Introduction
The Master's of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) in Social Documentation (SocDoc) is an innovative interdisciplinary two-year program in the Film and Digital Media Department (FDM) that trains students to critically analyze, frame, and reflect on contemporary social issues through the art of documentary media. Designed for future documentarians committed to social change and to documenting communities, cultures, issues, and individuals who are marginalized in our current landscape of representation, the SocDoc Program supports students who share a commitment to social justice and human rights and who have a desire to study their subject areas in depth. In a rapidly expanding and changing field, SocDoc invites students to investigate critical social issues through an approach that fuses arts-based, social science and humanities research methods to artful and ethical documentary media practices. We prepare graduates for careers in independent and community media, public broadcasting, media education, human rights work and more.
Objectives
The Social Documentation M.F.A. program aims to train graduate students in critical thinking, social science analysis, arts-based approaches, and ethical standards for engaging with and documenting underrepresented communities. The curriculum concentrates on the analysis of social and structural systems, the creation of a rigorous and ethical approach in the collection and presentation of documentary material, and on the potential role of the documentary in social change.
SocDoc leverages faculty advisors across the campus to provide students with access to interdisciplinary expertise, grounding M.F.A. students in a deep understanding of their research subjects as well as in fluency with documentary production and postproduction techniques. Benefiting from deep faculty experience with media-making, documentary history, and community organizing, students in our program hone documentary approaches suited to their topical interests, ground themselves in social science analysis and research methodologies, and acquire professional skills, while maintaining a commitment to social justice and to communities in need. Central to our ethos is training in critical documentary frameworks, documentary ethics, and modes of community engagement and collaboration.
M.F.A. candidates build a curriculum around a required set of core courses that offer a foundation in the theory, methods, and production practices of social documentary, combined with elective courses in their substantive area of interest. The culminating work in the program is the creation of a creative documentary thesis project, developed in stages across the duration of the two-year degree.
Requirements
Course Requirements
The Social Documentation M.F.A. program offers a required and foundational core curriculum in the theory, history and practice of social documentary. Students work with three faculty advisors to design an individualized course of study that supplements the core curriculum with classes that support the student’s specific project, both in terms of content and technical production. Toward that end, students take elective courses in their area of interest in the social sciences and/or humanities, write and develop a written thesis, and then create a final documentary media project.
A total of 72 credits is required to complete the SocDoc M.F.A. Required courses include seminars on social documentary history; practice, theory, and social science research; and technical instruction on production and post-production processes and techniques. Full-time enrollment is required.
First Year (32 credits):
Students must successfully complete all first-year core courses below, one FILM or SOCD graduate-level production elective, and one interdisciplinary elective related to their project research area. Students must enroll in at least one graduate-level FDM production elective every year. Sometimes, this elective is a production elective with a SocDoc course number (for example SOCD 202 or SOCD 293, which offer instruction in a variety of different media platforms and are taught by a rotating group of instructors), but you may also choose from other graduate electives that have FILM course numbers, so long as the class has a production/making focus. The department regularly offers joint Ph.D. SocDoc making-focused courses with topics that change from year to year. Recent examples of these electives include: The Film/Video Essay (FILM 223), Expanded Documentary (FILM 230), Representing Memory (FILM 227), and Audiovisual Ethnography (FILM 232).
| SOCD 200 | Approaches to Social Documentation | 5 |
| SOCD 201A | Introduction to Documentary Field Production and Editing | 5 |
| SOCD 201B | Advanced Documentary Field Production and Editing | 5 |
| SOCD 201C | Project Planning for the Social Documentary | 5 |
| SOCD 203 | Documentary Research Methods and Social Science Representation | 5 |
| FILM 202 | Pedagogy in Film and Digital Media | 2 |
Second Year (25 credits):
In addition to the courses listed above, students should also complete any film and digital media graduate-level production elective.
Additional Course Requirements
Electives (15 credits)
In addition to the required courses above, 15 credits of electives (offered by departments) are identified individually in consultation with the director of Graduate Studies and faculty advisors. SocDoc students choose elective courses based on their research needs and interests and will be advised to take graduate elective courses offered by their thesis advisors. Students may also elect to take independent studies with their advisors as a form of concentrated study in a specialized area. (Please note that independent studies not may not be used to fulfill elective requirements.)
Summer Field Work
Over the summer students will shoot/document/record the main elements of their documentary. Students should also back up their work over the summer and should be prepared to start the fall with their material cloned, logged, and with transcriptions underway. Students are expected to check in at regular intervals over the summer to share written update posts on a shared platform with cohort-mates and advisors.
Advancing to Candidacy
To satisfy requirements for the M.F.A. degree, a student must complete and pass all of the required first-year courses and electives, assemble a committee of three (or more) advisors, develop a thesis proposal and successfully pass a qualifying examination (QE). The written thesis proposal serves as the basis for the QE. Approval of the written proposal and satisfactory completion of the qualifying examination is a prerequisite for advancement to further coursework or fieldwork on the master’s project. The successful pre-qualifying examination proposal should address the following:
- A detailed description of the subject to be documented
- A creative treatment
- A work plan including budget and timeline
- A preliminary annotated bibliography and filmography/videography of related works
The second year is focused on completion of the final documentary project, required for the M.F.A. degree. This project must reflect original research and creative activity while demonstrating a command of the field or topic of study. With an understanding of budgetary, equipment, and time limitations, students’ projects should reflect a level of quality appropriate for exhibition.
Typically, the thesis expectation is as follows:
Documentary Film/Video: One 20-minute documentary suitable for broadcast and/or festival exhibition. Moving image work must include open captions to make the work accessible for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers. All thesis films must be screened in an end-of-year M.F.A. exhibition screening.
Our core curriculum is oriented around filmmaking skills and the majority of our students create documentary films. Occasionally, SocDoc students have opted to create a social documentation creative project in a different format. There is some precedent for students working in: documentary still photography, audio documentary, animation, web-based/interactive documentary, documentary installation, and documentary performance. It may be possible to work in these and other forms, provided that appropriate advisors and resources can be available to support the project for the duration of the student’s time in the program. The final presentation format for any non-film thesis projects must be determined in consultation with the advisors and director of Graduate Studies.
In addition to the creative thesis component, each student must produce a written thesis document (typically 15-20 pages), which should include an updated description of all the elements first elaborated in the first-year proposal, and should further reflect on the conceptualization, rationale, and methodology of the project in its finished form. A new section of analytical writing, describing the relationship between the documentary project and the field of social documentation, should be added. Bibliographies/mediographies (as appropriate to the discipline and form of the project) should also be revised and updated, in discussion with faculty advisors. The final M.F.A. critique consists of a thesis defense—a presentation and discussion of the student’s thesis work with their advisors.
Final deliverables also include a basic website for the thesis project along with a trailer, a press kit, and other promotional materials. The public presentation of the project will complete graduation requirements. All materials will be filed in digital form and archived for future reference and access. All final projects, in every medium, must be submitted in the formats specified by the director of Graduate Studies.
Applying for Graduation
You must submit an Application for the M.F.A. to your graduate coordinator for review by the end of the second week of the quarter in which you intend to receive the certificate. The graduate coordinator will forward your application to the Graduate Division.
Please see Registration Requirements for all Graduate Degrees for details about registration requirement the quarter you intend to graduate.
For additional forms and information please visit the UC Santa Cruz Graduate Division website.