Creating Stories for a Changing World

Exploring Creativity: Melding Architecture and Science Fiction Entertainment. Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) offers a year long Masters program that propels students of architecture to look beyond traditional practice and expand their horizons to infinity and beyond.

Students are exposed to a broad cross-section of professionals in film, game development, commercial production, visual effects, and other design industries, while supported to develop a body of work that will help them to transition into their chosen field.

Recent graduates from the program are developing careers in production design, creative direction, video games, visual effects, commercial and TV production, media art, and design research.

We are at an interesting moment where the technologies of filmmaking, visual effects, VR, and video games are collapsing together. The entertainment industry is now focused on building immersive worlds and SCI-Arc is uniquely positioned to train students in these new practices of spatial storytelling. Our students can work on the next Hollywood blockbuster, virtual reality environments, video games, viral videos, or political campaigns. It is urgent to widen the breadth of architecture and design beyond just buildings alone. Liam Young, MS Fiction and Entertainment Coordinator

The MS Fiction and Entertainment Program

The Master of Science program in Fiction and Entertainment is a year-long thesis project completed across three semesters. Students work with world-renowned professionals in the entertainment industry to develop expertise in world-building, storytelling, film, visual effects, and video games to build new forms of creative practice.

SCI-Arc’s MS program in Fiction and Entertainment provides the opportunity for students to learn the techniques of popular media as well as employ a broad range of digital tools to imagine, visualize, and produce alternative worlds. Deeply embedded in the entertainment industry of Los Angeles, SCI-Arc’s Fiction and Entertainment program challenges students to develop provocative narratives that critically examine emerging conditions of contemporary life.

The MS Fiction and Entertainment curriculum simultaneously creates space for students to develop their own interests, passions, and agendas while directly focusing on preparation for careers that will continue to propel their professional practice after graduation.

Each semester the design studio curriculum is supported by a Design Lab course which serves as a platform for supplementary workshops, talks, and mentoring sessions led by world-renowned filmmakers, concept artists, screenwriters, and animators from the film and entertainment industry.

The program draws industry partners and intellectual collaborators from companies such as Framestore, Sundance Institute, Disney Imagineering, Vice Media, Netflix, Digital Domain, and Imaginary Forces.

Enrique Agudo (Fiction and Entertainment ’19)

“Fiction and Entertainment was the stepping stone between what just stayed as an idea and the materialization of what I always wanted to do. I developed technical skills unlike ever in my career in architecture and came to have a precise understanding of an industry that I was too intimidated by to ever consider jumping into. It was a year in which I developed a carefully crafted, deeply researched, design fiction project and executed it to the standards of the VR industry worldwide. After developing the project at SCI-Arc, my work evolved into The Pantheon of Queer Mythology, a short VR film that was selected for Tribeca Film Festival 2020, as well as Geneva Film Festival, Cannes XR Finalist, Strasbourg Film Festival, Fivars VR Film Festival, and many others. It has allowed me to begin working relationships with other filmmakers and developers making VR and be featured in press outlets such as Interview Magazine, 032c, and Vogue Spain. If I could have the resources, the professional input, the creative and technical guidance, and institutional support to develop my work now like I did in my time at the Fiction and Entertainment program at SCI-Arc, I wouldn’t blink twice at the opportunity.”

Instructors and lecturers in the program include:

• Ben West, creative director of Framestore Los Angeles, the Academy Award-winning production company behind the visual effects for films such as Gravity, Blade Runner 2049, and Ghost in the Shell
• Hajnal Molnar-Szakacs, Film Fund Director of the Sundance Institute’s documentary film program
• Christian Lorenz Scheurer, concept artist for blockbuster films including Justice League, Suicide Squad, The Matrix, The Fifth Element, and Dark City
• Andrew Thomas Huang, director known for music video collaborations with artists such as Bjork and FKA twigs
• Ane Crabtree, costume designer for The Handmaid’s Tale and Westworld
• Evan Hill, level designer with Naughty Dog Games
• Sarah Swenson, environment artist at Naughty Dog Games
• Dane Smith, Director of The Third Floor PreVis Studio and Post Production house
• Victor Martinez, concept designer for Blade Runner 2049 and Westworld.
• Alex O’Flinn, editor for The Bad Batch, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, and The Rider
• Justin Trudeau, set designer at Marvel Entertainment
• Patti Podesta, production designer for Memento, American Gods, and Defending Jacob
• Kenric McDowell, director of the Artists + Machine Intelligence program at Google Research
• Doug Olsen, storyboard artist and director for Rick and Morty Hojo Shin, SAG-AFTRA actress whose work has been shown at Sundance Film Festival, SXSW, Traverse City, and NBC
• Geoff Manaugh, author of BLDGBLOG and The New York Times bestseller, A Burglar’s Guide to the City
• Alexandra Holcomb, Director of Development at Platinum Dunes

Ongoing and former guests include the following and many more:

• Ruthie Doyle, program manager of the Sundance Festival New Frontier Lab
• Patrice Vermette, production designer of Arrival, Dune, and Sicario
• Sean Vanaman, games designer and writer for Firewatch and Half Life Alyx
• Jon Carlos, art director of West World
• Samantha Gorman, cofounder of Tenderclaws
• Diana Williams, Executive Vice President of Creative at MWM Universe
• Mike Tucker, interactive director with Magic Leap
• Natalie Sun, director and founder at NextArt
• Memo Akten, media artist
• Joanne Hansen, costume designer for The Expanse
• Kelani Nichole, media art curator and founder of TRANSFER gallery LA

APPLICATIONS are now open:

Graduate Work

Rick Farin (Fiction and Entertainment, ‘19)

EARTH MOTHER SKY FATHER – Kordae Henry (Fiction and Entertainment, ‘18)

Earth Mother Sky Father is a live-action music video that takes place in the year 2030, when the Congo is no longer shipping unrefined rare earth minerals out to sea, but is keeping its wealth onshore and in the ground. The processes and infrastructure of mining have been revalued and ritualized as an important aspect of local culture. This is Afrika’s future through dance—a ceremony for the God of Rare Earth. The ‘music film’ features a performance from acclaimed street dancer Storyboard P playing the part of Woot, an Excavation Programmer and is supported by the sonic sounds and dissonant electro haze of the infamous duo Shabazz Palaces from Sub Pop Records.