The Santa Fe University of Art and Design

Date: Jan 01 2008
Major: Fine Arts - Painting/Sculpture/Photography/etc (This Major's Salary over time)
My major is Moving Image Arts (Film). It is the best program in the school, and the best undergraduate film-making program in the country, from my perspective. My perspective is a cinematography and editing perspective. This school has a large selection of resources: film and video cameras (including HD), extensive grip and electric gear, sound recorders and mics, a really really really nice dolly (w/track!) and editing labs updated with all of the best programs. This wonderful stuff is all FREE for students to use starting freshman year.

I'm sorry if I rant, but I'm a junior and this concept is still blowing my mind. You get here and the first class you take hands you a camera and tells you to get started. Most other schools will have you sit in a classroom for 4 years and learn theory. That's no way to build a portfolio.

Of course there's theory classes for everyone to take, but it's all integrated with hands-on creativity. The opportunities to get on a professional set here come often: we have two working sound stages where professional films come to shoot all the time and students intern on. "No Country For Old Men" (Coen Bros.!) was here last year, and a friend of mine interned for two weeks on it and got into the credits. Just last month Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Toby Maguire were here in our building, blowing up a helicopter on our stages for a production called "Brothers" (well, the actors weren't blowing up the helicopter themselves, but you get the idea).

I know a lot of people leave here disappointed after their first year, but I'll tell you why: gaining technical skills and making four or five films/videos a semester is a lot of work. You have to come up with creative ideas constantly, produce most of your own projects, and get up early to organize casting calls or work on other people's sets (everybody has to be crew for each other, so if you never help other people out with projects you'll end up with no crew for your Cinematography final).

Personally, I like the challenge, and I am proud of many of the films I've made and worked on. I entered this review because I feel my school deserves a good word from a film student who has been here for more than a few semesters, and every word of it is the truth. So give College of Santa Fe a try, but only if you're hardcore enough.