By Olivia Turner | Arts & Life Editor
There’s been a new addition to the department of Film and Digital Media this year: a Master of Fine Arts program.
According to Chris Hansen, chair of the Film and Digital Media department, there was already a two-year Master of Arts program in place, but the department had been wanting to create a three-year Master of Fine Arts program to give students a chance to better develop their craft.
“Two years, in academic terms, goes by really fast,” Hansen said. “Students who are learning film in a two-year academic period don’t have a lot of time to make things and get them all the way done, and then they’re out before they get the chance to make one or two projects.”
Graduate Program Director Dan Shafer said with Hansen and assistant professor Sam Henderson, he created the curriculum for the new program. While the program was still in the works, he said he made very clear to the university that an MFA was necessary for the Film and Digital Media department in order to enhance Baylor’s reputation of excellence.
“A lot of it is just tweaking that needs to be done,” Shafer said of the program itself. “It just lets us see where [the students] are and where we want them to get before their thesis film.”
There are nine students in the program this semester, as it is no easy feat to get into, Shafer said. However, all nine of them have 100% of their program tuition paid for by scholarships within the department. The university also backs them financially to cover the many costs in the creation of their thesis films.
Shafer said the courses in the MFA program teach producing, editing and directing: a workshop which allows for collaboration between students.
“They’re always working on each other’s films, and that gives them a specific time each week to get together and talk about it,” Shafer said.
This workshop is meant to prepare students to make their thesis films, which they shoot during the fall semester of the third year of the program, he said. Then, in the spring semester, they finish up their theses to defend them by the end of March. It’s a series of tight deadlines, Shafer said.
Another class in the program is a course for directing actors in film. The course is taught by Henderson, who is an actor himself and teaches acting classes in the Department of Theatre Arts.
“We thought, well, let’s have a class where we can bring those two things together,” Shafer said. “So he’s a film director in his own right. He’s also a stage actor, and so he can teach about directing actors on screen because he has that perspective of being an actor and a director.”
Hansen said that in addition to directing, the MFA focuses specifically on writing and producing. He also said the MFA, unlike the MA, would give students the chance to take their careers down an educational route if desired, since it is the highest degree one can attain in a fine arts program.
“If you have a terminal degree in your field, you’re qualified to teach at the university level,” Hansen said. “In addition to them being qualified artists, they’re also qualified to teach other artists.”
In turn, the department offers roles to MFA students for assisting and teaching beginner film classes, Hansen said.
Hansen said the goal in having students complete this program is for them to be able to manage a project through every step of the process, from pitching, to solo producing, to handling “the business side” of working in the industry.
When he thinks of what the MFA students will do in the industry, Shafer looks to the future of film.
“I mean, the content creation industry for the streaming services films is very important, and it’s very visible, and it’s also, besides the occasional strike, a growing market, right?” Shafer said. “There’s always this constant need for content.”
