Contact
Kara Herold, Program Coordinator, kherold@syr.edu
102 Shaffer Art Building, 315-443-1033
Faculty
Gabrielle Demeestere, Joe Gabriel, Kelly Gallagher, Kara Herold, David Hicock, Alex Mendez-Giner, Soudabeh Moradian, Nancy Keefe Rhodes, Donato Rossi, Sandy Siquier, Miso Suchy, Stewart Thorndike, Matthew Warne.
Description
The educational mission of our film program is to provide a stimulating and rewarding context for independent filmmaking. We foster creative, intellectual, and personal achievement by providing an exceptional hands-on education from development to post-production: scriptwriting, budgeting, storyboarding, cinematography, directing, sound design and post-production: including 2D and 3D animation. Students can pursue various modes of filmmaking, from narrative to documentary and experimental.
The film program places equal emphasis on academic film studies, creative production, and interpersonal and leadership skills. The program encourages independence, debate, and originality. Our approach to film is aesthetic rather than a commercial enterprise. All students are required to take film history, theory and criticism classes where they develop conceptual, critical and aesthetic skills that empower them to become the top filmmakers of tomorrow.
First and second year students follow a core curriculum, including introductory production courses and essential filmmaking skills. The third year allows students to dive into specific filmmaking aspects that they are passionate about while the fourth year brings it all together, as students develop their unique voice, style and professional practice in a final thesis film.
In addition, our program offers three culturally immersive, intensive, and professional minded study abroad options in Prague, Bologna and Los Angeles. On campus students have the opportunity to be involved in the Syracuse International Film Festival and the Syracuse Film Society (a student-run film organization).
Fourth year students have two additional opportunities: the Sundance Ignite program where selected students get an insider view of the film industry by attending multiple public and private events during the festival; and the Bryan Buckley Award which offers finanical support to outstanding thesis projects, both in their production and post-production stages.
The film production facilities include 4K cutting edge digital film cameras, digital RAW-enabled recorders, professional film lenses, Super 16mm analog film cameras, a large array of location lighting including state-of-the-art HMI, Flourescent and LED lights such as Arri M18 HMI, Arri Skypanels, Joker HMI Fresnels, and Kino-Flo Banks, among many others. We also have professional mounting gear, a studio dolly, car mounts and gimbals.
Our non-linear editing facilities are 4K ready, equipped with the Adobe Creative Cloud, Da Vinci Resolve, and other professional software. Our color grading facilities are equipped with a Flanders Scientific broadcast monitor and professional grading controls. We also have two top-notch sound mixing studios as well as a lighting studio and green screen.