fall 2026 film school applications - Has anyone gotten interview invites yet?

[yuenix]

Any tips on UCLA (UCLA PRODUCTION / DIRECTING TFT) interview i have this week(thurs 19th) !! i have the flu so I'm very off and trying to prep a few days in advance.

hope you’ve recovered and that it went well what was it like?

 

[Arbyrnes]

UCLA just notified me that I was rejected, which is fine since I have other irons in the fire. Good luck to everyone else applying to UCLA!

 

[egg]

hope you’ve recovered and that it went well what was it like?

the proffs were really wonderful! I was a bit nervous but I hope it went well.

 

[XMF]

Anyone hear from UCLA on cinematography yet? I know interview invites for other UCLA MFA specialities have been going out...just wondering.

 

[Pryde Pierce]

Hi! I enjoyed your film. I wanted to comment just to clarify some things I noticed so that you’re set up for success and not disappointment if you get in. I gather from your post that you consider yourself a writer director which is great, but depending on how set you are on that rather than directing other people’s work AFI could be a bad fit. I do not in anyway want to dissuade you. I’ve just personally seen in my cohort a lot of dissatisfaction from the directors who consider themselves both because AFI is not set up for aspiring auteurs. You will have a writer on every cycle film including the one you wrote and the expectation is to collaborate with them and the rest of the team. It will not be your sole vision. I want that to be clear just in case for both your wellbeing and the writer’s wellbeings.

The other thing is the Sloan and thesis. I’m not sure which Sloan scholarship you mean, but I assume you mean the tuition scholarship. In which case do you mean that script would be to meet the writing requirements if you get the tuition scholarship? Or are you thinking about the Sloan fellowship? Which is a completely different but related award. In either case Sloan is about writing and you won’t submit a film for it so I just wanted to clarify that in case you didn’t know, but you very well may.

More importantly I wanted to say that it’s great that you have a thesis script you want to make, but I will caution you not to get too attached to it. The way thesis works is in Feb of first year a submission pool opens for the scripts and anyone from any discipline can submit, these are anonymized and reviewed by a panel who selects a much smaller group of approved thesis scripts in April/May. So, it is very common for directors to not have the script they wrote and want to do in that final pool and they will have to choose one of the available scripts for their thesis. You can rewrite it but it does have to stay close to the original intent and the original writer will be credited as a writer. So, all that is to say just be prepared to not do your script. You may well get to and that’s great, but it’s far from guaranteed. Which comes back to my original point of making sure you’re comfortable doing other people’s work as a director if you’re set on AFI. The directing program is truly almost exclusively about directing despite certain alumni being regarded as auteurs it is NOT an auteur friendly program.

"The way thesis works is in Feb of first year a submission pool opens for the scripts and anyone from any discipline can submit, these are anonymized and reviewed by a panel who selects a much smaller group of approved thesis scripts in April/May. So, it is very common for directors to not have the script they wrote and want to do in that final pool and they will have to choose one of the available scripts for their thesis."

- Is there a page limit for the script you submit for thesis film consideration in February?

Thanks for this insight.

 

[jordanrosephotos]

"The way thesis works is in Feb of first year a submission pool opens for the scripts and anyone from any discipline can submit, these are anonymized and reviewed by a panel who selects a much smaller group of approved thesis scripts in April/May. So, it is very common for directors to not have the script they wrote and want to do in that final pool and they will have to choose one of the available scripts for their thesis."

- Is there a page limit for the script you submit for thesis film consideration in February?

Thanks for this insight.

it changes but this year it was max 15 pages

 

[goldilocks]

anyone (pls specify discipline) get an AFI on campus screening invitation today? if so, had you interviewed or not?

 

[Arbyrnes]

I did (directing). And I had an interview.

 

[Pryde Pierce]

I did (applied for Directing and Screenwriting). I had an interview (Screenwriting).

 

[featherless]

i did (directing), but no interview

 

[ljz]

I got an interview from NYU for the Production Design program yesterday morning!

hi, do you know when they are going to send out the notification

 

[Chris W]

hi, do you know when they are going to send out the notification

Check out last year's threads or applications in our database.

Be sure to log your application though. It'll improve our data as we don't have too many production design applications logged.

Good luck!