“Mercury XX,” short film designed and directed by Miriam Kuhlmann, SCI-Arc Fiction & Entertainment 2020
is a one-year, three-semester program during which students work with world-renowned professionals from the entertainment industry to develop expertise in worldbuilding, storytelling, film, animation, visual effects, and video games to build new forms of creative practice.
Our perception of the world is unquestionably determined by the extraordinary shared languages of fiction and entertainment. Through these stories, we exchange ideas and engage with our environment. Fictional worlds have always been sites where we can prototype new scenarios and emerging cultures. They can act as teleportation machines, helping us immerse ourselves in the various consequences of the decisions we face today. They can be both cautionary tales or roadmaps to an aspirational future.
The Master of Science in Fiction and Entertainment at SCI-Arc provides the opportunity for students to learn the techniques of entertainment design and visual storytelling, as well as employ a broad range of digital and narrative tools to imagine, animate, and produce compelling, alternative worlds. Deeply embedded in the entertainment industry of Los Angeles, the program challenges students to develop provocative stories that critically examine the emerging conditions of contemporary life.
Organized as a year-long thesis project, students are encouraged to develop a unique directorial voice and personal body of work that may take the form of a short film, animation, music video, documentary, video game, graphic novel, VR environment, immersive experience, or performance. The Fiction and Entertainment curriculum simultaneously creates space for students to develop their own interests, passions, and agendas while directly focusing on preparation for careers that will continue to propel their professional practice after graduation and help them to transition into their chosen field.
Throughout the year, students are supported by an intense program of workshops, talks, and mentoring sessions led by world-renowned filmmakers, concept artists, screenwriters, and animators from the film and entertainment industry. A critical motivation of the program is helping students to establish a productive network of collaborators and ongoing mentors to help launch them and their work after graduation.
Recent graduates from the program are developing careers in production design, creative direction, video games, visual effects, commercial, music video and TV production, media art, and design research. Projects incubated within Fiction and Entertainment have premiered at festivals such as Sundance, Tribeca, SXSW, Rotterdam, and platforms such as Nowness, VICE, FACT, and many more.
Applications for students and scholarships are now open, and details can be found on .
“,” interactive concept album by Rick Farin, SCI-Arc Fiction & Entertainment 2019
“,” music film directed by Kordae Henry, SCI-Arc Fiction & Entertainment 2018
“,” video game created by Andre Zakhia, SCI-Arc Fiction & Entertainment 2020
“,” VR experience created by Ainslee Alem Robson, SCI-Arc Fiction & Entertainment 2019