For the second straight year, The Hollywood Reporter ranked Chapman University's film school one of the 10 best in the country. Finishing high on this year's list of “The Top 25 Film Schools in America” is extra special for the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts because, for the first time, voting was done by industry insiders, including members of the Writers Guild of America West, the American Cinema Editors and the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
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In the rankings available on newsstands (or online) now, Chapman finished at No. 7, between Columbia and Emerson.
7. Chapman University
Chapman's Dodge College of Film & Media Arts in Orange, Calif., boasts alumnus Travis Knox's Chapman Filmed Entertainment, a partnership between the college and private investors. Under the program, producer Knox (The Bucket List) recently wrapped Trigger, a $1.25 million film with Scott Glenn (Training Day) and dozens of Chapman alums, including director Basel Owies. If it makes money, expect to hear lots more about the program's slate of six movies, each budgeted at $1 million or less. Chapman also has such filmmakers in residence as Robert Zemeckis and Bong Joon-Ho, professor Dawn Taubin's annual Women in Film panel, and an advertising/PR program that gets grads jobs–Alex Kirkwood, Fox creative director, domestic theatrical marketing, is just one example. Says recent grad Max Keller: “I have no fear of post-graduation life. I've taken classes from people who used to run the legal department at New Line and Universal, ran marketing and distribution for Miramax, have been nominated for Oscars. I've written, directed, and edited movies. I've been the assistant to the guy who discovered Scorsese and De Niro.” The day after graduation, Keller went to work for Greg Foster, CEO of Imax Entertainment.
► Tuition: $42,890 undergraduate; $33,540 to $41,100 graduate
► Notable Alumni: Actor Ben York Jones (Like Crazy)
Speaking of Jones and Like Crazy, AFI, the school that trained his writing partner, childhood friend in Orange County and the film's director Drake Doremus, came in at No. 2 in the rankings compiled by Hollywood Reporter's Tim Appelo, who had USC at No. 1 and UCLA at No. 4.
“Everyone associated with Chapman is proud to see our film school recognized at this level by The Hollywood Reporter,” says Dodge College Dean Bob Bassett in a statement from the university. “Building quality programs that yield high quality results is a group effort driven by our dedicated faculty who have top-flight industry credentials, the growing reputation of our many alumni working in the business, the excellent work of our talented students and the continuing support of Chapman's administration and our many friends and advisers in Orange County and Hollywood.”
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.