Film Schools as Pre-Industry: Fostering Creative Collaboration and Equity in Media Production Programs

Abstract

Since the 1970s, the percentage of students in the United States majoring in film and media has increased almost 300 percent, a number ten times more than the overall increase in college degrees. Media production as practiced in university settings is generally more equitable than the media industries, but that does not mean that these pre-industry spaces exist without deep-seated biases, power dynamics, and privileges. This article identifies challenges and opportunities facing media production education around issues of equity and access. The author argues that these pre-industry programs are uniquely positioned to educate the next generation of media makers about creative collaboration across differences and challenge the industry's status quo. The author posits four interventions to make media education more equitable and offers a case study of a pedagogical intervention, Room at the Top, a massively multiplayer card game that addresses bias and power in creative collaboration.