With both entertainment and higher education deeply impacted by the COVID-19 shutdown, top film schools across the U.S. spent the summer break reassessing established curricula. Many programs are moving classes completely online to comply with local and state health restrictions (student films will mostly be shot on cellphones and star family members and roommates). Colleges, universities and conservatories alike are filling in the gaps in their promised programs with Zoom lectures from top talents like Taika Waititi and Spike Lee, and are hoping to hold makeup physical production classes over the spring and summer breaks in 2021, assuming the world returns to relative normality by then.

1. American Film Institute

After much turnover in the dean’s office, Susan Ruskin took over the reins of the famed conservatory just in time for The American Film Institute’s 50th anniversary and a major year of awards and endowments. She replaces Richard Gladstein, Ruskin who stepped in after Jan Schuette left in 2016. The school swept the narrative category at last year’s Student Academy Awards, picking up the gold, silver and bronze honors, and had a similar showing at the DGA Student Awards, winning three of its four eligible categories. Alums and industry professionals note that the grad-student-focused conservatory guarantees students the opportunity to make their own films, with plenty of support. Alum Max Barbakow, whose Sundance feature Palm Springs sold to Neon/Hulu for a record-setting sum in Park City, says the conservatory excels at “empowering young filmmakers to make stuff,” adding that “the opportunity to dive in and make three substantial short films in my first year was undoubtedly the boon of the AFI experience.

2. USC

While most film schools focus on the creative and technical side of filmmaking, few cater to students looking to become execs or producers. USC’s renowned School of Cinematic Arts, which encompasses roughly 1,000 undergraduates and 700 grads, focuses on both disciplines, with a track record to prove it. SCA boasts both Marvel movie director Ryan Coogler and head of Marvel Studios Kevin Feige as alums. In the last school year, SCA established the John H. Mitchell Endowment for the Business of Entertainment chair — William Morris agency alum Bonnie Chi is the inaugural holder — and the school’s Peter Stark producing program celebrated its 40th anniversary with past grads who include UTA co-president David Kramer. 

3. New York University

After an online spring semester of Zoom calls with auteurs like Taika Waititi and Darren Aronofsky, New York University students will partially return to campus this fall with a hybrid approach, and international and L.A. students will have the option to study at one of its global network of campuses. In addition to welcoming Oscar-winning producer Donna Gigliotti (Shakespeare in Love) and nominated sound mixer Tod Maitland (Joker) to its graduate school faculty, its undergrad program has added classes in storytelling with a modern twist (“Aristotle to Beyoncé and Beyond”) and bulked up on its state-of-the-art equipment with new Alexa Mini cameras. Spike Lee, who is a professor at the school, also established a production fund that gives annual grants to student filmmakers, and the newly launched Black Family Film Prize awards $150,000 to grad students whose film projects exemplify innovation in story, style and tone.

4. Columbia University

The Ivy League MFA program, which will start this fall with a mix of online and in-person classes, will also return with a new commitment to diversity, inclusion and safe-space initiatives, focusing on the ways in which racism, privilege and inequity impact its community through facilitated discussion workshops. With programs for screenwriting-directing, creative producing and a growing emphasis on the production side, Columbia has been the starting ground for star alumni like Walt Disney Animation chief creative officer and Frozen writer-director Jennifer Lee, who says she chose the school “because it takes a holistic approach — you write, direct, edit, act and produce before specializing. 

5. UCLA

Amid the box office shutdown, UCLA alum Gina Prince-Bythewood entertained the self-isolating masses with her Netflix feature The Old Guard, which was viewed by 72 million subscribers in its first four weeks, according to the streamer. At 19, the filmmaker was at first rejected from the school but wrote a letter to its then-head, Teri Schwartz. “Two days later, she called me and told me she read my letter and I was in,” says Prince-Bythewood. “She literally changed the trajectory of my life.