ABOUT US: UCLA's Emerging Artists
The UCLA School of Theater, Film & Television encompasses a rich history of emerging artists for the stage and the screen.
Beginning in the 1960’s, UCLA students within the Theater Arts Department could specialize in either Theater or Motion Pictures. Walking around campus fifty years ago, you might have seen student director Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather) and Rob Reiner (A Few Good Men) pouring over storyboards, or cinematographer Dean Cundey (Jurassic Park) setting up a mid-shot, while producers Frank Marshall (The Bourne Trilogy) and Mike Medavoy (Zodiac) labored to pare down the budgets of their thesis films. You may have walked into the television studio and watched Lou Horvitz (Oscar Telecast, Grammy Awards) sitting in the control booth. You may even have seen the likes of Judy Kaye (Mama Mia), John Rubenstein (Children of a Lesser God) or Tom Skerrit (Picket Fences) rehearsing a monologue in the newly designed sculpture garden.
In the 1970’s and 1980’s the re-named Department of Film and Television came under the purview of the College of Fine Arts. Roaming the halls during this period you might have crossed paths with student writers Shane Black (Lethal Weapon), Robert Roy Pool (Armeggedon), and Gloria Katz (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom), mulling over dialogue and fine-tuning sub-plots. Perhaps you would have passed a classroom full of showrunners in the making, young students who went on to create episodes of Cheers, The Simpsons, The X-Files, Alias, Frasier, Everybody Loves Raymond, Sex And The City, The Office and Gossip Girl. If you’d peered into the open doorway of a post-production suite, you would have seen student editors Craig Kitson (8 Mile), and Pietro Scalia (Black Hawk Down) hunched over, hard at work. Or if you visited a soundstage you may have seen Tim Robbins (Shawshank Redemption) getting ready to do a scene with Mariska Hargitay (Law and Order SVU).
In the early 1990’s the College of Fine Arts was restructured into two schools: the School of the Arts, and the School of Theater, Film and Television. Since then, directors Alexander Payne (Sideways) and Catherine Hardwicke (Twilight) have shot their thesis films here, collaborating with their fellow students, perhaps even working off of material provided by the likes of writers such as Lance Dustin Black (Milk) and Laeta Kalogridis (Shutter Island).
The School of Theater, Film & Television aims to provide the highest possible standard of professional training while also encouraging an independent spirit of creative innovation, personal vision, and social responsibility to enlighten, engage and inspire a change for a better world. The UCLA Festival of New Creative Work is your first opportunity to see this philosophy in action.
Please join us for our week long festival of showcases and screenings and experience the future potential of our emerging artists.