While he is a respected human being, he will say nice things to your face and then grade you harshly. I don't really understand why he would do that. I think he's getting old and the tenure is getting to him. His track record kind of makes him a snob. If he was more constructive on the way he graded, then I wouldn't be here writing this. All I can say is good luck.

I am a UCLA TFT alumnus, and I had to take 3 classes under Michael Hackett and received VERY high marks in all of them (I later received my MFA from what is considered to be the best film school in the world). Now that I have been working in the art and entertainment industry for over 15 years, I wish to write this review and give my fellow TFT Bruins a bit of friendly advice. I DO NOT recommend Hacket to anyone; he was by FAR the most pompous and condescending professor I had ever encountered at UCLA. He thinks he knows it all and is an authority on most things - but in reality hs is not. Having to listen to his pseudo-intellectual babble for over a year was like torture. In one of his "lectures" he read Webster's dictionary to us - that was the lesson! He is a frustrated, failed actor who now performs for kids who are forced to be his students. Moreover, I'm not quite sure why he is so haughty. He has never worked in the real world for any extended period of time nor has he really done anything significant in the theater community. That's why he's teaching! Most of the faculty in college are people who couldn't make it in the real world so they ended up in academia, and Hackett is a prime example of this phenomenon. Don't listen to him. If you want to be an artist, just go out and do it. Don't study it, don't get a degree. Just go out into the real world and do it. That's how ALL the professionals carve out careers for themselves. Theater and film school is a joke. If I sound bitter about my time in TFT, perhaps I am. However, I am offering you these sincere, hearfelt words in the hopes you won't make the same mistakes I did. Again, I've been working professionally in theater, film, television and the media for over 15 years. Take my advice.