USC School of Cinematic Arts
The University of Southern California's School of Cinema-Television (CNTV) is the oldest film school in the United States, established in 1929 as a joint venture with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
The School’s founding faculties include Douglas Fairbanks, D.W. Griffith, William C. DeMille, Ernst Lubitsch, Irving Thalberg, and Darryl Zanuck. Notable professors include Drew Casper, the Alma and Alfred Hitchcock Professor of American Film, Tomlinson Holman, inventor of THX, and Mark Jonathan Harris, documentary filmmaker.
The program is one of USC's most competitive specialty schools, accepting 150 out of roughly 1000 applicants each year. It is notorious for turning down Steven Spielberg's application for undergraduate studies three times. Ironically, he is now on the school's board of directors, and a Trustee of the University.
Facilities
Film industry companies, friends, and many of the school's famous alumni have joined forces to fund a world-class film and television complex at USC. Their gifts and ongoing support have enabled the School to build some of the top facilities and equipment of any film school anywhere, including:
- the George Lucas Instructional Building
- the Marcia Lucas Post Production Building
- the Steven Spielberg Motion Picture Sound Scoring Stage
- the Harold Lloyd Sound Stage
- the Johnny Carson Sound Stage
- the Robert Zemeckis Center, home of USC's number 1 ranked student television network, Trojan Vision.
- the Eileen Norris Theater
Areas of study
- Business of Entertainment (offered in conjunction with the Marshall School of Business MBA Program)
- Critical Studies
- Division of Animation and Digital Arts (DADA)
- Interactive Media
- Producing
- Production
- Screenwriting
Accomplished CNTV alumni
See also: List of University of Southern California people
- Judd Apatow
- Gregg Araki
- Ben Burtt
- John Carpenter
- Nick Castle
- Caleb Deschanel
- Gary Fleder
- Bob Gale
- Alfred Gough
- Conrad Hall
- Grant Heslov
- Ron Howard
- James Ivory
- Jonathan Ke Quan
- Richard Kelly
- Jon Landau
- Doug Liman
- John Longenecker
- George Lucas
- John Milius
- Miles Millar
- Walter Murch
- Don Murphy
- Woody Omens
- Jay Roach
- Shonda Rhimes
- Gary Rydstrom
- Josh Schwartz
- Bryan Singer
- John Singleton
- Stephen Sommers
- Lee Unkrich
- John Wells
- Robert Zemeckis
- Laura Ziskin
- Nicholas Gyeney
USC Cinema and Academy Awards
Since 1965, not a year has passed without an alumnus being nominated for an Academy Award; and alumni have held key creative or production positions in 8 of the 10 highest grossing movies in history.
As of 2006, producer John Longenecker is the first and only USC Cinema student to receive an Academy Award for a film produced while attending USC Cinema classes -- The Resurrection of Broncho Billy (1970) - best live action short film. Nick Castle was the cinematographer, John Carpenter was the film editor and wrote the original theme music for the picture, and James Rokos was the film director. John Longenecker named the group of talented filmmakers he brought together at USC The Super Crew and each of the four filmmakers made contributions to the story. The lead actor in the film was Johnny Crawford and together with John Longenecker talked executives at Universal Studios into releasing the picture theatrically. It opened on December 25, 1970, at the Mann National theater in Westwood for a one week Academy qualifying run, and played there for fourteen weeks. After winning an Oscar, Universal Studios distributed the short film with their feature movies for the next two years throughout the United States and Canada.