# Florida State University Tour Notes



## Layne Inselman (Oct 14, 2014)

Hello all! This is my first post, but I wanted to share with you my tour of Florida State! I'm applying to their MFA in Film Production for Fall 2015. 
This tour was last weekend actually, (Oct. 10). First of all, Tallahassee is gorgeous. It looks so much like an old southern town you'd see in a Civil War period piece that I can't even put it in words. The trees, the moss, the buildings... All lovely. 
It was also HOT. Now, I'm from Oklahoma so I'm no stranger to 100 degree heat, but this was something else. It was 90 degrees but the humidity was so incredibly suffocating that I could barely stand to be outside. And this was in October, mind you. The locals DID say it was rare for it to be that unbearable in October, though. 

Now, as for the school. It's all housed in one huge building that's adjacent to the football stadium. They have lots of facilities (sound stages, editing rooms, mixing rooms, outdoor lots, computer labs, etc.) and they've just upgraded them all too. I was very impressed by the facilities (though I've never toured anywhere else so I can't say that it's better or worse than another school). I didn't get to see all the equipment that they have, but I know they have a lot. In fact, during our tour we stopped by a sound stage that had first-year MFA students practicing with a RED camera on a dolly. We were told that BFA students start small-scale and work up to using those kinds of cameras/equipment, but MFA students dive right into full-scale production, and the time of each film is what progressively gets bigger/longer. Our guide also told us about the equipment trucks that they have to shoot on location. Each truck houses about $250,000 worth of equipment, and they let the students check out trucks to use for their projects. To me, that was incredible. 

The admissions director also told us about how intensely committed students had to be, effectively saying goodbye to friends and family for the duration of the program. 13-hour days during the week, and then weekends are spent working on individual films/projects. It's highly unlikely you could have a job while in an FSU program. He also stressed how collaborative their programs are, and that it be important to be able to work well with groups. (In fact, I'm pretty sure their interview process involves collaborating with the other interviewees that are there the same day as you to "pitch" a selected prompt to the committee... EEK!)

Anywho, I loved FSU and it's absolutely in my top 3. Especially because Oklahomans can get in-state tuition for going to FSU... Big plus! I'm happy to try and answer questions anyone has as well.


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## LISANO (Nov 4, 2014)

thank you so much for the sharing, I am going to apply FSU too together with a few others in California, wish you good luck man


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## Chris W (Dec 16, 2014)

Layne Inselman said:


> The admissions director also told us about how intensely committed students had to be, effectively saying goodbye to friends and family for the duration of the program. 13-hour days during the week, and then weekends are spent working on individual films/projects.



The same could be said for when you start working in the industry. 13+ hour days and doing side projects, pitches, and freebie work on the weekends. I guess it's good preparation for that.  You'll need to have the same level of commitment to make it in the real film industry - not just in school.


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