The Four-Week Workshop provides students with a thorough introduction to the foundations of film craft. Many students find the one-month length fits conveniently into their yearly schedules. The workshop is a full-time program. Students must be prepared to make a serious commitment to its completion.

FORMAT
The Four-Week program is structured around the production of three short films of increasing complexity. Classes and hands-on workshops are held throughout the week and some weekends are reserved for additional classes or shooting. Evenings are spent on writing, location, scouting, casting, and editing. The fourth week is devoted to shooting and editing the final film, culminating in the final screening. As in all New York Film Academy workshops, each student writes, directs, shoots and edits a series of short film projects of his or her own using Arriflex 16mm cameras, Lowel lighting packages, and Apple Final Cut Pro digital editing systems. Classes in directing, writing, editing, cinematography, and production cover the creative and technical demands of telling a story with moving images. Each week all the students’ films are screened and critiqued in class with the instructor.

CLASSES

The following classes are designed to be of immediate and practical use in an integrated curriculum. Each week students are able to immediately apply the lessons learned in their classes to the films they are producing.

DIRECTOR'S CRAFT
Director’s Craft serves as the spine of the workshop, introducing students to the language and practice of filmmaking. Through a combination of hands-on exercises, screenings, and demonstrations, students learn the fundamental directing skills needed to create a succinct and moving film. This class prepares students for each of their film projects and is the venue for screening and critiquing their work throughout the course.

WRITING
The writing course adheres to the philosophy that -good directing cannot occur without a well-written script. The course is designed to build a fundamental understanding of dramatic structure which is essential to writing an engaging film. Arc, theme, character, tension, and conflict are thoroughly explored.

EDITING
This class teaches the language of editing and the organization of film and sound material. Films are shot on 16mm film and edited digitally with Final Cut Pro on Apple computers. While students learn how to use the nonlinear editing software, the emphasis is on the craft of editing, which challenges students to create cogent sequences that best serve the story.

HANDS-ON CAMERA/LIGHTING
Beginning on day one, this no-nonsense camera class allows students to learn the fundamental skills of the art of cinematography with the Arriflex 16-S, the Lowel VIP Lighting Kit and its accessories. In the first week, students shoot and screen tests for focus, exposure, lens perspective, film latitude, slow/fast motion, contrast, and lighting. Six- and eight-week students are also introduced to the fundamentals of digital cinematography using 24p digital cameras.

PRODUCTION WORKSHOP
This class is designed to demystify the craft of filmmaking through in-class exercises shot on film under the supervision of the instructor. Through this in-class practice, students learn to articulate the objective of a given scene, which allows the necessary craft and techniques to follow.

Production Workshop gives students the opportunity to learn which techniques will help them express their ideas most effectively.

The following subjects will be covered and practiced in the Hands-On Camera, Lighting, and Production Workshop:
1. Film Stocks
Properties of black-and-white, color reversal, and negative emulsions.
2. Exposure Meters
Practical and creative ways of measuring and evaluating light through incident light readings.
3. Basic Lighting
Three-point lighting, hard and soft light, bounced light and available light, and lighting continuity.
4. Lenses
Practical tests on how different focal lengths and f-stops affect the mood of the scene and the attention of the viewer.
5. Coverage
The long shot, establishing shot, matching shot, sight lines and screen direction.
6. Filters
Students learn to use black-and-white contrast filters and red, green, and yellow filters to get the effects they desire for their films.

THE CAMERA PACKAGE
Students in the Three-, Four-, Six-, Eight-Week and Evening programs will use the Arriflex 16-S 16mm camera. The Academy maintains over 200 camera packages, the highest ratio of cameras to students of any film school in the world. Because of its simplicity and un-matched ruggedness, this camera has filmed action from Vietnam to the NFL, and has served as the camera for countless documentaries, music videos and low budget films. Our cameras have variable speed motors, which allow you to create images whose speed varies from ultra fast to very slow.

Award-winning films have been produced out of the New York Film Academy workshops with this camera package. It has been proven time and again that filmmakers armed with our equipment can produce outstanding films. The Film Academy challenges the filmmaker to use the camera, lights, and lenses to best tell their stories.

THE LIGHTING PACKAGE
All crews will be given a lighting package that has been tailored by the Film Academy to meet the needs of workshop productions. The kit combines portability with lighting needs: it is small enough to fit into a taxi, yet provides enough power to create a well-lit interior scene within a reasonable amount of time.

To cite some examples of films that were lit with simple, portable packages, often less sophisticated than the kits we employ at NYFA:
Steven Spielberg, Director
Film-Amblin
No dolly shots and used only reflectors.

Nick Gomez, Director
Film-Laws of Gravity
Shot in only ten days; a feat allowed through the use of portable lighting kits, bounce boards, and practical light bulbs.

Eric Rohmer, Director
Film-Pauline at the Beach
Used a Lowel soft light kit and a crew of four in only 14 days.

Continue >>