MFA - Acting for Film

Year One: Acting for Film

Seattle Film Institute’s Undergraduate Acting for Film Concentration provides thorough, rigorous training designed to develop students’ individual talent and provide the tools, experience and discipline necessary for a successful film acting career.

Through an integrated, project-based curriculum, students expand their emotional range and achieve the ability to communicate truthfully within a scene. Over the course of the program, students acquire the real-world experience and professional technique needed to perform at the highest artistic level, while negotiating the technical demands and logistical concerns of a film shoot. 

Concentration Highlights

• Faculty comprised of working professionals
• Students work on a variety of projects in multiple formats (film, HD, digital video)
• Performance showcases with industry professionals.
• Opportunities to network and collaborate with SFI Filmmaking and Producing students
• Acting & Scene Study
• Acting for the Camera
• Improvisation
• Audition Technique
• Script Analysis
• Voice & Speech
• Movement for Actors
• Set Protocol
• The Business of Film Acting
• Students graduate with professional quality head shots, demo reel and resume
• Audition workshops with professional casting directors
• Professional quality projects

Other available MFA concentrations:
Filmmaking | Motion Graphics & Visual FX | Sound Design & Recording Arts | Interdisciplinary Studies

Year Two: Producing

The core curriculum provides all students with an overview of the filmmaking process and focuses on the four major areas of producing: 

•                      Creative elements and the creative team
•                      The business of filmmaking (business, financial and legal)
•                      Management (pre-production, production, and post-production)
•                      Marketing and distribution

The curriculum and the mission of the MFA is to provide students with the knowledge, tools, and practical skills to define and implement career goals and accomplish their creative, business, and entrepreneurial goals with personal and professional integrity.

The MFA in Filmmaking & Producing is ideal for those intending to start their own production companies or work as free-lance filmmakers and provides students the tools and abilities to generate and oversee projects as well as the hands-on production skills needed to implement those projects and see them though to completion.

Program Highlights

• Acquire a wide-ranging skill set that combines the tools and abilities of a filmmaker with those of a producer
• Gain hands-on experience in all aspects of filmmaking including writing, directing, cinematography, and editing
• Work in both film and HD video
• Complete a feature-length screenplay
• Construct a demo-reel of completed projects
• Craft a resume with specific crew positions
• Learn to Initiate, coordinate, supervise all aspects of a film production including creative, business, management, and marketing, distribution and sales
• Learn filmmaking by making films as students work on 10-15 projects during the program
• Obtain a skill-set that is directly applicable to a wide range of career paths involving project development, project management, business planning, financial oversight, and marketing.
• Conceive and develop a feature film proposal from tag line to budget, schedule, business plan and finance and distribution plan.
• Develop your professional network as you stay with the same group of students throughout the cohort based program
• Experience the opportunity and energy of Seattle’s diverse production community as a center for independent filmmaking, software development, web based companies, and hi-tech video gaming
• Gain professional work experience as a participant in the SFI internship program

Filmmaking | Producing | Acting for Film | Motion Graphics & Visual FX | Sound Design & Recording Arts | Film Composition