College of Santa Fe

csf_filmmaker Former Student, 08-May-2010
The restart of the College of Santa Fe's MOV Film Department has been full of missed opportunities, confusion, false promises, big egos and poor leadership. Lots of promises but little delivery. From a famous director as Film Chair to an unknown junior instructor serving as current Chair. Second rate Professors. The school has a rundown facility, not enough equipment to go around and staff is more into decorating the walls than helping students. There are big cool big professional sound stages and they say they are for student use and that movies shooting at Garson Studios would hire students. Well the big cool sound stages were off limits and rented out to movies shooting on campus. Students have to use a old tiny tv studio. Jobs with the movies shooting on campus? Only if your in good with the old lady who rents out the sound stages! It helps to be a girl and a major suckup to her. Lots of promises when I visited trying to decide to come back after the school went broke but honestly it is more screwed up than when it was going broke. Now students are just money coming in and no real plan to get it back to where it was. If I had it all to do over I would not have come back.

Nate Current Student, 24-Oct-2009
I went back to CSF when it opened up, hoping for a new an interesting experience. What I found out is that the reopening was poorly planned. Originally I was unsatisfied with the classes it offered, and coming back, I was more offended than honored. While the teachers are very nice and helpful, the classes themselves seem pointless, and there's no option to take a placement test, so if you're ahead of your game, you'll find yourself bored quickly in the mundane lower level classes. It's more of a matter of skill level and opinion if you want to go to the school. If you like being close to your teacher and you're just starting out in film and know nothing, then CSF is a nice choice, but if you've had 5 or more years of experience prior to college, don't waste your time. Also, if you want to go to a specific branch of film, such as animation or documentary, the choice of classes pre and post closing are disappointing, and you'll have to leave those ideas on the back burner until grad school.

Ndavis0610 Current Student, 10-Jun-2008
The College of Santa Fe is an amazing film school. If you are interested in attending CSF for any other program, I would caution you. CSF has a great film program but many of the other programs do not necessarily live up to MOV. What makes CSF so great is the fact that students are able to gain access to anything they desire IF they are willing to put in the effort. You get what you put into it. While it is easy to get comfortable in Santa Fe and live a laid back lifestyle, it is extremely unwise if you are seriously considering a career in the film industry. No one at CSF is going to force you to do anything, so if you come to our beautiful city to study make sure you have TONS of self-motivation. The professors are simply amazing. At first, I was intimidated by them, however, once I began working with the professors and listening to their lectures I was shock at how knowledgeable they were. Not only that but they are friendly, welcoming and always available outside of class. If you take classes seriously and still have fun with it, the professors will not only be your teachers but you mentors and friends as well. Of course the school has its faults. It is small, the climate is rather arid, and there is little collaboration between departments (unless select students seek it out). The dorms are terrible, but they have their charms. However, if your interest is film, then CSF is a great place to get hands on experience right away. The productions on campus including Legions and Brothers, become regular sights. If you are focused on your school work, which includes animations, sound projects, and other video and film projects (and have a job or other extra-curricular activities) you will probably have little time to devote to such productions. However, if you work hard and stand out with in the department, you might able to work on major film productions! If you don't get selected, there are always lots of other film related activities going on in Santa Fe and on campus. If you are interested in CSF, I would suggest you visit and decided for yourself!

Keira M Former Student, 19-May-2008
I went to the College of Santa Fe for a semester and left the following. I have a very strong background in film production (TV to indie) and I was very impressed by CSF's program on paper. When I got there, I found that their TV studio and huge studio weren't used by the students at all. In fact, big productions such as Brothers come through and rent their studio, and they say that students are hired, but in truth only 2 or 3 were ever actually hired. Their program focuses on teaching filmmakers to be artists and very experimental. Their courses are not that production orienteed and they have a very negative approach to anything "corporate" or "business." Their equipment wasn't the best or even the most recent, and their HD equipment was finicky and there was a constant stream of complaints from the students about dropped frames, missing pixels, and the cameras breaking. They say they use AVID but there's only one class once every year. The classes don't teach you the needed business side of video/film and they skim over most need-to-know technical aspects. There was only one or two fantastic teachers but other then that I found the teachers to be rather vague and uninformed of the newest advances in the field. If you want to be an artist or an experimental filmmaker or perhaps even a documentary filmmaker, then CSF is for you. If you want to have a serious education in production and the newest technology, if you want to do TV or be a videographer or even get into Hollywood, CSF is, in my opinion, a waste of time and money. However, there's no better inspiration for a very artsy filmmaker than in Santa Fe, though, and if anything it was a pleasure to live there and see the beautiful scenery every day. But the school was not what the literature says it was. A big disappointment.

Jake S. Former Student, 05-Dec-2005
The film department here is exactly what you are looking for. If you can handle the culture shock of Santa Fe and being in the bleak desert mountains, you can grow and thrive at this school. They don't just let anybody through so you will have to work hard. The student/teacher ratio is low so you will get pushed hard by people who know what they're talking about. Here you don't learn how to get a career in Film or Television, you learn how to create, how to bring out your voice through images on screen. The only downside to the school is that they don't teach the business side so much. They only allow you to become the best artist that you can be and sort of leave the business for you to fall into. But the business can be learned in a two day seminar anyway.