Hello SF friends!
Because I am in NYC for the summer,last week I decided to take a took a tour of the NYU Tisch film building and meet with some people to talk about the grad film program. I thought I would share my findings,opinions, highlights/concerns of the program with the good folk at SF. This site has always been a great place to get info for me, so I figured I would give back a little bit.
At NYU, you go on a self guided tour, but if you stop and talk to people in the building they will answer any questions you have.
Ok, lets start with the facility:
Let me start by saying, this building isn't too hard on the eyes. The Tisch building is very modern, decked out with hardwood floors, brick walls with trendy stainless steal accenting and lots of cool lighting that changes color. Most of the film floors are on the 8th story of the building and above which offers a great view of the NYC skyline. And when you walk the halls, tons of framed movie posters line the walls, all being films NYU alumni have worked on (many them were signed by the filmmakers too). What can I say, I'm a sucker for the visuals.
Ok, now down to the more technical stuff. There is a decent size FCP lab, but unfortunately I was told these machines were more for "beginners" and each only had one monitor. They also had an Avid lap with about 25 computers and each of these had two monitors. There were also were about 10 single room editing bays that could be checked out.
There are two animation rooms equipped with Flash, AE, Maya, and I believe an open source stop motion software. The department is kind of small, but the lady who ran the floor(I also think she said she taught a few classes) and showed me around was super nice.
I also saw one of the television studios they had in the building. Apparently there are two of them of them, but the one I saw looked nice but it was rather small. The equipment looked pretty up to date.
I saw the equipment checkout rooms as well. I got a pretty good look at the lighting room and they seemed to have a TON of equipment. I was told that they have lots of digital cameras, HD cameras, 16 mm, 35 mm, and they were pretty excited because they just got a new RED camera.
That's all I say about the building really, there wasn't a lot going on with it being the summer and all. I don't know the policy for other grad film programs, but NYU doesn't run during the summer to give the grad students a break/chance to work on other projects/chance to get real world experience.
Now I will tell you what I learned about the admissions process and other little snidbits I found out. Sorry if this part is a little unorganized, I am sort of typing it as it comes to me.
NYU only accepts around 35 students to the program each year. They generally receive about 600-800 applications a year. You do not need to take the GRE to attend the program and the program is 3 years long.
I was told that the tuition is $35,000 a year (not including room and board, but I was told there were a lot of scholarships and financial aid available. For receiving money, I was told that the first year is the hardest, but the next two are a lot easier. They are working on making the third year free for all the students and currently they are close by offering something like $20,000 to third years.
Paying for you films is somewhat budgeted into your tuition, you are given like $1,700 for your first big one and $3,000 for your thesis (I don't quite remember the specifics, but it was around these figures). They said that NYU provides the equipment, but all of the auxiliary costs are on you--whether that's food, actors you need to hire, props, ect.
The program is organized as a conserviatory. I will tell you the positives and negatives I saw with this set up. First the positives:
They do not have specific slots for directors, cinematographers, producers like other programs. This is good because if 25 of the people want to be directors, they don't care. They said this takes the "cutthroat aspect out because you don't need to compete to get you films made." Everyone works on everyone else's projects. I was told NYU has it set up this way because they see a lot of people coming in wanting to be directors then discovering they like cinematogrpahy or editing more and by making everyone learn everything, not only are they more well rounded filmmakers, but they may find a job they like better. Another positive thing about the conserviatory setup is that this program fosters the writer/director type as apposed to just a strictly directing track approach. Also, with the program being 3 years, the advisors said that their students do not feel as rushed as with some 2 year programs.
The potential negatives:
The fact that is is a conservatory setting as opposed to have spots specifically for directors, cinematographers, producers, ect. is that if you KNOW what you want to do, you will have mess around with stuff you might not want to be doing. And from what I gained from my talk, that's a lot of the first year: exploration. So, if you are dead set on what you want to do, I could for see some annoyance to this approach. And if there are so many chiefs in this program and not enough indians, I can foresee some issues.
Getting Accepted:
Like I said earlier, they accept around 35 people to the program from about 600-800 applications from around the world. The selection process is broken down into 3 parts. First thing they look at is your portfolio. They said it doesn't have to be high quality stuff, they just want to see that you can tell a story. After that, they go the essays. They want to know what you want to bring to table and how NYU fits into making those goals a possibility. Then after that, you have to do in person interviews or via skype if you can't make it to NYC. They interview about 150 in person and then make their selection of 35 people. I am not sure where this fits in, during the interview or essay, but they want you to have an idea of a dream project you want to accomplish either while you are there or by preparing for it during your time at NYU.
So there you have it, my big, long post that I am sure is filled with spelling mistakes and grammar problems, but I don't feel like editing it. I hope I didn't offend any NYU people with some of my opinions, they were just some initial thoughts I had about the program.
Let me know what you guys think! All the best.
Because I am in NYC for the summer,last week I decided to take a took a tour of the NYU Tisch film building and meet with some people to talk about the grad film program. I thought I would share my findings,opinions, highlights/concerns of the program with the good folk at SF. This site has always been a great place to get info for me, so I figured I would give back a little bit.
At NYU, you go on a self guided tour, but if you stop and talk to people in the building they will answer any questions you have.
Ok, lets start with the facility:
Let me start by saying, this building isn't too hard on the eyes. The Tisch building is very modern, decked out with hardwood floors, brick walls with trendy stainless steal accenting and lots of cool lighting that changes color. Most of the film floors are on the 8th story of the building and above which offers a great view of the NYC skyline. And when you walk the halls, tons of framed movie posters line the walls, all being films NYU alumni have worked on (many them were signed by the filmmakers too). What can I say, I'm a sucker for the visuals.
Ok, now down to the more technical stuff. There is a decent size FCP lab, but unfortunately I was told these machines were more for "beginners" and each only had one monitor. They also had an Avid lap with about 25 computers and each of these had two monitors. There were also were about 10 single room editing bays that could be checked out.
There are two animation rooms equipped with Flash, AE, Maya, and I believe an open source stop motion software. The department is kind of small, but the lady who ran the floor(I also think she said she taught a few classes) and showed me around was super nice.
I also saw one of the television studios they had in the building. Apparently there are two of them of them, but the one I saw looked nice but it was rather small. The equipment looked pretty up to date.
I saw the equipment checkout rooms as well. I got a pretty good look at the lighting room and they seemed to have a TON of equipment. I was told that they have lots of digital cameras, HD cameras, 16 mm, 35 mm, and they were pretty excited because they just got a new RED camera.
That's all I say about the building really, there wasn't a lot going on with it being the summer and all. I don't know the policy for other grad film programs, but NYU doesn't run during the summer to give the grad students a break/chance to work on other projects/chance to get real world experience.
Now I will tell you what I learned about the admissions process and other little snidbits I found out. Sorry if this part is a little unorganized, I am sort of typing it as it comes to me.
NYU only accepts around 35 students to the program each year. They generally receive about 600-800 applications a year. You do not need to take the GRE to attend the program and the program is 3 years long.
I was told that the tuition is $35,000 a year (not including room and board, but I was told there were a lot of scholarships and financial aid available. For receiving money, I was told that the first year is the hardest, but the next two are a lot easier. They are working on making the third year free for all the students and currently they are close by offering something like $20,000 to third years.
Paying for you films is somewhat budgeted into your tuition, you are given like $1,700 for your first big one and $3,000 for your thesis (I don't quite remember the specifics, but it was around these figures). They said that NYU provides the equipment, but all of the auxiliary costs are on you--whether that's food, actors you need to hire, props, ect.
The program is organized as a conserviatory. I will tell you the positives and negatives I saw with this set up. First the positives:
They do not have specific slots for directors, cinematographers, producers like other programs. This is good because if 25 of the people want to be directors, they don't care. They said this takes the "cutthroat aspect out because you don't need to compete to get you films made." Everyone works on everyone else's projects. I was told NYU has it set up this way because they see a lot of people coming in wanting to be directors then discovering they like cinematogrpahy or editing more and by making everyone learn everything, not only are they more well rounded filmmakers, but they may find a job they like better. Another positive thing about the conserviatory setup is that this program fosters the writer/director type as apposed to just a strictly directing track approach. Also, with the program being 3 years, the advisors said that their students do not feel as rushed as with some 2 year programs.
The potential negatives:
The fact that is is a conservatory setting as opposed to have spots specifically for directors, cinematographers, producers, ect. is that if you KNOW what you want to do, you will have mess around with stuff you might not want to be doing. And from what I gained from my talk, that's a lot of the first year: exploration. So, if you are dead set on what you want to do, I could for see some annoyance to this approach. And if there are so many chiefs in this program and not enough indians, I can foresee some issues.
Getting Accepted:
Like I said earlier, they accept around 35 people to the program from about 600-800 applications from around the world. The selection process is broken down into 3 parts. First thing they look at is your portfolio. They said it doesn't have to be high quality stuff, they just want to see that you can tell a story. After that, they go the essays. They want to know what you want to bring to table and how NYU fits into making those goals a possibility. Then after that, you have to do in person interviews or via skype if you can't make it to NYC. They interview about 150 in person and then make their selection of 35 people. I am not sure where this fits in, during the interview or essay, but they want you to have an idea of a dream project you want to accomplish either while you are there or by preparing for it during your time at NYU.
So there you have it, my big, long post that I am sure is filled with spelling mistakes and grammar problems, but I don't feel like editing it. I hope I didn't offend any NYU people with some of my opinions, they were just some initial thoughts I had about the program.
Let me know what you guys think! All the best.
