Besides Transcendental Meditation, What Does One Learn with the David Lynch MA in Film?
Want to get David Lynch’s feedback on your filmmaking? Want to get advice from him on how meditation can help you become a better filmmaking? The Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, is hosting its first class of the David Lynch MA in Film and also offers two in-person Q&A sessions and periodic Skype sessions with Lynch.
This year’s admits will head to the school’s Fall Forest Academy on August 19 for their introduction to the school, and Transcendental Mediation. The program sells itself by noting that it helps you “[tap] into an inexhaustible ocean of creativity within yourself–pure consciousness.”
Lynch, who is the mastermind behind TV’s “Twin Peaks” as well as cinematic classics like “Mulholland Dr.” and “Eraserhead,” has also been practicing the Transcendental Meditation technique. And since 2005, he’s focused his energy on the David Lynch Foundation for Consciouness-Based Education and Peace, which “brings the Transcendental Meditation program to some of the world’s most stressed populations.”
The school’s location, the quaint Fairfield, Iowa, is (according to the program’s brochure) dubbed “Peacetown, USA,” and is a “small town with a global vision and a global culture that welcomes high-caliber artists who want to be at the vanguard of change.”
The curriculum starts with the Forest Academy, then moves onto Advanced Narrative, followed by Advanced Screenwriting, Acting for Film, The Frame, and the Field. In January, there’s a Spring Forest Academy, and from February through April, a three-month course will allow the students to work on a larger project. Finally, The Media Market will teach students how to sell their films.
Faculty at the program include Stuart Tanner (“The Mahogany Trail,” “Saving the Disposable Ones”), Gurdy Leete (an author of many Flash guidebooks), and Cullen Thomas (“Change Begins Within,” “Wormtooth Nation”).
The university is named after Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who founded the school in 1973. All students and faculty at Maharishi University of Management practice Transcendental Meditation. And all classes are taught one-at-a-time in blocks, with no other classes competing for students’ attention. There is also a 3 1/2 day break between each block.
Sorry, applications are past due; August 10 was the cut off! Try again next year!
Check out some promotional videos from the school below.
Here’s one that answers the question that’s on everyone’s mind: Why make movies in Fairfield, Iowa?
And in case you want more, here’s a promotional video with some information from one of the school’s undergraduate students:
