub
Write, Produce, and Direct Real-World Films
Production Hub is a collaborative production class where students with skills in all areas of emphasis work together with each other and real-world clients to create and produce high-end content in the form of documentaries, PSAs, commercials, branded content, and educational media.
Events
NXTUP Film Festival
Our NXTUP Festival is the culminating event of the school year; it’s a full-blown film festival and awards ceremony highlighting the best student work across all categories. NXTUP judges are working film and television professionals who know what it takes to make it in the industry. The festival gives our students an opportunity to have their work seen by those who could potentially hire them in the future.
ALL EVENTSStudent Interviews
Hear directly from students about their experiences in the School of Motion Pictures and Television.
