sf Art & Film present: The Film Workshop

THE FILM WORKSHOP is offered annualy and is open to all Bay Area students, from late middle school through college. Each year, new students are introduced to the fundamental of professional filmmaking while returning students refine and deepen their skills. The Workshop acts as producer, helping students to build a portfolio of work that will help them get into film schools and develop a foundation of skills that will serve them throughout their careers.
Our sponsors include: The National Endowment for the Arts, The Miranda Lux Foundation, The Kaplan Fund, Macy's Foundation, Gary W. Ross, Guerrino & Daniela DeLuca, Michael Zimmer and a number of private donors.
Our students' films have been accepted into festivals around the country and abroad. Our graduates have gone on to film schools at NYU (Tisch), USC, UCSC, Sarah Lawrence, Bard and San Francisco State. Our program been featured on the cover of Film Arts's RELEASE PRINT, in the George Lucas Educational Foundation's magazine EDUTOPIA and in the San Francisco Chronicle as a primary resource for serious teenage filmmakers in the Bay Area.
The Film Workshop is offered for a nominal fee of $1,500. Students who are interested in the program and show that they are able to fulfil the requirements but cannot pay the fee are eligible for full or partial scholarship. Students accepted into the program will need a digital camera with a manual adjustment option. Scholarship students can arrange to borrow cameras to make their films.
Film Workshop students are urged to attend as many Cine/Club screenings as possible as a way to develop an understanding of film history and to study the techiniques of highly sucessful directors. For the current Cine/Club schedule, please visit www.afcurrent.org We are only interested in students who are genuinely committed to making their films. If a student cannot fulfill the work due, they will be asked to leave the program. Our 2011/12 Film Workshop begins in October. Students interested in taking part should contact Ronald Chase at rchase@chaseartfilm.com.

The Sunday Workshop schedule is quite intense and requires a good deal of focus and energy. Here's a sample schedule: 11am: We watch a film and discuss theme, film techniques, metaphor, etc. Some films scheduled this fall include: 1pm: Lunch. 1:30: Students share location photographs they've taken since the last meeting, which are discussed and critiqued by the group. 2:00: Students discuss new film ideas and workshop scripts with writing mentor Isaiah Dufort. 3:00: We watch student films in progress and everyone gives their feedback. If necessary, time is also put aside for screen tests.
4:00: Coffee Break. 4:20: Students view one of a series of lesson films developed by Ronald Chase. Subjects include: Point of View, Visual Concepts, Montage, Imagery, Symbolism & Metaphor, Music & Sound and Comparisons of Style After each lesson film, students are assigned to make a short film that demonstrates understanding of the technique. Examples of these films can be found in the Films section of this site.
5:30pm: Students share stories about things they have experienced or seen that might be interesting. This helps them develop story telling techniques as well as observation skills. Afterwards: Students are required to send in an assessment of the day where they discuss what they learned and the positives and negatives of the day for them. This helps the student to remember what they’ve learned and it helps our staff identify what is working and what need to be reviewed.