private college
Private universities and private colleges are institutions of higher education, not operated, owned, or institutionally funded by governments. They may (and often do) receive from governments tax breaks, public student loans, and grants. De ...
in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
,
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the mo ...
. It is one of only 20 film institutions in the United States that have been awarded full membership by the
International Association of Film and Television Schools The International Association of Film and Television Schools (French: ''Centre international de liaison des écoles de cinéma et de télévision'', CILECT) is the association of the world's major film and television schools.Western Association of Schools and Colleges
The Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) was an organization providing accreditation of public and private universities, colleges, secondary and elementary schools in California and Hawaii, the territories of Guam, American S ...
Senior College and University Commission (WSCUC) to offer
Bachelor of Fine Arts
A Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) is a standard undergraduate degree for students for pursuing a professional education in the visual, fine or performing arts. It is also called Bachelor of Visual Arts (BVA) in some cases.
Background
The Bachelor ...
and
associate degree
An associate degree is an undergraduate degree awarded after a course of post-secondary study lasting two to three years. It is a level of qualification above a high school diploma, GED, or matriculation, and below a bachelor's degree.
The ...
programs in cinema, visual effects, and graphic design and interactive media.
History
Columbia College Hollywood was founded in 1952 in the
MacArthur Park
MacArthur Park (originally Westlake Park) is a park dating back to the late 19th century in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles. In the early 1940s, it was renamed after General Douglas MacArthur, and later designated City of Los Angeles H ...
neighborhood of Los Angeles as a branch campus of Columbia College in Chicago. The curriculum focused on the growing television and radio industries. In 1959, Columbia College Hollywood separated from the Chicago institution to operate as an independent, private, non-profit college.
In its early years, Columbia College Hollywood grew alongside the film and television industries, eventually moving from MacArthur Park in 1970 to a larger space on La Brea Ave in central
Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywoo ...
. The college established its current campus in 1997 when it moved into the former headquarters of
Panavision
Panavision is an American motion picture equipment company founded in 1953 specializing in cameras and lenses, based in Woodland Hills, California. Formed by Robert Gottschalk as a small partnership to create anamorphic projection lenses duri ...
in the Tarzana neighborhood of Los Angeles. In 2018, Columbia College Hollywood acquired the former Tribeca Flashpoint College, a creative media school in Chicago, Illinois, which became Columbia College Hollywood's first branch campus, now named Flashpoint Chicago, a campus of Columbia College Hollywood.
Campus
Los Angeles Main Campus
Columbia College Hollywood is located on a 85,000-square-foot campus in the
San Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, California. Located to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it contains a large portion of the City of Los Angeles, as well as unincorporated ...
. The campus is in the city of Los Angeles in the Tarzana neighborhood, which got its name when it was built on land formerly owned by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the creator of
Tarzan
Tarzan (John Clayton II, Viscount Greystoke) is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungle by the Mangani great apes; he later experiences civilization, only to reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adv ...
.
Students and staff have access to on-campus parking and nearby public transportation and railway hubs. The location is near Hollywood film and television studios including Walt Disney Studios, 20th Century Fox Film Studios,
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production and distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldest film studio in the world, the second-olde ...
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Americ ...
.
The Columbia College Hollywood campus features a 96-seat 5.1 channel
surround sound
Surround sound is a technique for enriching the fidelity and depth of sound reproduction by using multiple audio channels from speakers that surround the listener ( surround channels). Its first application was in movie theaters. Prior to s ...
theater for screenings, classes, and events, a 35-seat 7.1 channel surround sound screening room, a
sound stage
A sound stage (also written soundstage) is a soundproof, large structure, building, or room with large doors and high ceilings, used for the production of theatrical film-making and television productions, usually located on a secured movie or ...
, a three-camera HD television stage with a
green screen
Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a visual-effects and post-production technique for compositing (layering) two images or video streams together based on colour hues ( chroma range). The technique has been used in many fields to ...
and control room, a Foley/ADR suite with a sound-isolated booth and control room,
post-production
Post-production is part of the process of filmmaking, video production, audio production, and photography. Post-production includes all stages of production occurring after principal photography or recording individual program segments.
T ...
editing suites, standing sets, an acting studio, writers' rooms, traditional classrooms, and an equipment room with industry standard film, video, and sound equipment. The campus also has a 5,000-square-foot Learning Resource Center that provides students with individual and collaborative study space.
Flashpoint Chicago Campus
The Flashpoint Chicago campus occupies the fifth and sixths floors of the historic Burnham Center building at 28 North Clark Street in the downtown
Chicago Loop
The Loop, one of Chicago's 77 designated community areas, is the central business district of the city and is the main section of Downtown Chicago. Home to Chicago's commercial core, it is the second largest commercial business district in Nort ...
.
The neighborhood is bordered on the north by Chicago's historic theatre district and the Chicago Riverwalk and on the east by
Millennium Park
Millennium Park is a public park located in the Loop community area of Chicago, operated by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs. The park, opened in 2004 and intended to celebrate the third millennium, is a prominent civic center nea ...
and the shoreline of
Lake Michigan
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that ...
.
Flashpoint's campus houses a 52-seat screening room, studio space for filmmaking and recording arts, sound design suites, animation and visual effects labs and an experiential design lab. The
library
A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vi ...
and
learning commons
Learning commons, also known as scholars' commons, information commons or digital commons, are learning spaces, similar to libraries and classrooms that share space for information technology, remote or online education, tutoring, collaboration, co ...
offer study space and print and digital resources.
Flashpoint's film sound stage is located on the campus of Cinespace Studios in Chicago. It is a professional light-and-sound-controlled 10,000-square-foot environment with a three-wall set, an elephant door for drive-up loading and unloading, a 32-foot ceiling height, soundproof padded walls and ceiling, and a leveled floor for track-free dollying.
Academics
Columbia College Hollywood offers undergraduate degree programs focused on digital media arts, including film, graphic design, interactive media, visual effects, digital media production, and recording arts. Students also study liberal arts and sciences, such as the
humanities
Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the ti ...
,
communication
Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inqu ...
,
fine art
In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwork. ...
s, mathematics, natural sciences, and social/behavioral sciences.
The 2019 Los Angeles main campus degree programs include Bachelor of Fine Arts in Cinema, Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design + Interactive Media, Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Effects, and Associate of Fine Arts in Cinema. Online programs include Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design + Interactive Media and Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Effects.
2019 Flashpoint Chicago campus degree programs include Bachelor of Fine Arts in Cinema, Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design + Interactive Media, Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Effects, Associate of Fine Arts in Design + Visual Communication, Associate of Applied Science in Film, Associate of Applied Science in Recording Arts, and Associate of Fine Arts in Visual Effects + Animation. Online programs include Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design + Interactive Media, and Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Effects.
All Bachelor of Fine Arts degree students choose a focus for their studies in an area of interest called an emphasis, including as acting, cinematography, directing,
digital marketing
Digital marketing is the component of marketing that uses the Internet and online based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services. Its development during ...
, and digital modeling.
Faculty
The student-to-teacher ratio at Columbia College Hollywood is 12:1.
Many of the college's instructors are working industry professionals who have won
Emmys
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
,
Golden Globes
The Golden Globe Awards are accolades bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association beginning in January 1944, recognizing excellence in both American and international film and television. Beginning in 2022, there are 105 members of t ...
, and
Academy Awards
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
. Faculty have logged more than 150 feature films and 2,500 hours of television programming, and they have collectively created more than two dozen TV series. Films by faculty have been seen in more than 200 film festivals worldwide, and faculty have authored more than 2,000 articles and reviews, both scholarly and consumer, on film, television, the entertainment industry, and art and design.
Faculty members are also active members of the entertainment industry's most respected professional organizations and guilds, including the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, often pronounced ; also known as simply the Academy or the Motion Picture Academy) is a professional honorary organization with the stated goal of advancing the arts and sciences of motio ...
(AMPAS), the
Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS), also colloquially known as the Television Academy, is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the television industry in the United States. It is a 501(c)(6) non-prof ...
(Emmy), the
Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers
The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) (, rarely ), founded in 1916 as the Society of Motion Picture Engineers or SMPE, is a global professional association of engineers, technologists, and executives working in the ...
Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is the joint efforts of two different US labor unions representing TV and film writers:
* The Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE), headquartered in New York City and affiliated with the AFL–CIO
* The Writers Gui ...
(WGA), the
Directors Guild of America
The Directors Guild of America (DGA) is an entertainment guild that represents the interests of film director, film and television director, television directors in the United States motion picture industry and abroad. Founded as the Screen Dire ...
(DGA), the
Producers Guild of America
The Producers Guild of America (PGA) is a 501(c)(6) trade association representing television producers, film producers and New Media producers in the United States. The PGA's membership includes over 8,000 members of the producing establishment ...
(PGA), the
American Society of Cinematographers
The American Society of Cinematographers (ASC), founded in Hollywood in 1919, is a cultural, educational, and professional organization that is neither a labor union nor a guild. The society was organized to advance the science and art of cinem ...
National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences
The Recording Academy (formally the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences; abbreviated NARAS) is an American learned academy of musicians, producers, recording engineers, and other musical professionals. It is famous for its Grammy Aw ...
(NARAS).
Columbia College Hollywood's adjunct general education faculty members have academic backgrounds in the humanities, natural and social sciences, technology, business, and art.
Notable alumni
Columbia College Hollywood alumni have worked in all areas of the film industry, from hit
television shows
A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed be ...
animated
Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most ani ...