Film Schools

1. New York University:

2. UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television:

Telling the stories that bring our lives into focus

The two-year Master of Fine Arts in Screenwriting program encourages students to concentrate upon the challenge of writing a well-structured story inhabited by vivid, compelling characters. The elements of character, dialogue, scene, setting, texture, style, and tone are explored through an intensive workshop process.

About

"The great misconception among new and untested writers is that screenwriting is easy," says Professor and screenwriter Hal Ackerman, co-area head of the UCLA screenwriting program, "Trust me, it's harder than it looks. The beauty of a great artist, like a great athlete, is the ability to make something amazingly difficult and complex look easy."

Screenplay writing is a rigorous craft and, at its best, an art. In TFT's screenwriting program you learn all the key elements of creating scripts for feature film and television, including story structure, plot, scene development, characterization and dialogue. The goal is to prepare you to turn your stories into screenplays. A series of writing assignments guides you toward mastering the basics, which you use to conceptualize and begin work on your own scripts.

Established in 1965, the UCLA screenwriting program has provided a strong foundation for hundreds of alumni. Program graduates include Francis Ford Coppola (Patton), Dean Hargrove (Columbo), David Koepp (Spider Man), Josefina Lopez (Real Women Have Curves), Michael Miner (RoboCop), Brian Nelson (Hard Candy), Alexander Payne (Sideways), Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr. (Norma Rae), Scott Rosenberg (High Fidelity), David S. Ward (The Sting), Eric Roth (Forrest Gump) and Caroline Williams (Miss/Guid

3. London Film School:

4. University of Southern California:

5. National Film and Television School:

6. Columbia University:

7. California Institute of Arts: 8. Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute

“There are times when you pick up your shoes and see through them your whole life."

"Art is longer than life."

"If we cannot see the possibility of greatness, how can we dream of it?"

"Something secret, the highest truth for every one of the characters - this is the spine."

"That is the basic need for art in life, not self-expression, but rather a saying and doing of things we cannot completely say and do in life but which have to be said and done."

"Nervousness means that we are concerned with ourselves rather than with the things we need to do."

"An actor never plays a speech. He always plays a scene, an event, a situation, an occurrence. Words are part of the occurrence."

"The human being who acts is the human being who lives."

"We cannot give you talent, but we are going to force you to live up to the talent that you have."