Boston-based Emerson College announced plans last month for a permanent Los Angeles campus to house its yearlong film program, after twenty years of renting land in Tinseltown.
The $12 million purchase includes dormitories, classrooms and office space on Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard.
“It made sense to own our own buildings, in the long run,” said Emerson spokesman David Rosen. “We may as well have a building as our little piece of Emerson on the West Coast.”
He said Emerson is still a Boston school but the school hopes to use its new campus to draw on its nearly 3,000 L.A.-based alumni and strengthen its link to Hollywood. The campus would accommodate nearly 125 students, up from the current 95, and give space for students and alumni to meet and network, Rosen said.
In October, the Hollywood Reporter ranked Boston University and Emerson among the top “good investment” film schools in the country. Representatives from both schools’ programs said their students make connections and can use their experience as a bridge to jobs after graduation.
Bill Linsman, BU Los Angeles Internship program director, said students learn film theory in Boston and actual hands-on filmmaking in L.A.
“To get a strong understanding of what happens in the real world, students need to be in [New York City] or L.A., which are the creative headquarters for the majority of filmmaking in the world,” he said.
A group of alumni started BU’s L.A. program six years ago, and it has grown from a dozen students to 65, Linsman said. They have discussed but have no immediate plans to build a permanent L.A. campus, he said.
Emerson sophomore Kelly-Shea Whitehead, who lived in L.A. for six months during a leave of absence from school, said students can make connections with other students or people their age with the same passion.
“The way people are learning is from being on set with their friends and learning the equipment from the older kids who have been there longer,” she said.
Whitehead said she spent time acting in L.A., which she says is “infested” with Emerson kids. Other Emerson kids worked on some of the films in which she acted.
“It’s a huge city, but if I wore an Emerson t-shirt I’d have someone come up to me and be like, ‘Hey, I went to Emerson.'” she said.