The Noah's Ark Principle (German: Das Arche Noah Prinzip) is a 1984 West German science fiction film written and directed by Roland Emmerich as his thesis at the Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film München (HFF). While his fellow students typically raised and spent 20,000 Deutsche Mark for their final work, Emmerich managed to collect a budget of 1,200,000 DM (around US$600,000).