The USC School of Cinematic Arts is an academic unit of the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles. With a history that dates to the first years of talkies, the school descends from America's first program to confer a college degree in film. Under a name that directly preceded its present one, it became, in the 1980s, an academic unit of its own, within the university. Colloquially "SCA" or "the USC film school," it now has several divisions or programs, which treat artistic or business aspects of the creation of motion pictures and related media.
The George Lucas Instructional Building (top) was demolished in 2009 after the opening of the new Cinematic Arts Complex (bottom).
In 1927, when Douglas Fairbanks became the first president of the nascent Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, one of his recommendations was that the academy have a “training school”. Fairbanks and his enablers reasoned that training in the cinematic arts should be seen as a legitimate academic discipline at major universities and be accorded degree considerations the same as those of fields like medicine and law. Although cinema-studies programs are now widely-entrenched in academia, this was a novel idea, and many universities turned Fairbanks down.
Tepid acceptance of this recommendation by Fairbanks came at the University of Southern California, which agreed to allow one class, called “Introduction to the Photoplay”. This debuted in 1929, the same year as the Academy Awards.[4] Determined to make it a success, Fairbanks brought in the biggest industry names of the era to lecture. These included Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, William C. DeMille, Ernst Lubitsch, Irving Thalberg, and Darryl Zanuck.[5] From that one class grew a Department of Cinematography, established in 1932 in the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. USC became the first American college or university to offer a course of study leading to a bachelor’s degree in cinema.[6]
With university president Rufus von KleinSmid standing at left, Douglas Fairbanks Sr., as 1st President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, delivers the inaugural lecture, Photoplay Appreciation, at the USC film school, February 6, 1929.
In 1940, the department was renamed the Department of Cinema. By the latter 1970s, it was the Division of Cinema-Television, which, in 1983, became an independent academic unit, the USC School of Cinema-Television.[7] This, in 2006, was renamed the USC School of Cinematic Arts.[8]
On September 19, 2006, USC announced that alumnus George Lucas had donated US$175 million to expand the film school with a new 137,000-square-foot (12,700m2) facility. This represented the largest single donation to USC and the largest to any film school in the world.[9] Lucas's previous donations had resulted in the naming of two buildings in the school's previous complex after him and his then-wife Marcia, though Lucas was not fond of the Spanish Colonial Revival architecture used in those buildings. That complex had opened in 1984.[10] For several years before it, the film school was housed in now-forgotten shacks that stood, along with campus tennis courts, between Waite Phillips Hall and Birnkrant Residential College. The site is now occupied by Leavey Library and its reflecting pool, along with the Generations Fountain.
On undated campus map, site of facility that opened in 2009 is marked “Future Home of USC School of Cinematic Arts.” Directly to its east are the buildings of the complex that opened in 1984. Farther east, Leavey Library, which opened in 1994, occupies the site of the tennis courts and film-school shacks of old.On campus map of 1971, tennis courts and the shacks of the old film school stand between Waite Phillips Hall and Birnkrant Residential College. “Cinema” is circled; and arrow points to “Cinema Annex,” which housed the chairman’s office.
In 2020, the School of Cinematic Arts announced it would remove an exhibit devoted to actor and former USC student John Wayne. This was after months of insistence on the part of students who denounced the Hollywood star’s views and the portrayal of indigenous Americans in his films. The exhibit has been relocated to the Cinematic Arts library, which has many collections for the study of figures whose lives and works are part of society's shared history. These materials are preserved for posterity and made accessible for research and scholarship, as will be the materials in the Wayne Collection.[16]
Facilities
The school maintains the following facilities:[17]
School of Cinematic Arts Complex, completed in 2010, which includes:
Eileen Norris Cinema Theatre Complex, featuring a 365-seat theatre that also serves as a classroom with USC faculty member and Academy Award winner Tomlinson Holman's THX audiovisual reproduction standard used in film venues worldwide. The Frank Sinatra Hall, dedicated in 2002, houses a public exhibit and collection of extensive memorabilia commemorating Sinatra's life and contributions to American popular culture.
At the center of the new television complex is a statue of founder Douglas Fairbanks. He is seen holding a fencing foil in one hand and a script in the other to reflect his strong ties with the USC Fencing Club.
Distinctions
The Eileen Norris Cinema Theater, a 340-seat theater that regularly hosts film screenings, lectures, and special events. It was where THX was first developed and installed.
Since 1973, at least one alumnus of SCA has been nominated for an Academy Award annually, totaling 256 nominations and 78 wins.[24]
Since 1973, at least one SCA alumnus or alumna has been nominated for the Emmy Award annually, totaling 473 nominations and 119 wins.[24]
The top 17 grossing films of all time have had an SCA graduate in a key creative position.[24]
The current acceptance rate for the USC School of Cinematic Arts is 3%.[25]
Awards for USC Cinema short films
In 1956, producer Wilber T. Blume, a USC Cinema instructor at the time, received an Academy Award for best live action short film for a film he created entitled The Face of Lincoln. Blume also received an Academy Award nomination that year for documentary short.[26]
In 1973, Robert Zemeckis won a Special Jury Award at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences' second annual Student Film Awards presentation for A Field of Honor.
In 2006, director, co-writer, and producer Ari Sandel received an Academy Award for best live action short film ("West Bank Story") made as a USC Cinema graduate school project.
↑ The New York Times reports the motto as meaning "Reality ends here", but a more direct translation of the Latin approximates as, "The border is the regions of things".
1 2 3 4 USC Cinematic Arts(PDF), University of Southern California, School of Cinematic Arts, 2013, retrieved January 27, 2017
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