Education Committee
Mr Alain Brenas (Director)
Mr Ghassan Koteit (Director of the cinema department)
Dr. Danielle Davie
Mr Ghassan Salhab
Mission Statement
This Master’s degree aims at training directors who can create, write, produce and carry out the postproduction of an audio-visual work.
Striving for excellence, our objective is to encourage creativity, resourcefulness and research while giving the young director a technical and artistic basis.
Teachers and professionals, Lebanese as well as foreigners, use educational methods that integrate the technical, economic, and artistic development.
The major part of the training is given through intensive projects or seminars. This method helps student focus on a definite problem or theme and thus have in-depth exchanges with the supervisors.
Aside from the lectures and the research and creation projects, the student has to design and successfully complete a number directing exercises, shorts, or documentaries.
We are always on the lookout for all economic, technical or artistic advancements in the world to reassess our programs and integrate the changes to our practices. To do so, we have partnerships with institutions abroad, have foreign contributors lead seminars and workshops, and take part in transnational projects in festivals and colloquiums.
Learning Objectives:
- Strive towards excellence to prepare our students to go into professional life
- Develop creativity through research and analysis
- Develop the critical thinking of our students. Help them keep a constant questioning of the world around us.
- Develop the students’ creative minds, determination and curiosity; help them become team players, with a sense of leadership
- Develop the students’ abilities to write and direct films (works of fiction and documentaries) through a series of individual projects throughout the curriculum
- Enhance the command of visual and cinematographic means of expression; sharpen the eye of the director (notes of intent, references, choices)
- Make the most of all technical aspects of the audio-visual production to express their ideas (sound, compositing, image)
- Students should be able to organize and manage teamwork, communicate with all partners, and manage a shooting. They should know how to defend and support original and innovative ideas.
Learning Outcomes
Upon graduating, students will:
- Master the film language and develop an original and personal approach
- Master the principles of scenario writing and have personal world view
- Express ideas through images and sound
- Master cast directing
- Be able to analyze and to critically examine an audio-visual work
- Be able to carry out a specific research on a subject and offer their conclusions
- Have acquired an in-depth history of the cinema and of the arts
- Master the different techniques of image, sound, compositing and film editing
- Be able to defend his/her work through a well-argued presentation
- Know how to organize the different steps of the production and divide the work among the members of the team.
- Be a good team leader and communicator, giving clear demands and seeking creativity from others as well as from his/herself
- Develop an analytic approach to problems, but also a synthetic and reflexive approach to the world. This will inspire them in their creative work.
- Know the market and its needs and be ready to go into the professional life
Final Project:
Research paper
Choice and methodology (semester 2)
- Students must choose a subject of memory.
- The final choice of subject will be established and delivered for approval in writing.
- The thesis should be in the form of a document of 30 to 40 pages.
- The work related to the thesis will be as follows:
A research phase giving rise to a methodological and professional framework (7 weeks):
- The methodological framework (3 weeks) will take place in the premises of Alba in the presence of a professor.
- Choice of topics and justification (semester 3)
At the beginning of the semester, candidates must present synopses of the four subjects (2 per option) in front of a school jury: short film of 10 to 20 minutes, documentary of 20 minutes, commercial of 30 seconds, free subject of 3 to 5 minutes.
Preliminary draft of the 2 selected subjects (semester 3)
-Writing of the script: 7 weeks.
-Pre-production file (scenario, technical cutting, storyboard, budget, casting, location, decor and accessories): 7 weeks.
Evaluation of the Preliminary Draft
- The evaluation of the preliminary projects is done by a school jury.
- A mark of 12/20 is required for credit validation.
Diploma project: completion and post-production (semester 4, 13 weeks):
- Team shootings of the two selected topics:
10 days for short fiction or documentary.
3 days for the free subject or the commercial.
- Postproduction:
15 days for short fiction or documentary (image editing, sound editing and mixing, generic and subtitling).
5 days for the commercial or the free subject.
Remarks
- The shooting is done with the material of the School of Cinema of Alba.
- 3 days before the start of the shooting, the students must submit: the work plan, the list of actors, the list of equipment, the discharges signed by the director and the actors, the necessary legal authorizations (filming permit, etc.). ).
- The control of the students' work will be done during screenings and during visits on the shoots:
The first viewing will take place on the 3rd day of shooting and the second 3 days before the end of the shoot.
The presence of the student watching is mandatory.
During screenings, the student must submit to the administration the script reports of his shooting.
Evaluation
The jury for master's projects, composed of Alba teachers and professionals, is chaired by the delegate of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education.
An average of at least 12/20 is required for credit validation.