MSU MFA Program in Science & Natural History Filmmaking

MSU MFA Program In Science & Natural History Filmmaking

Montana State University’s Master of Fine Arts Program in Science & Natural History Filmmaking (SNHF), founded in 2000, continues to be the only MFA program of its kind in the world. Its mission is to take students with backgrounds in science, engineering, and technology and prepare them as filmmakers with the creative and critical skills necessary to produce work that contributes to the public understanding of science. Students in the program come from a wide variety of backgrounds including the physical sciences, the social sciences, engineering, technology, medicine, and law.

The SNHF Program is part of Montana State University’s School of Film and Photography, which also offers undergraduate degrees in filmmaking and photography.

The program trains directors and producers who are familiar with all parts of the movie-making process. Students in the SNHF Program produce works that range from documentary to experimental. Many of these student films have received festival awards, while others have been broadcast in many major venues such as PBS, The Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel, The Science Channel, CNN, 60 Minutes II, CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News. The students have produced films for the National Park Service, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA, and such non-profit organizations including the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Sierra Club, the Audubon Society, and the Nature Conservancy. Student work from the SNHF Program has appeared in major museums, schools, and cultural venues.

Each year, SNHF student films are screened at the Element Film Festival in Bozeman, Montana.

Read more about MSU MFA Program In Science & Natural History Filmmaking:  Selected Awards and Festival Screenings

Famous quotes containing the words program, science, natural, history and/or filmmaking:

    The slogan ‘45 minutes in Havana’ was not coined in the Cuban city, but in a Yankee cigar factory here.
    —Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    The true knowledge or science which exists nowhere but in the mind itself, has no other entity at all besides intelligibility; and therefore whatsoever is clearly intelligible, is absolutely true.
    Ralph J. Cudworth (1617–1688)

    The aim of every political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression.
    —French National Assembly. Declaration of the Rights of Man (drafted and discussed August 1789, published September 1791)

    It would be naive to think that peace and justice can be achieved easily. No set of rules or study of history will automatically resolve the problems.... However, with faith and perseverance,... complex problems in the past have been resolved in our search for justice and peace. They can be resolved in the future, provided, of course, that we can think of five new ways to measure the height of a tall building by using a barometer.
    Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)

    As far as the filmmaking process is concerned, stars are essentially worthless—and absolutely essential.
    William Goldman (b. 1931)