James Franco Creates College Course about Himself

These days, it appears that James Franco is a tad ubiquitous. Receiving a best actor nomination for his performance in 127 Hours, co-hosting the Academy Awards with Anne Hathaway on February 27th, the face of Hugo Boss et al. Now Franco has partnered with Columbia College Hollywood, based in Tarzana, Calif., to offer a 12-student editing class where a half-hour documentary will be created using footage from his film career.

The course was detailed in a press release issued yesterday:

“Academy Award-nominated actor James Franco has partnered with Columbia College Hollywood to offer an innovative course through which 12 of the private film school’s best editing students will create a 30 minute documentary film from videographic footage from Mr. Franco’s own unorthodox career. Mr. Franco’s frequent collaborator editor and Tyler Danna is teaching the course, which has been entitled Master Class: Editing James Franco…with James Franco. Mr. Franco is providing the footage - much of it from behind the scenes on short films he has directed - and the conception for the course and will speak to the students weekly via live feed (Skype) and attend class the weekly class sessions when his schedule allows. The student editors will seek to create a cinematic image of James Franco through the footage. […] Master Class: Editing James Franco…with James Franco meets on Thursday afternoons weekly. As conceived by Mr. Franco and Mr. Danna, the class sessions themselves will be taped and be part of the final film created by the class or another project. There is the potential to carry the class forward with 12 different editors in the spring quarter and beyond as the film project continues.”

Franco received a MFA from Columbia University in 2010, and currently is working towards a PhD in English at Yale. Franco next stars in Your Highness and Rise of the Apes.