Msc.Directing Cinema and Digital Media

The objective of the Directing Cinema and Digital Media (hereinafter "Directing CDM") post-bachelor programme is the education and development of authors' creative skills in the field of directing audio-visual works. "Audio-visual works" means both feature dramatic works and works referred to as non-fiction or documentary. The core of the programme is filmmaking, but it is approached with the knowledge that the development of the recording technologies and distribution channels for the finished content in the twenty-first century, involving digital technologies in both cases, has greatly contributed to a blurring of the lines, formerly strictly perceived, between works referred to as "films" and works intended for other media - television as well as mostly on-demand and online distribution platforms today.
The programme is focused on obtaining all the requisite theoretical knowledge and hands-on skills related to director's work at all stages of the process of creating an original audio-visual work. This means primarily working on the idea and concept, adapting one's own or somebody else's script, text dramaturgy, image dramaturgy and storyboarding, mise-en-scene concept, sound design, working with actors, audio-visual recording process and creative post-production of the recording. The subjects of the programme include both the actual area of directing feature and non-fiction audio-visual works and the borderline areas of preparing film projects and their post-production, including screenwriting, editing and sound design.
Instruction consists of a hands-on part and a theoretical part. The core of the hands-on instruction, focused around creative workshops (directing tutorials), is developing and shooting individual short dramatic and non-dramatic films (exercises) geared towards the artistic preparation of filmmakers for individual creative work. The objectives are the creative development of the students' talent with an emphasis on the ability of original creation, and the development of knowledge allowing them to make their own author plans reality, i.e., transform them from a verbal form into a dramatic and image form. Emphasis is placed on close communication between the students and the teacher - workshop tutor as well as between the students - workshop participants, and also on collective collaboration between students during the exercises.
The theoretical part - teaching the theory and history of film and audio-visual media - is linked to the hands-on part in many respects and serves for the graduates to be able to understand the principal trends in the cinema, whether past or present, and to be able to perceive their own original work in their context. As such, the theoretical subjects are a means of ensuring that graduates will turn into self-confident authors with developed critical thinking that will allow them to understand audio-visual works in all their artistic, historic and socio-cultural contexts.
During their studies, students will also learn the methodological basics of scholarly work in film history and theory and with the basics of theoretical writing with a view to writing their theses.
Graduates of the Directing CDM Master's programme must demonstrate having mastered hands-on technical skills required for the profession of a film director - for the final exam, they must submit a completed film and a literary screenplay. Both will be critically assessed by a panel involving mostly film and TV screenwriters and directors as well as other film experts and scholars. Every student is approached as an "author", with respect to the specifics of their work and cultural differences.
To successfully graduate, students must also pass an exam in film theory and history to demonstrate that they are able to think about their gained knowledge in context and that they understand the historical development of cinema and the links between the individual theoretical trends and the specific historical eras.

The graduates of the Directing CDM programme have mastered on a professional level all aspects of the work of an audio-visual work director and can independently create an original film in terms of directing, screenwriting and the subsequent processing of the recorded images (post-production). Ar work, they can independently manage a team of colleagues - other film professionals, communicate with the related technical and working fields in practical terms and understand the content of their work. The graduates are conversant with a wide range of terms and facts from cinema history and theory from the beginning to the present time, can understand the connections between the various periods and tendencies in making audio-visual works and in their critical reflection, is able to realise the differences between them and can put their own work in their context. The graduates are capable of their own independent research in film theory and history and of presenting the results of such research in the form of an academic text.
Expert knowledge:
- Graduates are familiar with the current film and TV works and able to put various tendencies in a broader social and philosophic context and express their own opinion on the matter.
- They know technical literature in the field of general film theory and history.
- They know technical literature reflecting the individual parts of the creative process of making an audio-visual work, in particular in terms of screenwriting, directing actors, directing the cinematography, directing mise-en-scene and creative use of montage.
- They can describe the past and current methods of creating audio-visual works, define the current tendencies and approaches to films and audio-visual works in general.
- They can navigate the matters of producing and distributing audio-visual works.
- They can apply scholarly research principles in art and master the basics of writing technical texts.
Expert skills:
- They can explicate the theme and develop it into the form of a story and a dramatic text - screenplay.
- They can analyse both dramatic and other texts and suggest a method for adapting it to the audio-visual form.
- They can work with both analogue and digital film recording technologies.
- They can make audio-visual recordings in the natural environment (on location) and in the studio.
- They can creatively process the obtained audio-visual recordings.
- They master the methods of expression of audio-visual media.
- They master the making and using of the individual audio-visual tools of expression and applying them in the process of creative self-expression.
- They are capable of comprehensive critical thinking, using the knowledge gained as part of the theory instruction as a springboard for application in their own work.
- They are capable of teamwork in preparing and making a work of art.
- They master the production and post-production processes for making audio-visual works.
- They can reflect on their artistic output in writing within a broader context of their own creative careers and social connotations.
General competence:
- They are capable of a constructive creative dialogue.
- They are capable of actively seeking creative solutions to their artistic expression within the scope of available material means.
- They can reflect social reality around them in their work.
- They can integrate their practice in the international artistic and social context.

The programme is intended for the graduates of bachelor's programmes with a focus on audio-visual work.

-Admission is subject to a successful passing of the talent admission test and assessment of talent based on the submitted documents.
-The admission procedure has two rounds.

Detailed admission procedure description:
https://www.famu.cz/en/departments/famu-international-fi/master-studies/directing/

https://www.famu.cz/