Film & Digital Media

Messiah's concentration in film and digital media focuses on developing gifted filmmakers and industry professionals by grounding them in aesthetics, theory, history, writing and production skills. We believe strongly that our faculty should be practitioners as well as scholars. As a result, each of our faculty has significant industry training and experience and continues to be active in production and scholarship.

Parmer Cinema, our screening facility, features Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound as well as 16/35 mm and digital media projection facilities. It seats 134 and is comparable to a film studio screening room. Besides our courses in film and digital media studies, we also offer production skills courses in digital editing, 16mm film production, cinematography, basic directing and screenwriting.

Through our relationship with Temple University in Philadelphia, students take courses in film and digital media through Temple's Department of Film and Media Arts. Students may spend up to four semesters at Messiah's Philadelphia campus, just across the street from Temple.

All film students are required to complete 6 credits of internships working with film and digital media in a film industry setting. One way they can do this is to complete an internship in Hollywood with a major film studio such as Sony, Warner Brothers, Universal or Paramount through our relationship with the Temple University Los Angeles Internship Center. Students usually take this internship for 8-9 weeks during the summer. Students may also fulfill this requirement by doing their internship in another city such as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia or Toronto.

At Messiah, we offer a unique way of studying film and digital media. Our approach is distinctively Christian. It is also very personal. We model our program on the workshop approach used in Europe, rather than the factory approach used at many American film schools. We seek to mentor our students over the course of four years so that they can develop a deep understanding of this area while also benefiting from Messiah's strong liberal arts grounding.

If you are interested in learning more about our program, we would appreciate the opportunity to discuss all Messiah has to offer, as well as your interests and sense of calling as it relates to film and media. We would also enjoy the opportunity to show you our facilities and introduce you to our faculty and students. Feel free to call 717-766-2511 extension 7063 for more information.