# Watch current films from students of many Southern California film schools



## Shenan (Apr 15, 2014)

If you live in Southern California, or will be here around the end of April, here's an easy way for you to evaluate several of the film schools in the area by watching the films their students have recently made: from April 24 through May 1, the Newport Beach Film Festival will be happening, and they have a "collegiate showcase", where they ask many of the film schools in the area to provide a handful of their students' films for screening. I presume that the schools try to submit their best films. I think this is a great way to evaluate and compare film schools, because, as they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Who knows what kinds of surprises and revelations you may be in for?

This year, the following schools will be represented, each with anywhere from 4 to 12 short(?) films:

UCLA
USC
Chapman
CSULB
CSUF
Orange Coast College
Saddleback College

The only big omissions that I can think of (from the area) are AFI and CSUN.

General info on the showcase: http://www.newportbeachfilmfest.com/2014/collegiate-showcase/

Schedule (URL says 2013, but it's actually the 2014 schedule): http://newportbeach.festivalgenius.com/2013/schedule/week

By the way, I'm in not associated with the film festival, except that I have a film that will show in one of the schools' showcases. I've never been to the festival before either. I wanted to post this here because I think it's a really good opportunity for anyone who is currently evaluating film schools, and I only really realized this when I looked at it more closely after I was invited to participate. I'm also not sure if it will include undergrad and/or graduate students' films for schools that have both programs, but I'm cross-posting this to both forums here because I think it's still applicable and useful to both.


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## freakyfreddy (Apr 15, 2014)

This is great festival. I just want to mention that LMU and CalArts are other big omissions.


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## Shenan (Apr 15, 2014)

True, Freddy! Also Art Center, and perhaps some of the other CSUs (like LA), and local community colleges (LACC and El Camino come to mind). As far as CalArts and Art Center, maybe they were just beyond an arbitrary radius from Newport Beach that the organizers wanted to stay within?


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