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:
“First in booze, first in shoes, and last in the American League.”
—Administration in the State of Miss, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“The present war having so long cut off all communication with Great-Britain, we are not able to make a fair estimate of the state of science in that country. The spirit in which she wages war is the only sample before our eyes, and that does not seem the legitimate offspring either of science or of civilization.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“Numerous studies have shown that those adults who feel the most frustrated by children—and the least competent as parents—usually have one thing in common.... They don’t know what behaviors are normal and appropriate for children at different stages of development. This leads them to misinterpret their children’s natural behaviors and to have inappropriate expectations, both for their children and themselves.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“The principal office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.”
—Tacitus (c. 55–c. 120)
“As far as the filmmaking process is concerned, stars are essentially worthless—and absolutely essential.”
—William Goldman (b. 1931)