Tisch Collaborations

3rd YEAR COLLABORATIONS

Filmmaking is fundamentally a collaborative enterprise, from start to finish.  Directors, actors, crew, and craftspeople work together, exchange ideas and contribute a wide range of talents toward realizing a single vision.  Whether it's a crew of four or four hundred, low budget or big budget, no filmmaker does the work alone. Collaboration is at the heart of the Graduate Film Curriculum.  Within the department projects are organized so that students support one another in the various crew positions during production while also through the writing classes offering feedback on scripts in all phases of development.

In addition to this, the Graduate Film Department has created opportunities for collaborating with other gifted, well-trained students outside our Department.  This is one of the distinguishing features of graduate film education at NYU.   Among the programs and projects offered:

The Graduate Department of Acting, TSOA

Graduate Film students have an opportunity in their third year to work with the Graduate Acting students, also in their third year.  Trained at one of the world's finest schools for actors, these advanced students bring enormous talent and skill to their collaboration with Grad Film students.  A fall intensive with the graduate actors is followed by a spring directing class in which students teamed with actors develop, rehearse and mount short works both on location and on a Sound Stage.

The Department of Production Design for Stage and Film, TSOA

A working relationship that extends beyond student life is a prime factor in the longest running collaboration between Graduate Film students and another Tisch department.  Our graduates continue to employ designers met at Tisch and likewise graduates from design recommend our directors for projects on which they've been hired. Graduate Design students are trained to translate any kind of dramatic writing into visually coherent terms.

The Steinhardt School of Education's Department of Music and Performing Arts

The value of a musical score in a film cannot be overstated. Graduate films students have an opportunity to consider original scores for the film projects through collaboration with student composers in the Steinhardt School's Department of Music. Graduate film students are invited to meet and study with the student composers in a Film Composition Course.  Relationships forged through this class result in many collaborations:  the composers need original films, our directors need original scores.

The Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), TSOA

Since 1979, ITP (Interactive Telecommunications Program) has been dedicated to pushing the boundaries of interactivity in the real and digital worlds. A hands-on approach make this hi-tech laboratory a great opportunity for storytellers from Grad Film to work with creative technologists from ITP. Together students are encouraged to take a creative and professional approach to the challenges of the information age. The course encourages risk-taking in a collaborative environment, while also fostering exploration, analysis, and experimentation.  Filmmakers and creative technologists are asked to put their heads together and work outside the box. Literally.

The Leonard M. Stern School of Business:  The Dual Degree Program

After years of collaborating on projects that included a number of branded entertainment films for Verizon Broadband, Axe Body Spray, Heineken, Johnnie Walker, Subway, I Love NY, and Vita Coco. The Stern Business School and Graduate Division of the Kanbar Institute of Film and TV formalized their joint efforts with a dual MBA/MFA program in Producing.  The inaugural class began their studies in the fall of 2008.  Four to five students are invited each year to participate in the three-year program. Much of the ongoing collaboration between the two schools will continue and expand under the umbrella of this program.  Grad film students are also eligible to enroll in a select number of entertainment related courses at Stern.