Education
Professor of Film and Television
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A Professor of Film and Television teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in film theory, production, screenwriting, and media studies while maintaining an active creative or scholarly practice. At research universities, the role combines teaching with peer-reviewed publication or festival-recognized production work; at teaching-focused institutions, the balance shifts heavily toward instruction and mentorship. Most tenure-track positions require an MFA or PhD and demonstrated professional or academic accomplishment in the field.
Role at a glance
- Typical education
- MFA in Film Production or PhD in Film/Media Studies
- Typical experience
- 3-5 years in non-permanent/adjunct roles prior to tenure-track
- Key certifications
- None typically required
- Top employer types
- Research universities, teaching-focused four-year institutions, private film schools
- Growth outlook
- Contracting market; reduced tenure-track lines due to enrollment pressures and budget cuts
- AI impact (through 2030)
- Mixed — AI production tools may reduce the labor intensity of teaching production, potentially decreasing the demand for studio-hours and faculty positions.
Duties and responsibilities
- Design and teach undergraduate and graduate courses in film theory, production, screenwriting, and television studies
- Develop syllabi grounded in current scholarship and industry practice, updating assigned texts and case studies each term
- Supervise student thesis films, MFA capstone projects, and independent study work from concept through final cut
- Maintain an active scholarly or creative practice — publishing peer-reviewed articles, completing festival films, or producing professional work
- Advise students on academic progress, career paths, internship applications, and industry networking strategies
- Participate in departmental curriculum committees, faculty governance, and program review processes
- Evaluate student work through written feedback, juried screenings, and portfolio assessments aligned with learning outcomes
- Collaborate with production staff to schedule studio, camera, and editing resources for student productions
- Recruit prospective students at open houses, portfolio review days, and industry events on behalf of the program
- Stay current with emerging distribution platforms, production technologies, and media industry developments to inform course content
Overview
A Professor of Film and Television occupies one of the more complex faculty roles in higher education: the job requires genuine standing in a field that operates across academia, industry, and art simultaneously. Teaching courses on narrative structure or cinematography is only part of it. The position also demands that faculty know what's actually happening in production and distribution right now — not what was happening when they finished their degree.
At a research university, a week in the life looks something like this: two course meetings (a graduate seminar on documentary theory, an undergraduate production workshop), two or three thesis meetings with MFA students in varying stages of their capstone projects, a few hours reading submissions for a journal where the faculty member serves on the editorial board, and an afternoon in the edit suite finishing a cut of a short documentary due at a regional festival. Somewhere in that week are department committee meetings, advising appointments, and email that never stops.
At a teaching-focused four-year institution, the balance shifts: four courses per semester is common, thesis supervision is lighter or nonexistent, and the scholarship expectation may be satisfied by professional development work rather than peer-reviewed publication. The contact hours with students are significantly higher, and the advising relationships are often more sustained.
Production faculty and film studies faculty operate in the same department but with meaningfully different daily rhythms. Production faculty spend time in studios, on location, troubleshooting equipment, and reviewing rough cuts. Film studies faculty spend more time in archives, at conferences, and in the library. Both are expected to be intellectually serious about the medium and to model the professional behaviors they're asking students to develop.
The stakes of the advising relationship are real. Film and television programs attract students who have made expensive, high-stakes decisions to pursue careers in a notoriously difficult industry. Faculty who give honest, specific guidance about the industry — not just enthusiastic encouragement — serve their students better than those who treat every student's dream as equally achievable on the same timeline.
Qualifications
Terminal degree (required for tenure-track positions):
- MFA in Film Production, Screenwriting, Documentary, or related discipline (for production-focused hires)
- PhD in Film Studies, Media Studies, Cinema and Media Arts, or Comparative Literature with film specialization (for theory/history hires)
- Some programs distinguish between "professor of practice" positions for industry professionals and academic faculty lines
Creative/scholarly record:
- Feature or documentary film with verifiable distribution, broadcast, or A-list festival screenings (Sundance, TIFF, Tribeca, SXSW)
- Peer-reviewed monograph or articles in Cinema Journal, Film Quarterly, Screen, Journal of Film and Video
- Television writing credits (produced episodes, not just development deals) carry weight at programs with television tracks
- Grants from NEA, IDA, or Sundance Documentary Fund signal peer-recognition in documentary contexts
Teaching experience:
- Graduate teaching assistantships and adjunct experience are baseline expectations
- Evidence of course design and curriculum development strengthens applications
- Mentored student work that received external recognition (festival selections, grants) stands out
Technical fluency (production faculty):
- Cinematography: ARRI, RED, Sony FX series; exposure, lens, and lighting fundamentals
- Post-production: Avid Media Composer, Adobe Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, Pro Tools
- Virtual production: Unreal Engine LED volume workflows increasingly expected at well-resourced programs
- Sound: location recording, dialogue editing, mix fundamentals
Industry connections:
- Working relationships with distributors, showrunners, cinematographers, or agents that can be mobilized for guest lectures, internship placements, and student networking
- Membership in WGA, DGA, or ASC signals professional standing where applicable
Soft skills:
- Ability to deliver critical creative feedback without crushing student motivation
- Comfort managing high-stakes thesis productions with limited budgets and first-time producers
Career outlook
The academic job market for film and television faculty has been contracting for over a decade, and the trend has not reversed. Enrollment pressures, budget cuts at regional state universities, and the ongoing adjunctification of instruction have reduced the number of new tenure-track lines opened each year relative to the number of qualified applicants entering the market.
The numbers are sobering. The Society for Cinema and Media Studies job board typically lists 40–70 tenure-track film and media positions in a given hiring cycle across all of North America. The pool of active candidates — people who finished PhDs or MFAs in the last five years and are still pursuing academic positions — is a multiple of that. For every tenure-track hire, there are several visiting positions, postdocs, and lecturer roles that absorb candidates who haven't landed permanent work yet.
That said, some pockets of the market are more favorable. Programs building out television production tracks — particularly those with industry partnerships in Los Angeles or New York — are hiring and struggling to find faculty with both pedagogical experience and current industry credits. Documentary programs with social-impact or journalism adjacency are expanding at some institutions due to donor interest. Institutions adding virtual production facilities (LED volume stages, Unreal Engine courses) face a genuine shortage of faculty qualified to teach that curriculum.
The compensation picture at research universities is more competitive than it was 15 years ago, particularly for candidates with production credits that improve a program's external reputation. Several private film schools and major state university film programs have offered $90K–$110K packages for assistant professors with strong festival records, recognizing that competition from industry is real — a working cinematographer or showrunner needs a compelling reason to take an academic salary.
For candidates seriously pursuing this path, the practical advice is consistent: maintain a production practice or publication record throughout the postdoctoral or adjunct years, be geographically flexible, and treat visiting positions as genuine opportunities to build a teaching portfolio rather than as consolation prizes. Many successful tenure-track faculty spent 3–5 years in non-permanent positions before landing their current role.
The longer-term outlook depends partly on whether online and hybrid program expansion continues to eat into residential enrollment at smaller institutions, and partly on whether AI production tools reduce the labor intensity of teaching production — and therefore the number of studio-hours, equipment resources, and faculty positions programs need to maintain. Neither trend is favorable in aggregate, but neither eliminates the field.
Sample cover letter
Dear Search Committee,
I'm writing to apply for the tenure-track Assistant Professor of Film and Television position at [University]. I completed my MFA in Film Production at [Program] in 2020 and have spent the past four years teaching production at [Institution] as a visiting assistant professor while maintaining an active documentary practice.
My teaching centers on directing and documentary production at both the introductory and advanced levels. I've developed a third-year documentary workshop that moves students from research through a rough cut in a single semester — a sequence I revised significantly last year to integrate AI-assisted transcription and rough assembly tools, which freed up workshop time for the craft questions those tools can't address: interview ethics, structural argument, and the relationship between filmmaker and subject.
On the production side, my feature documentary [Title] had its world premiere at [Festival] in 2023 and was acquired by [Distributor/Platform]. I'm currently in post-production on a medium-length project about [subject], supported by an IDA Enterprise Documentary Fund grant. These projects give me current material to bring into the classroom and maintain the industry relationships — with editors, sound designers, and distributors — that I draw on for student mentorship and placement.
I'm particularly interested in [University]'s program because of your graduate track's emphasis on socially engaged documentary and your existing partnerships with [Organization]. I believe my production background and the curriculum I've developed at [Institution] would contribute directly to what you're building.
I've attached my CV, teaching portfolio, and three letters of recommendation. I'd welcome the opportunity to speak with the committee.
Thank you for your consideration.
[Your Name]
Frequently asked questions
- Do you need an MFA or a PhD to become a Professor of Film and Television?
- It depends on the institution and the specific position. Production-focused roles — directing, cinematography, screenwriting — typically require an MFA and a body of professional or festival-recognized work. Film studies and media theory positions at research universities almost always require a PhD. Some highly credentialed industry professionals are hired at the lecturer or professor of practice level without a terminal degree, but tenure-track hiring committees expect the degree.
- How competitive is the tenure-track job market in film and television?
- Very competitive. A single tenure-track posting at a research university routinely draws 150–300 applicants. The pool is smaller for production-heavy positions requiring specific technical expertise, but still competitive. Most new PhDs and MFAs spend several years in adjunct, visiting, or postdoctoral positions before landing tenure-track work, if they do at all.
- What does maintaining a creative or scholarly practice mean practically?
- For production faculty, it means continuing to make films, TV pilots, or documentary work that receives professional distribution, festival screenings, or industry recognition — not just classroom exercises. For film studies faculty, it means publishing in journals like Cinema Journal, Screen, or Film Quarterly and presenting at SCMS or SXSW academic tracks. Tenure review committees expect a sustained record, not a single pre-hire accomplishment.
- How is AI and digital technology changing what professors teach in film and TV programs?
- AI-assisted editing, scriptwriting tools, and synthetic media are now active topics in production and screenwriting courses — both as craft tools and as ethical and industrial questions. Faculty are revising production curricula to address AI-generated imagery, virtual production workflows using Unreal Engine LED volumes, and the economics of streaming platforms reshaping career paths for graduating students. Programs that haven't updated their curriculum since 2020 are visibly behind.
- Is there a meaningful difference between a film professor at a liberal arts college versus a dedicated film school?
- Yes. At a liberal arts college, film courses often sit within a broader media studies or communications department; teaching loads are higher (typically 3-3 or 3-2) and students range widely in production ambition. At a dedicated film school or conservatory, students are pre-selected for production commitment, equipment and studio resources are heavier, and faculty are expected to have current industry relationships. Compensation and job security differ, but neither path is obviously superior for career satisfaction.
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