School of Visual Arts > Undergraduate > Film and Video

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Two-Part Essay
A portfolio is not required of film and video applicants. Instead, applicants are required to submit a two-part essay.

Part One
In the first part, applicants must describe an imaginative story or significant real-life event in 500 words or less. This essay should be told as a short story with a plot, including a clear beginning, middle and end.

Part Two
In the second part, applicants must adapt the story from part one into cinematic terms using 1,000 words or less. By retelling the same story in these terms, the applicant is encouraged to be very visually descriptive, using camera cues/angles and dialogue. By controlling these elements, the applicant as filmmaker must engage the reader, communicate the significance behind the event or story, and take the reader someplace the filmmaker feels is worth the ride.

The essays are not meant to be scripts or screenplays. The admissions review will focus on an applicant's storytelling ability and how successfully images, ideas and plot are communicated.

The essays should be double-spaced and neatly printed or typed and each page numbered and labeled with the applicants name.

Film and Video Work
Film and video work is not required but may be submitted. It is likely that not more than two minutes of film, video, or digital work will be reviewed. As such, this work should be submitted cued to the appropriate starting point. A written description of the applicant's role in the work should also be included.

Film and video work cannot take the place of the two-part essay.



			Simona Migliotti Auerbach
		After years of working in the movie business, I began to understand the necessity and the importance of sharing my knowledge of and experience with film production design. When I was a student at the National Film School in Rome, Italy, I had the good fortune to meet and learn from such directors as Akira Kurosawa and Bernardo Bertolucci, the production designer Mario Garbuglia and costume designer Piero Tosi (both of whom worked on Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard) and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now and The Last Emperor). These inspirational professionals encouraged me to strive to always do better. I also realized how important it is to share a dream and a passion with other filmmakers. My hope is to create an awareness of the art and craft of film production design and to provide technical and aesthetic guidance to the students at SVA. A knowledge of production design and of the production designer’s contribution to the filmmaking process is of paramount importance for all filmmakers to achieve their vision.