The Wonderful World of Wicked
Taught by Mary McNamara, the class traced Wicked from page to stage to global box office triumph. Students went behind the scenes through interviews with key personnel (yes, SCA alumnus, director Jon Chu showed up!) while covering aesthetic transformations and business challenges spanning the 25 years of Wicked. The course followed the throughline from the allegorical origins of The Wizard of Oz at the dawn of the 20th century to Comcast's marketing "symphony" in the 21st century.

Remodel Reality
Taught by an all-star group of alumni industry pros: Producer and USC alumnus Aaron Kaplan (The Neighborhood, The Chi, Delhi Crime), Trojan Vision Director Adam Everist (Legends of the Hidden Temple, Paradise Run) with frequent guest, SCA alumnus Scott Stone (The Mole, Top Design, Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style). Students didn’t just learn about unscripted television—they had to create and run a show themselves. Titled Frat House Fixer, the show they created had USC frats competing for a makeover for their house. From directing to casting to crew, students took on every production role—developing, pitching, and producing their original reality format from the ground up.

USC NBCUniversal Producing and Directing
Offered by the Summer Program, this course is a hands-on, immersive dive into the entire filmmaking process. Students had an opportunity to dig into visual storytelling, character development, and cinematic expression while honing the collaborative skills needed to work with cast and crew. Once a week, they visited NBCUniversal to be immersed in everything from post- production to production design on the studio lot.

Star Wars Phenomenon
Star Wars has been essential to transformations in entertainment for half a century. From the beginning, it reshaped film production, visual effects, and merchandising. But the mega-franchise did not stop there. The course covered everything it spawned: films, television, animation; VFX, THX, Pixar, and EditDroid; video games, novelizations, toys, and theme parks; fandoms, conventions, and cosplay; the Wookieepedia and the nuking of the Extended Universe; Skywalker Ranch, Skywalker Sound, and even Skywalker Vineyards! Guests came in to discuss the enormity of the Star Wars phenomenon. When SCA alumnus George Lucas himself visited, the School’s 365-seat Eileen Norris Cinema Theatre filled to standing-room-only, with enrolled students, faculty, and staff all eager to hear him reflect on the franchise’s early days. It harkened back to the first film courses at USC, when celebrities like Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford would lecture to packed rooms of mostly non-students.

LYNCH-VERSE: David Lynch’s Cinema and Art
Lynch’s cinema and art, an oeuvre spanning over five decades of film and television, as well as painting, photography, music, music videos, commercials, cartoons, and weather reports, among other media–was the focus of the class. It considered the complex ways in which Lynch’s work produces an aggregate universe, perhaps even a multiverse, that connects seemingly disparate practices. Guests included people who worked with Lynch in cinema and art, including Mary Sweeney, SCA professor and longtime Lynch collaborator.