News & Culture

What Comic-Con Teaches Writers About Adaptation, Fandom, and Worldbuilding

Every summer, thousands of people wait in line for six hours, put on capes, and scream when a panel moderator says a title out loud before the trailer even starts. It looks like spectacle. It's actually one of the better classrooms in the industry. Comic-Con isn't just about costumes, it's about the mechanics of fandom, adaptation, and worldbuilding, on display in real time, with the audience reacting live and unfiltered. For writers, that's the whole curriculum.

Sony Just Made Its Biggest Bet Yet on Movie Theaters – and It’s Happening Across the Street

Blog, Industry News, Student News

For nearly two years, students walking to campus on Sunset Boulevard have passed a dark marquee and a boarded-up dome. That changes this August, when construction begins on restoring the Cinerama Dome and the former ArcLight Hollywood complex. For Hollywood, it's the return of one of the city's most recognizable theaters.

LAFS Alum and Production Sound Mixer Phillip Bladh Talks Sound of Metal, A24, and Oscar Night

Blog, Alumni News & Interviews

Few people understand the emotional power of sound in film better than Phillip Bladh. Sound of Metal, directed by Darius Marder (The Place Beyond the Pines) and starring Riz Ahmed (Nightcrawler, Jason Bourne, Rogue One) and Olivia Cooke (House of the Dragon, Bates Motel), relied heavily on the expertise of its sound professionals to tell the touching, poignant, and at times sonically imposing story of a heavy-metal drummer going through the life-altering experience of losing his hearing.

Joaquin Phoenix on the set of c'mon c'mon

How Does a Film Get Recognized Into the Criterion Collection?

Blog, Alumni News & Interviews

Today, we are celebrating the induction of select films from director Mike Mills’ body of work into the Criterion Collection as a collection titled I’ll Remind You of Everything, which compiles the director's deeply personal, semi-autobiographical trilogy of films mapping out parent-child relationships, including Beginners, 20th Century Women, and C’mon, C’mon.

Let There Be Sound: An Interview with A-List Sound Mixer Phillip Bladh

Blog, Alumni News & Interviews

For Oscar-winning sound mixer Phillip Bladh, sound has never just been technical — it’s an emotional audio journey for audiences that can make or break a film. Long before winning a Best Sound Academy Award for his groundbreaking work on Sound of Metal, the Los Angeles Film School alumnus was a musician obsessed with microphones, recording equipment, and the invisible ways sound shapes human experience.

Filmmaker Magazine Names The Los Angeles Film School to 2026 Film School Guide

Blog, Accolades, Featured

The Los Angeles Film School is featured in FILMMAKER Magazine's 2026 Film School Guide, marking its fourth straight year among the nation's top film education programs. The recognition runs in the magazine's Summer 2026 issue (No. 135), on newsstands now.

Why Character Is the Engine of Every Great Script

Blog, Articles

You can build the most intricate plot in the world. Elaborate twists, high-concept stakes, jaw-dropping set pieces. You'll still lose your audience by page 20 if there's no character they care about. Character isn't decoration on top of your story. Character is the story. Every great screenplay, from Get Out to Parasite to Spirited Away, works because a specific person with specific desires and contradictions makes choices we can't look away from.

Alumni Spotlight: Sy’Rai Smith Turns Family Legacy Into Her Own Sound

Blog, Alumni News & Interviews

Sy'Rai Smith didn't come to The Los Angeles Film School to follow in anyone's footsteps — but her grandmother made sure she got here anyway. "The reason why I went to school to begin with is because of my grandmother," Sy'Rai says in our new video interview. Sonja Norwood, a veteran talent manager who has taught in LAFS's Entertainment Business program since 2018, kept coming home raving about the school. "She always came back and was like, 'It's so great, I think you should go there.'" Sy'Rai enrolled - and stayed. She's now a double LAFS alumni, graduating summa cum laude with degrees in Entertainment Business.

From Bedroom Beats to Professional Tracks: How Music Production Has Changed

Blog, Articles

There was a time when making a record meant booking studio time, hiring engineers, and spending money you might not have on equipment you'd never own. That time is over. Today, some of the most compelling music in the world gets made in spare bedrooms, apartment closets, and converted garages — by independent artists with laptops, studio monitors, and a vision. If you're serious about building a career in music production, understanding that shift is your foundation.

What Streaming Has Changed About Writing for Film and TV

Blog, Articles

The rulebook for screenwriters didn't get thrown out when streaming arrived. It got rewritten — faster, looser, and with a lot more pages. If you're studying writing for film and TV right now, you're entering an industry that looks radically different from the one that produced Breaking Bad, let alone Seinfeld. The shift touches what audiences expect, what formats are viable, and what skills separate a working writer from a great one. Understanding how streaming changed the game isn't optional background knowledge. It's the foundation of your craft.

What Comic-Con Teaches Writers About Adaptation, Fandom, and Worldbuilding

Sony Just Made Its Biggest Bet Yet on Movie Theaters – and It’s Happening Across the Street

LAFS Alum and Production Sound Mixer Phillip Bladh Talks Sound of Metal, A24, and Oscar Night

How Does a Film Get Recognized Into the Criterion Collection?

Let There Be Sound: An Interview with A-List Sound Mixer Phillip Bladh

Filmmaker Magazine Names The Los Angeles Film School to 2026 Film School Guide

Why Character Is the Engine of Every Great Script

Alumni Spotlight: Sy’Rai Smith Turns Family Legacy Into Her Own Sound

From Bedroom Beats to Professional Tracks: How Music Production Has Changed

What Streaming Has Changed About Writing for Film and TV

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