Program Spotlight 2022: Columbia's M.S. Documentary Specialization

 Do you want to gain the storytelling and technical skills to launch a career as a documentary filmmaker?  Columbia Journalism School's Master of Science Program's Documentary Specialization offers students world‐class training in reporting, visual storytelling, camerawork and editing - leading to the creation of a professional-quality documentary master's project. Please click on the image below to watch our admission webinar in which Professors June Cross and Thor Neureiter talk in-depth about the M.S. Documentary Specialization:








In the M.S. Documentary Specialization, you will learn how to develop sources; find and verify information; use data and develop visual skills. You will learn camera work, sound recording and editing. And you will learn the business side of documentary production – grant writing, negotiations, rights and clearances and how to develop a winning production trailer.

An additional semester – completed during the summer – will allow you to produce and edit your documentary master’s project - which will be a professional-level film. Documentary students generally work in teams and get individual coaching from advisers who are recognized documentary producers. We expect the resulting films to be published: online, on cable or on broadcast.

During the year, you and your classmates will meet some of the world’s most acclaimed documentarians who visit our classes and show their work at our regular series. Recent guests have included Alex Gibney, Stanley Nelson, Sarah Burns, Kirsten Johnson, Nanfu Wang, Matt Heinemann, Josh Oppenheimer and Ezra Edelman. You will also attend select festivals at venues outside of campus.

"I think the biggest thing that I got out of the program was how to think visually and how to think in scenes, and how to convey a story visually, as opposed to in writing.  And I think the documentary specialization at Columbia is a really good program to guide you through the process of making a documentary from conception to the end and distribution. The school teaches you to work at very high industry standards, so when you come out of the program, you not only know how to pitch an idea or a proposal, but you know how to also execute it, you know how to write a grant, to apply for funding, you know how to shoot it, you know how to edit it, and you know how to develop the story."
- Teresa Cebrián Aranda ('21 M.S. Documentary)
- Read our full Q&A with Teresa HERE. 


Recent Awards for M.S. Documentary Master's Projects:


Gabriella Canal (M.S. Documentary '21) and Michael Fearon (M.S. Documentary '21) recently won the 2022 Student Academy Award for their documentary Seasons. Their film was published by The New Yorker, and can be viewed HERE. 




Ingrid Holmquist (M.S. Documentary '18) and Sana Malik (M.S. Documentary '18) won the 2019 British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Student Film Award for their documentary Guanajuato Norte. Their film was published by The New Yorker, and can be viewed HERE. 




Abby Lieberman(M.S. Documentary '18) and Joshua Lucas (M.S. Documentary '18) won a 2019 Student Academy Award for their documentary Something to Say.  Lieberman and Lucas were honored at the 46th Student Academy Awards presentation in 2019.