Arthur Gay

I learned about pre-production planning, production, and post-production. I learned a lot about the director's process

I learned so much about the entire production process from screenwriting to editing to festival submissions. This was my favorite film class at Columbia, and I learned with real-world application and exercise. Arthur is a wonderful professor and makes filmmaking approachable yet challenges our creativity.

I learned about how to direct actors and how to film in order to accentuate beats.

Good practice in fictional filmmaking, a lot of empashes in emotional beats which was good, a lot of about pratical experience in field

I learned a lot about blocking and how to transform and design scenes based on the beats of a script

I learned how to shoot emotional beats well through the assignments and detailed notes I received from my professor. In one project, we were tasked with creating a dialogue-free scene that relied solely on visuals to convey emotion. After my first draft, my professor gave me notes pointing out where I cut too quickly or missed the opportunity to linger on a character’s face. His feedback taught me to slow down, to hold shots longer, and to use composition to reflect a character’s inner world. In another assignment, he asked us to reshoot a scene focusing only on eye movement and silence, which helped me understand how much emotion can live in a glance or a pause. His notes always pushed me to refine my instincts—to look beyond what was written and focus on what was felt. That process, assignment after assignment, helped me develop a much more intuitive and sensitive eye for emotional storytelling.

I learnt everything there is to learn about film: from pre-production to production and post-production. I also learnt about the different cinematic techniques, the film industry and what life is like as a filmmaker.

Tons of practical knowledge about fictional filmmaking, including how to make a shot list, floor plan, how to break down a script, how to make motivated edits, cinematic language.

I learned all the basics of narrative fiction filmmaking. I knew very little going into this course and this course covered pretty much all the basics I needed to know to create my own films. You definitely get out of it what you put in. It's a huge subject to cover in one course so the more you pay attention and do work outside of class and talk with the teacher, the more you will get out of it.

This class is definitely worth it if you want to improve your filmmaking skills