HFPA Grantee

While its campus has existed for over 100 years, LAUSD/USC Media Arts & Engineering Magnet’s transformation into a cinematic arts magnet happened less than five years ago. Affectionately known as USC MAE, this 6^th – 12th-grade school is located just south of downtown Los Angeles in University Park, right across the street from USC. Its students are a diverse, brilliant group of young adults, mostly coming from low-socioeconomic homes from the local neighborhoods. In 2013, USC MAE was awarded a three-year federal Magnet Schools Assistance Program (MSAP) grant. The ultimate goal of the MSAP program is to eliminate the educational gap that is commonly found in low-income, minority schools. Eliminating this gap has long been the goal of USC MAE, and this MSAP grant helped reshape the direction of USC MAE so that its curriculum can better blend artistic expression and storytelling alongside the high-tech skills and technology driving so many industries today. USC MAE’s vision emphasizes 21st-century skills and technology that empower students to become creative problem-solvers and competitive innovators in the workforce.

In less than five years, USC MAE has transformed from a school with merely one cinematic arts course to rotating classes in Acting, Creative Writing, Digital Photography, Media Studies, Film History, Broadcast Journalism, Video Production, Ad Design, Documentary Filmmaking, Cartoon & Animation, Game Design, Music & Technology and Screenwriting. The Media Dept. has formed partnerships with DreamWorks Animation Studios, NBC/Universal, USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, AFI, the L.A. Times, KCRW, the Getty Museum and the Ghetto Film School. It hosts an annual Women in Film panel for its young women and showcases its end-of-the-year Art & Film Festival on USC’s campus. Many of its students have been featured in articles and video news stories in a dozen publications. In 2016, its cinematic arts instructor Matthew Waynee was selected as the National Magnet Teacher of the Year.

Next year, USC MAE will renovate a new studio space to give its students a more professional facility to learn the craft of storytelling and filmmaking. USC MAE strives to prove that a cinematic arts program can succeed in its mission of training the next generation of minority and low-income high school students in the essential skills and knowledge of what it takes to become great directors, animators, cinematographers, editors and sound engineers. Together with the generosity of organizations like HFPA, USC MAE will continue to help change the face of the film industry right here in Los Angeles by empowering these same young adults who now call Los Angeles their home.

To learn more about USC MAE, visit http://32ndstreet-uscmagnet.schoolloop.com/