Education in screenwriting at FSU's film school is not an exclusive production, says the school's founding dean Ray Fielding. Now just past it's first decade, the school is stocked with a wealth of professional screenwriting talent in its core faculty. Claudia Johnson's screenwriter colleagues include Timothy Long (Shanghai 1920, Undeclared War), Andy Ruben (Dance of the Damned, Poison Ivy), and Reb Braddock, director of the Graduate Film Conservatory. In 1996, Braddock's thesis film (at FSU), Curdled, was turned into a feature film produced by Quentin Tarantino and released by Miramax. Braddock directed the movie which starred Angela Jones and William Baldwin.

Among the film school's "cast" is Richard Portman, designated as distinguished filmmaker-in–residence. Widely known as one of Hollywood's premiere masters of sound mixing, in 1978 Portman won an Academy Award for Best Sound for The Deer Hunter. He's received another 11 Academy nominations for sound work on such films as The Godfather and On Golden Pond.

Strong faculty in screenwriting and all other aspects of filmmaking have in fact put Florida State's program squarely amid the front ranks of the nation's film schools. The school's 10th anniversary in 1999 saw it ranked No. 3 in public film schools in the country, and solidly in the top 10 of all film programs in–the U.S., period. The young program (which offers both graduate and undergraduate degrees) and its students have won more than 600 prizes, awards, and featured screenings at film festivals, occasionally competing against professional product. And what's the market these days for graduates of good film schools?

"Fantastic," says an ebullient Fielding. Fully 100 percent of the school's graduates are working in the field within a year after graduation, he says.