NEED HELP?
Need help changing your major or becoming a double major?
Our Film at Mason Courses Prepare Students for Creative Careers
Students learn to take a project from conception through creation, production, and post-production in a variety of styles while acquiring technical skills. All Film at Mason majors study film and video production, film theory and criticism, emerging technologies in film, ethics, screenwriting, and business practices in the film industry.
Customize Your Study
Film majors choose a Concentration so they can explore their area of interest and passion.
Concentrations
Directing
Courses include Video Editing, Sound Editing, and Cinematography. Students hone their skills in authoring classes such as Fiction Film Directing, Documentary Directing, Web Series, and Special Topics. They develop Senior Projects through research, writing, critique, and revision, working on scripts and pre-production blueprints. The Apex experience includes directing a short film students develop during their senior year and screen at the annual Film at Mason Festival.
Producing
Courses include Video Editing, Film Marketing, and TV Writing, as well as Producing I and Fiction Film Directing. For their senior projects, students produce films with compelling stories and business and legal viability. They produce senior films in collaboration with the students in the Directing Concentration.
Production (Cinematography) / Post-Production (Editing and Sound)
Courses include Video Editing, Sound Editing, and Cinematography, as well as Advanced Editing, Advanced Cinematography, and Advanced Sound. Senior projects in the Production (Cinematography) and Post-Production (Editing and Sound) include collaborations on films directed by peers. Students pursue research their area of professional interest and create reels to demonstrate their body of work.
Screenwriting
Courses include Creative Writing, TV Writing, and Feature-Length Scriptwriting. Students also take creative writing electives in English and playwriting electives in the School of Theater. The senior project is a seminar that synthesizes knowledge and skills gained through undergraduate coursework, culminating in substantial writing projects, presented at a staged reading at the end of the semester.
We also offer Special Topics courses, such as Podcasting: Audio Storytelling, Color Correction, Visual Effects, Music Video Production, and Curating and Programming for the Moving Image. Our regular offerings include FAVS 366: Video Production for Social Change, FAVS 367 Radical Camera, FAVS 377 Interactive Storytelling for Social Change, and FAVS 378 Web Series.