About

Summer College Filmmaking is a two-week, noncredit intensive at Syracuse University's College of Visual and Performing Arts, open to rising high school sophomores, juniors, seniors, or 2026 graduates. Two identical sessions run in 2026: Session I, July 5–17, and Session II, July 19–31, both Monday–Friday 9 a.m.–4 p.m. with additional evening open lab/screen hours from 7–9 p.m.

Students work through the full filmmaking pipeline — pre-production, production, and post-production — covering script breakdown and production planning, camera and lens fundamentals, lighting for mood and visual storytelling, and editing with an introduction to color correction. Working in small production teams that rotate through key crew roles, students produce original short films of 1–3 minutes, culminating in a mini film festival on the course's final day. Basic film equipment is available to borrow, though students may bring their own camera and laptop (with insurance coverage recommended). Instruction includes both small-group teaching and individual mentoring sessions, and the program explicitly frames itself as demanding: significant work outside scheduled class time — writing, filming, editing — is expected of students who want to finish with a real portfolio piece.

The course is noncredit and graded Pass/Fail; all students who complete it receive a Certificate of Completion and may request a Syracuse University noncredit transcript. It's taught on campus in a residential or commuter format: $4,995 residential, $4,024 commuter for 2026 (rates subject to Board of Trustees approval and change year to year; discounts and scholarships are available separately). Syracuse's film program itself carries some independent weight behind the classroom: The Hollywood Reporter ranked it among its "Top 25 American Film Schools" for a seventh consecutive year in 2023, placing it at No. 19.

This course suits a student who wants a genuine, high-intensity crash course in narrative filmmaking craft — not a passive observation of a film set, but hands-on ownership of a short film from script to final cut, in a program upfront about the discipline it demands. It's a tighter, less expensive commitment than a multi-week immersive like Maine Media's 4-week Film School, making it a better fit for a student sampling filmmaking seriously for the first time than one already deep into a portfolio-building track.