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department information

The Cinema Department is located on the Phelan Campus in Cloud Hall, Room 126. The classrooms are Cloud 117, Cloud 127 and Cloud 246. Click here for maps.  The Department Chair is Lidia Szajko.  The Department phone number is:  (415) 239-3652

our mission

Welcome to the Cinema Department at the City College of San Francisco! The classes and workshops here emphasize training in all areas of cinema production. These include new technologies in production, as well as post-production equipment. Film students are also offered classes in the history of film and the aesthetics that support film language. The goals for students enrolled in the film program are:

• Provide documentary, experimental, animation and narrative filmmakers with skills to produce innovative media as they progress toward their career and lifelong goals.
• Provide a filmmaking program for transfer to institutions of higher education.
• Develop a student’s cinematic literacy and ability to analyze the construction and impact of film on society.
• Provide students with an understanding of the historical legacy of classic and contemporary motion pictures.
• Provide students with a comprehensive exposure to the professional film production marketplace.

historical overview

The Cinema Department was started in 1968 as part of the Photography Department. It began with a core group of production classes and later added a film history course. The Department has since expanded its focus, but the core production classes still exist.

The Cinema Department separated from Photography in the early 1990s. This allowed the Department to include film studies courses and introduce digital technology to the curriculum of production and editing courses.

The Cinema Department has two major areas of emphasis: Cinema Studies and Cinema Production. Cinema Studies now includes the Documentary Tradition and American Cinema in addition to Cinema History. The Department’s long-range goals include further expansion in this area to align it with other two and four-year film programs.

The cinema production curriculum offers a strong foundation for students to transfer to a four-year film program.

The most significant change in the Department occurred with the addition of a digital post-production lab. As a result, digital film-editing classes were added to the curriculum and one existing class was updated to include computer-related applications. These courses, in combination with two traditional film-editing courses, create a more comprehensive post-production program, which can now be considered as a third emphasis.

As a result, the Department is considering developing certificates in these three areas: Cinema Studies, Cinema Production and Cinema Post-Production. Animation has been the one major area of the film industry not represented in the Department's curriculum. Classes in this area will be developed to meet the demands of the community, with the goal of offering a fourth certificate in Animation and Special Effects, in the future.