OVERVIEW
Cinema & Media Arts
Learn to understand, think and create in the language of the moving image across all media. From idea to screenplay, camera to screen, screen to critical inquiry, AMPD’s Department of Cinema and Media Arts offers exceptional theoretical and hands-on training across the evolving spectrums of cinema and media.
HIGHLIGHTS
Top 6 reasons to apply
Fifty years of renowned leadership in filmmaking and cinema scholarship
Four acclaimed degrees, giving you the opportunity to find the right program to fit your interests and goals
World-class facilities, including AMPD’s professional sound stage at Cinespace Film Studios
Small class sizes and hands-on experience
Professional placement and internship opportunities in the film, television and media industries
Guest lectures & workshops by industry insiders and leading film scholars
YOUR CHOICE
Four Programs
OVERVIEW
Combining technical skills with the creativity of film as a vehicle for storytelling, change-making and self-expression, this program prepares students for careers in all facets of filmmaking. The Film Production program offers a broad, expansive view of visual storytelling traditions, including cinema, television, current trends on the internet and hybrid forms.
Foundational courses in production and screenwriting lead to specialized courses in directing, cinematography, editing, sound, production management and production design. With extensive opportunities for collaboration and networking, including a field placement option, students work with professional actors in world-class facilities on campus and at Cinespace Film Studios to create short fiction, documentary and alternative films. Working in crews and learning how to collaborate creatively is one of the most important experiences of the 4-year program. Courses in film history and theory empower students to develop their ability not only to make moving images but to think, talk and write about them, and to understand the historical and theoretical framework in which they are produced.
Program highlights
Immerse yourself in Cinema & Media Arts at AMPD
Access to state-of-the-art filmmaking technologies and facilities.
Opportunity to produce your own short films and to build a show reel, building the tools you need to showcase your work and develop your career.
Strong mentoring by internationally recognized and continuously productive faculty.
Small class sizes, ranging from 25 students in first-year to 10-15 students in upper years.
Hands-on learning gives you the skills needed to thrive in the highly competitive film and television industry.
Opportunities to co-create with students in other AMPD departments, such as Theatre, Design and Music, broadens your experience and collaboration skills.
Extensive opportunities for collaboration and networking, including master classes with renowned visiting artists and scholars and field placements in which you work in a professional setting
YEAR BY YEAR OVERVIEW
Learning Objectives
Share your MUSIC, find your VISION, build the FUTURE
Years 1 and 2
- Building a solid foundation with Introduction to Filmmaking, camera work and sound recording, technical aspects of film and video production, screenwriting essentials, and production planning.
- Understand cinema history in a cultural and economic context
- Recognize cinema as an education in global citizenship
Years 3 and 4
- Determine your specialization through hands-on experience in multiple genres (fiction, documentary, experimental film).
- Acquire in-depth training as a director, cinematographer, sound recordist, production manager or picture & sound editor.
- Apply your learning with outreach into the film and television industry with field trips, internships and guest lectures, providing a doorway to a life of reflective and productive engagement in the industry.
Interesting sample courses
Directing Actors for the Screen
This course explores the work that actors and directors do together. It includes scene study, preparation, and the recording and editing of dramatic scenes.
Documentary Workshop
This course provides an advanced exploration of a range of issues in documentary theory and practice, including the ethics of representation, ethnographic practice, the status of evidence, voice and authorship, the proliferation of documentary styles and the social implications, among others.
Cinematography
Provides an intensive study of the foundational elements of lighting, camera and photography, as they relate to film and video production.
Evaluation Process
GOODLUCK!
Good luck!
We strongly encourage all our short-listed applicants to attend the on-campus interview as it offers you the most extensive and engaged experience. However, if extenuating circumstances preclude you from coming to campus, you may arrange for a distance interview via Skype/zoom.
Questions? > evalampd@yorku.ca
OVERVIEW
In this era of multiple screens competing for our attention, strong storytelling is necessary for success. In Canada’s only undergraduate Screenwriting Degree Program, students receive intensive training across genres and in many platforms from film to television to emerging media. Screenwriting students will also learn how to develop and pitch their screenplays and in some cases, see them brought to life on screen.
Graduates of the BFA in Screenwriting are thriving as professional screenwriters, story editors, producers and directors in the film, television and media industries, bringing with them a deep understanding of moving image storytelling and the expertise they developed in the program’s intensive and collaborative workshop environment. First and foremost, they have developed their voice and explored many kinds of screenwriting taught by leading industry professionals in our intensive 4-year programme.
Program highlights
Immerse yourself in Cinema & Media Arts at AMPD
The Screenwriting program at York is named among a handful of the top programs anywhere in North America
Screenwriting students collaborate with peers, workshop their writing, meet industry professionals and develop a creative portfolio of written work.
Master classes offered by renowned screenwriters such as Emmy Award winning David Shore (“House”), Karen Walton (“Ginger Snaps,” “Orphan Black,” “The Listener,” “Queer as Folk”) and many others
YEAR BY YEAR OVERVIEW
Learning Outcomes
Share your MUSIC, find your VISION, build the FUTURE
Years 1 and 2
- Build a solid foundation & explore.
- Develop essential concepts and practical skills in musicianship, music theory, and performance.
- Expand your awareness of musical cultures.
- Explore new areas of study.
- Gain an understanding of the social, cultural, and historical contexts of music.
Years 3 and 4
- Differentiate, consolidate, & apply.
- Deepen your expertise to apply techniques, skills, and knowledge to performances and research.
- Specialize in your chosen area or continue to explore options.
- Connect and integrate your skills with others in creative projects and critical studies.
- Apply your skills through performance, community connections, and placements.
Interesting sample courses
Screenwriting Fundamentals
This course provides a broad introduction to the art and craft of screenwriting. Writing for film is very specific, both an art and a technical document. Students, through the examination of films, will discuss how film stories are told and the fundamental requirements to writing a script.
Feature Screenwriting I
Focuses on the initial stages of writing a feature-length screenplay. Explores idea of development, story groundwork and principles of story structure. Leads students through craft challenges in the creation of a fully developed story outline.
Transmedia Storytelling
This course provides students who have completed first- and second- year screenwriting courses with a focus on strategies for developing complex stories that can be told across multiple media platforms (film, television, web, mobile, etc.) incorporating elements of interactivity.
Evaluation Process
GOODLUCK!
OVERVIEW
We experience stories through a diversity of media platforms that are constantly evolving. In this ecology of media, we simultaneously become viewers, users, players, and participants. This innovative program combines current and future forms of digital experience and content creation with critical, curatorial and applied studies in media culture. Your BFA in Media Arts will offer you a broad, expansive view of media practices including interactive, immersive and mobile media, gaming, augmented and virtual reality, interactive cinema, social media, sound arts and artificial intelligence storytelling. As a creator in the BFA in Media Arts you will use new camera systems, game engines, interactive environments and social platforms to build narrative and experimental content and experiences.
In this program, you could create a virtual reality murder mystery, produce a community-based interactive documentary, design a transmedia project spanning film and gaming platforms, or combine live animation with high end special effects and 3D environments, or anything else that challenges genres and conventional ways of telling stories. Drawing on the powerful legacy of cinema history, criticism and theory, you will actively create in the expanded field of the media cultures and creative industries, in which cinema is an integrated element.
This program is framed around a series of flexible Media Practice courses taken concurrently with media history, theory and criticism, culminating in a capstone project and a field placement in the media industries that will include content creation on site at Cinespace Film Studios. You will graduate with the ability to blend hands on media-making with the critical analysis of contemporary and emerging media, developing your creative practice using wide range of digital tools and software. You will expand your knowledge of how media can shape social issues, produce new insights, and advance political agendas. You will graduate with the creative, technical and critical skills necessary to prepare you for careers in a fast-changing media landscape.
Program highlights
Immerse yourself in Cinema & Media Arts at AMPD
Master classes with renowned visiting artists and theorists
Access to state-of-the-art technologies that are defining new directions in screen art
Make work in virtual and augmented reality using game engines
Outstanding access to Media Professionals and creative industries
Field placement opportunities
An opportunity to develop your creative vision through diverse media
Interesting sample courses
The Interactive Documentary
This course studies the theory and practice of interactive web documentaries, participatory online projects, and docu-games which are reshaping the way we tell, produce and distribute documentary experience in the digital age.
Field Placement for Media Art
This course provides an experiential education field placement. Students undertake field placements in moving image media industry sites, supervised and guided by AMPD faculty and staff.
Games and Media
Examines the history of expanded forms of cinematic narrative and interactivity within an intermedial context that includes games, environments and computers. Explores the relation between cinema and games, including non-linear modes of storytelling in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Evaluation Process
Admission to the BFA in Media Arts is based on academic achievement. A portfolio review is not required.
OVERVIEW
Focusing on cinema and media history, theory, criticism, and other media-rich arts such as gaming and social media forms, this BA program prepares students for careers in a world increasingly interconnected through modes of communication and interaction involving moving images. Students develop specialized knowledge of genre, authorship, national and transnational cinemas, moving image technologies, history and cultural theory. They may also pursue field placements in the areas of producing, marketing, the cultural industries, film festivals, media distribution, art galleries and cine magazines.
In the Cinema and Media Studies Program, you will learn about film studies, television and other media rich moving image forms. You will examine cinematic cultures through the lens of history, visual culture, technology, industry, sexuality and race as well as aesthetics. You will learn how to understand cinematic practices and diverse forms of representation from around the world. Our students learn how to carry out research both in the creative fields of Canada’s exciting media landscape and through concrete, close analysis of cinematic and media works.
Students can expect opportunities for placements and internships with organizations such as TIFF and Hot Docs Festival, independent distribution companies, the National Film Board of Canada, the Ontario Art Gallery, film magazines and journals, independent production companies, provincial and national archives, and many more.
Program highlights
Immerse yourself in Cinema & Media Arts at AMPD
Master classes with renowned visiting artists and theorists
Field placements with a broad array of organizations, local film and media festivals
Engaged learning in the areas of producing, marketing, media curating, media journalism and social media production.
As skilled critical thinkers, students learn how to make sense of diverse cultural expressions that define the cinema and media arts landscape
Learn how to carry out high level research that will help you to see, explore and interrogate trends in the media industries
Interesting sample courses
Studies in Genre: Horror
This course investigates the concept of genre through the study of the horror film or television series as a genre crossing distinctive national, institutional and historical categories. The cultural significance and social/historical determinants of the horror film are central to the course as well as the conventions, evolution and iconography of this popular genre.
Studies in the Documentary
This course explores the creative interpretation of actuality in film, from Flaherty to the present day. A study of changing forms, techniques and theories of documentary.
Women and Film I
This course examines the feminist perspective of the ways in which women have been represented in mainstream Hollywood and classical film traditions. Discussion of formative texts of feminist film theory on issues of body representation, the look, the place of women in mainstream narrative, the construction of gendered positions of spectatorship in Hollywood and popular culture.
Evaluation Process
Admission to the BFA in Media Arts is based on academic achievement. A portfolio review is not required.
ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES
Two degrees in one
OVERVIEW
CMA students interested in pursuing a teaching career are invited to consider the Concurrent and Consecutive programs offered by York’s Faculty of Education.
APPLICATION PROCESS
How to apply
STEP
1Choose a program.
- Make note of the deadlines.
- Check to make sure your program is still accepting applications.
- Ensure you’ve met all admission requirements.
- Make sure you have all the required documents.
- Ready to apply? Move to Step 3.
Use this application if:
- You want to apply to degree studies for any session (Ontario high-school students should see their guidance office). Fee Information.
- You’re a mature or university/college applicant (if you’re applying to more than one university). Fee Information.
Apply Now
B. York University ApplicationUse this application if:
- You are a mature, international or university/college transfer applicant (if you’re only applying to York), OR
- You want to take courses as a Visiting Student, OR
- You want to apply to a certificate, OR
- You are currently taking a York pre-University/”Bridging” course or YUELI course
Fees: $120 (non-refundable)
Apply Now
Once you have submitted your application, you will receive an email containing your York reference ID. This email will be sent approximately 5-10 business days after you submit your application. Please complete step 4 once you have your York Reference ID.
Once you have submitted your application, you will receive an email containing your York reference ID. This email will be sent approximately 5-10 business days after you submit your application. Please complete step 4 once you have your York Reference ID.
How do I complete the evaluation process?
- Make sure all your documents arrive before the deadline.
- If you haven’t already, book a tour.
- Check out our public events and performances* taking place throughout the season.
- Check your application status.
- Be prepared to apply for scholarships, awards & bursaries after you’ve been accepted.
- Take a look at info on Financial Aid.
*During the coronavirus pandemic public events on campus have been cancelled.
Have Questions?
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