When Douglas Fairbanks became the first president of the nascent Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1927, one of his recommendations was that the academy should have a “training school”. As Fairbanks and his enablers reasoned that training in the cinematic arts should be seen as a legitimate academic discipline at major universities, given the same degree considerations as fields like medicine and law. Although cinema studies programs are now widely entrenched in academia, back then it was a novel idea and many universities turned Fairbanks down. But he found tepid acceptance at the University of Southern California that agreed to allow one class, called “Introduction to Photoplay” that debuted in 1929, the same year as the Academy Awards. Determined to make it a success, Fairbanks brought in the biggest industry names of the era to lecture, including Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, William C. DeMille, Ernst Lubitsch, Irving Thalberg, and Darryl Zanuck. From that one class grew a Department of Cinematography (1932) in the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, renamed the Department of Cinema (1940), which led to the establishment of the USC School of Cinema-Television (1983), which was renamed the USC School of Cinematic Arts (2006). .

On September 19, 2006, USC announced that alumnus George Lucas had donated US$175 million to expand the film school with a new 137,000-square-foot (12,700 m) facility. This represented the largest single donation to USC and the largest to any film school in the world. His previous donations resulted in the naming of two buildings in the school's previous complex, opened in 1984, after him and his then-wife Marcia, though Lucas was not fond of the Spanish Colonial Revival architecture used in those buildings. An architectural hobbyist, Lucas laid out the original designs for the project, inspired by the Mediterranean Revival Style that was used in older campus buildings as well as the Los Angeles area. The project also received another $50 million in contributions from Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox and The Walt Disney Company.

In fall 2006, the school, together with the Royal Film Commission of Jordan, created the Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts (RSICA) in Aqaba, Jordan. The first classes were held in 2008, and the first graduating class for the university was in 2010.

The USC School of Cinematic Arts announced it would remove an exhibit devoted to actor and former USC student John Wayne, after months of insistence from a small number of students denouncing the Hollywood star’s views and the portrayal of indigenous Americans in his films. The exhibit has been relocated to the Cinematic Arts library which has many collections for the study of figures whose lives and works are part of society's shared history. These materials are preserved for posterity and made accessible for research and scholarship as will the materials in the Wayne Collection.

The current Chair is Gail Katz, holder of the Mary Pickford Endowed Chair; Vice-Chair is Susan Arnold.

The Division of Cinema & Media Studies (CaMS) is the central hub for film theory at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. The current Chair is Priya Jaikumar. Notable faculty members of the Cinema and Media Studies department include Todd Boyd and Drew Casper. Prior to his 2019 retirement, Casper was the 3rd-highest paid professor in the University of Southern California's history.

The John C. Hench Division of Animation + Digital Arts teaches courses in animation and digital arts. These include classic character animation, 2-D and 3-D storytelling, performance capture, visual effects, motion graphics. The current Chair is Teresa Cheng, who holds the John C. Hench Endowed Division Chair.

The Interactive Media & Games Division focus is on video games. USC has been a pioneer in teaching the foundations of games and interactive media while also moving the field forward with innovative research concepts. Since the start of its rating system in 2009, The Princeton Review has consistently ranked USC as the top school for game design in North America. The Chair at the moment is Danny Bilson.

The Media Arts + Practice Division (MA+P) creates and analyzes media for fields as diverse as business, medicine, education, architecture, law, urban planning, filmmaking. The current co-chairs are Holly Willis and Elizabeth Ramsey.

The USC School of Cinematic Arts offers Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts degrees in Writing for Screen and Television for students who seek professional preparation for a career in screen and television writing. The programs emphasizes small, workshop-style classes. Students attend a variety of guest speaker presentations, take industry internships, are provided with mentors and are taught by professors who are actively working in the entertainment industry. Each fall, 30 undergraduate and 32 graduate writing students are selected to begin the program. The current Chair is David Isaacs.

The Peter Stark Producing Program is a two-year (four semester) full-time graduate program. 24 Peter Stark Program students are enrolled each fall. The curriculum is designed to prepare a select group of students for careers as producers and executives of film, television, and new media. The current Chair is Edward Saxon and Associate Chair is Nina Yang Bongiovi.

The Expanded Animation Research + Practice (XA) MFA program emphasizes creative expression across all platforms. Areas of study include 2D / 3D / real-time animation, motion capture, VR/AR, VFX, cinematic installation, analog techniques, documentary animation, experimental animation, stop motion, writing & story art, science visualization, sound design, and AI & virtual production. XA offers an ever-expanding, flexible and self-directed curriculum, cutting-edge facilities, new technologies, and inspiring guest artists that encourage artistic freedom and experimentation within the animation art form. The current Director is Sheila M. Sofian.

The School of Cinematic Arts also has an active Board of Councilors who help guide the future direction of the School and work with the Dean to ensure the School is properly resourced.

Donations from film and game industry companies, friends, and alumni have enabled the school to build the following facilities:

• School of Cinematic Arts Complex, completed in 2010, which includes:
  • 20th Century Fox soundstage
  • George Lucas and Steven Spielberg Buildings, featuring the Ray Stark Family Theatre, which is equipped for 3D presentation, as well as two digital theatres, the Albert and Dana Broccoli Theatre and Fanny Brice Theatre
  • Marcia Lucas Post-Production Center
  • Marilyn & Jeffrey Katzenberg Center for Animation
  • Sumner Redstone Production Building which contains two stages Redstone 1 and Redstone 2
  • Interactive building (SCI), home of the USC Interactive Media & Games Division, the USC Division of Media Arts and Practice, and several research labs (the Game Innovation Lab, the Mobile and Environmental Media Lab, the Mixed Reality Lab and the Creative Media & Behavioral Health Center, among others)
• Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts, home of Trojan Vision, USC's student television station
• Eileen Norris Cinema Theatre Complex, featuring a 365-seat theatre that also serves as a classroom with USC faculty member and Academy Award winner Tomlinson Holman's THX audiovisual reproduction standard used in film venues worldwide. The Frank Sinatra Hall, dedicated in 2002, houses a public exhibit and collection of extensive memorabilia commemorating Sinatra's life and contributions to American popular culture.
• David L. Wolper Center at Doheny Memorial Library
• Louis B. Mayer Film and Television Study Center at Doheny Memorial Library
• Hugh M. Hefner Moving Image Archive

At the center of the new television complex is a statue of founder Douglas Fairbanks. He is seen holding a fencing foil in one hand and a script in the other to reflect his strong ties with the USC Fencing Club.

• Since 1973, at least one alumnus of SCA has been nominated for an Academy Award annually, totaling 256 nominations and 78 wins.
• Since 1973, at least one SCA alumnus or alumna has been nominated for the Emmy Award annually, totaling 473 nominations and 119 wins.
• The top 17 grossing films of all time have had an SCA graduate in a key creative position.
• The Princeton Review has ranked the Interactive Media and Games Division's video game design program best in North America multiple years in a row.
• Both The Hollywood Reporter and USA Today have ranked SCA the number one film program in the world, with its unmatched facilities, proximity to Hollywood, and numerous industry connections being the primary rationale.
• The current acceptance rate for the USC School of Cinematic Arts is 3%.

• In 1956, producer Wilber T. Blume, a USC Cinema instructor at the time, received an Academy Award for best live action short film for a film he created entitled The Face of Lincoln. Blume also received an Academy Award nomination that year for documentary short.
• In 1968, George Lucas won first prize in the category of Dramatic films at the third National Student Film Festival held at Lincoln Center, New York for his futuristic Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB.
• In 1970, producer John Longenecker received an Academy Award for best live action short film for a film he produced while attending USC Cinema 480 classes as an undergraduate—The Resurrection of Broncho Billy. The film's crew and cast included Nick Castle, cinematographer; John Carpenter, film editor and original music; James Rokos, director; Johnny Crawford, lead actor; and Kristin Nelson, lead actress.
• In 1973, Robert Zemeckis won a Special Jury Award at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences' second annual Student Film Awards presentation for A Field of Honor.
• In 2001, MFA student David Greenspan won the Palme d’Or for short film at the Cannes Film Festival for his student film Bean Cake.
• In 2006, director, co-writer, and producer Ari Sandel received an Academy Award for best live action short film ("West Bank Story") made as a USC Cinema graduate school project.
• In 2009, MFA student Gregg Helvey was nominated for an Academy Award for his MFA thesis film, Kavi.

• In 2019, the crime / thriller film Samir became an official selection for the 2019 Heartland International Film Festival with the help of Warner Bros. Entertainment.

See also List of University of Southern California people

SCA has more than 17,000 alumni. Among the most notable are:

• Glossary of motion picture terms
• The Dirty Dozen (filmmaking), a group of students in the 1960s

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