The University of North Carolina School of the Arts’ Filmmaking program is approaching its 25th anniversary, and while the highly-ranked school often confronts new forms of storytelling and new technologies, its core teaching values continue to ring true. We’ve pulled the curtain up on some of this school’s teaching methods to share the five pillars of the Film Production program at UNCSA:
Master storytelling
Dale Pollock, former Dean of the School of Filmmaking and current Cinema Studies professor, tells it like it is: “The young students come in with very little life experience, so their stories inherently won’t have that much depth because they haven’t lived that much. So how do we elevate those stories?” The answer is by teaching the age-old craft of being able to tell a story.
From day one, UNCSA Film students are challenged to pitch and write scripts on a weekly basis. More often than not these creative assignments are on tight deadlines and executed in between classes and production work. That type of schedule prepares the students for the future where they will never have time to create unless they make it.
Originally published October 18, 2017. Written by Abraham Bengio.
