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The Full Sail Film Production degree program is 13 months in duration.
The first three months consist of four general education courses,
referred to as "Mini-School". After completion of mini-school,
the students break off into their degree programs. There were
roughly 45 students in our class at this point (our class was the largest
to go through the program, but now would be considered a small
class size, if you're considering attending Full Sail, I advise
you to ask your Admissions Rep when the best time to start for a
smaller class size is; definitely not during the summer session, this
will most likely be early spring). This group of students then stays
together as a single class
for the remaining 10 months. All students take General Education
courses together, even in their last month at Full Sail.
Every month our courses change. Students receive their schedules
for the next month on the last Wednesday of the each month. Most courses
run for just one month, with a handful of courses running two months,
and 35mm Feature Film running three months. Students usually have two courses
running concurrently, with the occasional single or triple.
The Full Sail attendance policy is quite strict, and the primary reason
people fail a course; requiring 90% attendance to pass a course.
Only 10% can be made up with valid excused absences
(requiring written proof), meaning that any student with less than 80%
attendance, has no option but to make up the course. Whereas you may
retake a course for free if you fail for grades (<70%), any retake
due to attendance must be paid for. Courses operate in 4 hour blocks,
making it of the utmost importance for you to attend every class, as
attendance loss adds up quickly. You're tardy for the first 15 minutes
(5 tardies turn into 2 hours absence), and out for two hours after that.
Accordingly, attendance is taken twice in every course. If you're a
prospective student, don't worry; everything tends to work itself out
and it's great preparation for the Real World... where 15 minutes
can greatly affect your employment, and being over two hours will
undoubtedly cost you the gig (and possibly damage future work!).
The lead instructor has the title of Course Director (CD), often
with an Assistant Course Director (ACD), and
usually having a number of Lab Instructors (LI) working for them.
- Introduction to Media Arts (gen. ed)
- We had the pleasure of being taught by one of Full Sail's best,
Tim McGreggory (CD). This course touched on the various aspects
of the media arts taught at Full Sail, exposing all students to
the available majors. I think this course was a shock to many
of the audio students, who somehow failed to realize that they'd
be learning something, not just playing with toys (the Recording Arts
program suffers with having a majority of students thinking they're
MTV VJ's and rappers, though like the other programs also has
it's starlets).
This course is also a bit of a boot camp for Full Sail, weeding
out students without much chance of making it through the entire
program (actually, I've heard all of "mini-school" referred to
as serving that principal function). From day three, students
are faced with the 24/6 scheduling of Full Sail; having lectures
at 0900 and labs at 1300, 1700, 2100, 0100, and 0500. One of my
roommates who's just starting, even has a lab or two on Sunday.
- Behavioral Sciences (gen. ed.)
- This course, affectionately referred to by it's acronym of BS,
encourages students to figure out how they learn and tries
to provide a means to better their habits, in order to be able
to handle the rest of their program. From locus of control to
tactile versus auditory learners, it's probably crammed here.
- Computers, Multimedia, and the Internet (gen. ed)
- Surprisingly, CMI is the first time many of the students have
been exposed to things like the origin of computing, motherboards,
and acronyms like TCP/IP and CERN.
It seemed that this course was either old-hat and rather dull
or new and rather complex/confusing for students. The instructors
did show a number of rather interesting videos, that often times
are produced for both new users and super users.
- Multimedia Production (gen. ed.)
- Now renamed back to Multimedia Audio, this course
was a complete mess. The instructor has been replaced and hopefully
is much more beneficial for students.
We did make a rather amusing videos in the course though.
My group put together a Croc Hunter Parody,
which was quite fun.
- Digital Cinematography
- Our first course with just the film students in our class,
DC exposed us to the aspects of production by throwing us
right into a couple of productions. Rick Ramsey (CD)
was a really awesome instructor and great guy.
One of the Digital Cinematography projects was a reenactment
assinment, where my group decided to tackle the movie
Memento, as seen in
this contact sheet
(the actual five minute video is much more impressive).
This course has a
photo collection.
- Screenplays
- I'm still not sure why the course isn't "Screenwriting", as
that would be much more appropriate. This second month into
our program, every student wrote a script that could be considered
for our 16mm or 35mm productions. I still think my script
would have made a good 35mm project, but due to a poor pitch, I
just barely missed the vote count necessary to pass to the next
level of consideration.
Scripts for 16mm production are limited to three soundstage sets
and 8 pages. Scripts for 35mm production are allowed one or two
locations (one minimum) and 12 pages.
- Lighting
- This course was a lot of fun. Ted May (CD) had an amusing wit
and teaching style that kept the classes interesting and educational.
We worked with primarily Mole-Richardson lights, and used a number
of tungsten, HMI, and Kino lights... which we continue to use throughout
the program.
This course has a
photo collection.
- Film History
- As the name implies, we studied the history of our industry
in this course. Yep, that's what we did.
- Directing
- The Directing course touched upon the aspects of production
which the Director would work on.
Tom Dennis, the instructor, was a lot of fun and quite insightful.
The course didn't really live up to my expectations though.
In discussion with my classmates, we concluded that perhaps an
Acting course would be more beneficial, or "The Actor's Director",
since the rest of the program focuses on the technical side of production.
- Special Effects
- SFX, commonly changed to SEX, was a fun course where we
recreated a sequence from a film (actually, a comic book
in our case) by compositing miniatures that we built with
live action that we shot. The course also covered make-up,
which provided for a rather amusing lab.
This course has a
photo collection.
- Set Design
- "Set Design! Listen up!" -Tom Wingrove
In this course, I discovered that I don't have much interest
in set construction. It was fun, but just not for me.
We built our 16mm sets in this course, working
8-hour days. Later we painted and dressed the
sets as well. I think our sets came out very good.
Some Set Design photos can be found in the 16mm
photo, linked to below.
This course has a website.
- 16mm Film Production
- I rather enjoyed this course, taught by the singular
Rob Tuscani (CD). I was selected to hold the position
of Unit Production Manager; the highest position given
to students in the course, which kept me rather busy
for a month and a half. I also flew a steadicam rig
for our film; a Full Sail 16mm first.
We worked with an Arriflex SR-3 16mm camera, Mole lights,
Nagra recording gear, Avid Xpress workstations, and other
high quality, real world, equipment to produce our film.
Students rotate positions, including that of Director;
only the UPM and Production Coordinator positions are fixed.
Some positions, like Continuity and Script Supervisor, are
locked down each day, but rotated day-by-day.
I have to take a moment to say that Eduardo, one of the Lab Instructors
for the course, was truly awesome and doubled the value of the course.
Eduardo took some time on the side to give me advice and assignments for
my photography. There is rumor that a Photography course will be added
to the program soon; I hope that Eduardo is promoted to Course Director
if so.
This course has a
photo collection.
- Pre-Production & Casting
- This brief class with Spoon (CD), gave me what I needed
to do the job I had over the past two months. Great!
We worked on our 35mm position applications and portfolios
in this class. I'm not sure why that is though. I personally
think that BC and PPC should switch, since you make
résumés in BC as well... and then PPC could
be taught as you're starting Pre-Production on your
35mm Feature Film.
- Business Communication (gen. ed.)
- Our first General Education course since mini-school,
BC focuses on finding employment after graduation.
They cover researching jobs and employers, résumés,
and interviews in the course.
- 35mm Feature Film
- Our final production at Full Sail, 35mm is the culmination
of everything we've learned.
Key positions, such as Director, DP, UPM, ADs, etc., are
assigned based on applications and portfolios the students
turn in. You can also apply to a department, where you rotate
inside of during the four day shoot (being in the camera dept.
would have you being Loader, 2nd AC, 1st AC, and Operator in
a daily rotation). Most students apply for the camera department,
and the most applied-for positions are DP and Director.
- Entertainment Business
- I probably enjoyed this course more than any other student
in my class. Being an entrepreneur and having a long term
interest in business administration, I found this course to be
rather enjoyable. The course teaches you about the basic aspects
of law in our trade and has you creating a mock corporation
(going through all the steps necessary to form a company, write
contracts, and register your intellectual property).
A couple guest speakers talk to the class over the two months
this course runs. My favorite was an Intellectual Property
lawyer with actual, and substantial, high class clientele. I was
saddened to see my classmates (and students from other programs,
especially Digital Media) treat our guest will little respect.
- Post Production
- This course was worth the money, not because of the lectures, which
inversely affected the course value, but because of the extensive
Quantel training the students receive.
Full Sail is one of only
two schools in the United States that are
Quantel Certified Training Facilities; USC (the University of
Southern California) being the other. The ACD was awesome, and I hope
to see him being promoted to CD.
- Media & Society
- This course covers marketing and economics. This is perhaps the shortest
course at Full Sail, and I suggest you attempt to test out. You meet for
only two hours, twice a week, for a month... meaning that missing a single
lecture may result in failure. This program is being moved to the start of
the program, giving students the ability to recover from a failure before
graduation.
- Graduation!
- Associate of Science
Film Production
They used to give graduates khaki jackets with a FS patch.
Now they give you your choice of a nice black ski jacket or expensive watch.
Only 2 of the 40 students in my Film class opted for the jackets... my best friend
and myself. We're both glad that we did, too, as it got rather chilly in Hollywood
(much to our surprise).
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