Thinking about Film School

[Chris Shaeffer]

Hey Joey,

I can't say what pro video school looks like, but I can say what a pro audio school gets you:

Nothing.

You graduate with a piece of paper that gives you the possiblity of applying for non-paying internships that *might* turn into paying work after six months of sweeping floors, making coffee, and doing donut runs.

Meanwhile, the school gets to finance all its fancy equipment with student tuition.

Don't get me wrong- the schools are serious and the students learn a LOT that they might otherwise never be exposed to. But the internet, low costs of getting your own equipment, and the sheer value of experience that you can only get from living with your camera all tend to outweigh the film school route in my mind.

Unless you need that piece of paper to try and get into the industry. If so... go for it.

Take care,
Chris

[Joey Dee]

Robert M Wright,

My interest is in Filmaking. For the past 4 years I have been studying Film Theory. I wanted to learn film as a text and understand what is applied in Cinema before I get into production. However that never stopped me of playing around with the camera and so forth and creating shorts. The amount of knowledge I have gained from Film Studies is extremely rewarding for my future in film production.

I suggested to go do a MA for 2 years at Film school. That's around 60 000$ - thats' a little too much.. let me correct that THAT"S ALOT!!!! :)

However attending Film School you can create contacts that's really what I am interested in. I was told that's a rewarding feature you receiving while in film school.

I am confident I dont need 2 years of film school. I learn pretty quick, im constantly reading, the techinique you can learn pretty quick because practise makes perfect, however the theory it can take you forever to learn because you can agree or disagree with it or not even understand it..

I have been thinkin about this non stop for the past 2 weeks - I need to be sure what I do by the end of the summer!

Keep the post coming people :)
Joey!!!

[Steve House]

I think there are several different kinds of learning. There's what I'd call "perceptual learning" which is learning about the process and values "Is this a good photograph? What would make it better?" and there's "procedural learning" "What do I do to make a photograph?" Mentors teach the former while schools teach the latter. The one advantage of training in a formal setting is that it gives you a much greater chance of encountering a mentor. But there's no guarantee that will take place in a formal program, it's just the odds are better since you're operating in a community of like-minded people.

For procedural learning, OTOH, I think of formal schools as being unecessary. The thrust of procedural learning is to communicate information rather than to shape thought processes. But information that can be communicated by a person speaking can also be communicated by being written down. If it is available in written form you can read it without a teacher telling you to. Everything you learn from books in school you can also learn from the same books outside of school.

[Dylan Couper]

Originally Posted by Joey Dee

However attending Film School you can create contacts that's really what I am interested in. I was told that's a rewarding feature you receiving while in film school.

I'll shut this myth down.

How can I put this without sounding jaded...
Wait... I can't...

The only people you will meet in film school are other people with no contacts who are in the same boat as you. You do not need to meet other inexperienced wannabe filmmakers who will end up working at Blockbuster while they spend 5 years writing an unmarketable script, you need to meet people who can actually teach you something, and those people rarely go near film schools for long.

Honestly, I do not have a single contact left from when I was studying film. Everyone I know in the film world came from either meeting on sets, or through film/video oriented communities (like DVinfo!)

YOU WANT TO MAKE CONTACTS? GET A JOB (or volunteer) AT AN EQUIPMENT RENTAL COMPANY!!!

There are so many ways you can get 10x the experience that 2 years of film school will give you, in a fraction of the time, for free (and maybe occasionaly get paid).

Well, how jaded did that come off? It is just my humble opinion of one person who works in a city with one of the biggest film production industries in North America. Other's may disagree, and of course there are always exceptions, especially if you are a brilliant filmmaker with heaps of talent and a fantastic writer (isn't everyone?).
But that's just my two cents.

[Saturnin Kondratiew]

shut it down baby, shut it down. lol

i did a part time film course at VFS what a waste of fuggin' money and that was back in 96..lol...never again did i ponder about going to a film school
and i'm about to finish my first documentary. I see all these ppl doing filmschool and get in debt, and i just laugh. Cuz they end up working as a PA just to pay it off, u dont nee filmschool to be a PA. JUST DO IT!!!!!! there is a reason why everyone starts of as a lackie, you have to put your time into this field. If u dont want to, what are u even doing here.


Save money, get equipment, make lots and lots of things, do free videos for bands etc etc. In the meantime have a job get your reel, meet ppl, get contact that way it works much better. If you make quality $hit ppl will find you.

[Joey Dee]

Dylan,

By all means be as blunt as you want to be. This is a community and I am interested in everyone's opinion, otherwise I wouldn't have posted this topic.

Like most people I do want to be a Filmmaker - however I am very realistic, Im not focused on making BIG COOL ACTION EXPLOSIVE HOLLYWOOD films, to be honest i dislike such style of films. ( I dont mean to get off Topic) In interested in Neo-Realism films, that means non-professional actors, shoot on location and so forth.

Now that I am almost done Film Studies, I would like to learn as well as expand my knowledge in film techniques, learn about lighting (which i have been reading some amazing posts) as well as cinematography and so forth.

Though yes the best way to start is obviously get a job on a set or something relating to film. I have been trying to look for a job, I just dont know where to look at really. I have emailed some places they never bother emailing back.

I am from Ottawa, Canada - Im in the UK right now on Holidays and I also have dual citizenship in USA-Canada. Somehow I am not interested in working in Hollywood.

BUt if anyone has some ideas please help me out,
Regards
JOey :>

[Mark Utley]

Sorry if this is considered off-topic but is television the same as film where going to school to learn it doesn't help as much as actually going out and doing it? I'm 18 and I'd love to go to a media school (hopefully SAIT in Calgary) in a year or two to further my television career. Of course there's technical information you need to know whether you're working in the TV or film industry, but with film more focused on the artistic side of things and TV requiring a better understanding of advancing technology, could that make TV school more valuable for aspiring shooters/editors/producers/etc than film school for future filmmakers? Artistic abilities are the type of thing where either you've got it or you don't (assuming you want to make your own films). I don't think a school can teach you "it".

A lot of people who take the Ryerson television program in Toronto land jobs at CBC right after graduation. Working for CBC would pretty much be a dream job for me, but I definitely can't afford Ryerson.

Sorry to lead this away from the original discussion. There are a few points to think about, anyway.

[Saturnin Kondratiew]

yah ryerson is great for TV, most of much music staff is from there lol.

tv studies include(brodacast)
film studies include(motion pictures)

[Glenn Chan]

A lot of people who take the Ryerson television program in Toronto land jobs at CBC right after graduation. Working for CBC would pretty much be a dream job for me, but I definitely can't afford Ryerson.

There's lots of people from Ryerson who can't find jobs... I know some of them. Of the people who do land jobs, they're the ones doing lots of stuff outside of school... i.e. internship. You don't need to go to Ryerson to do stuff outside of school.

At best, Ryerson helps you land the better (unpaid) internships and entry-level positions.

Ryerson has two programs, one RTA and the other film studies/image arts. I don't know much about the film studies side, although I suspect it's pretty useless.

2- Mark: Check out the productions that are shooting in Saskatchewan. A lot of them might be hiring for example... i.e. Corner Gas for example was looking for a PA a short while back. Playback Magazine would have listings of productions that are shooting currently, that might be worth checking out. The province also requires that productions bring on trainees to build Saskatchewan's crew base... check out the Saskatchewan training programs.
http://www.playbackmag.com/articles/...0402/crew.html <--a place to start anyways

Of course there's technical information you need to know whether you're working in the TV or film industry, but with film more focused on the artistic side of things and TV requiring a better understanding of advancing technology, could that make TV school more valuable for aspiring shooters/editors/producers/etc than film school for future filmmakers?

In my opinion, both require people with good artistic skills and/or technical skills. Film typically is a higher-end work than TV, so some of the technical skills are more specialized and also more demanding when working with a bigger budget.

If I were in your position, I'd try to figure out:
A- Where you want to be. There's different lines of work... basically look through the credits of a show and see what all the roles are. Some roles may be hard to figure out (i.e. Inferno, which is not very descriptive unless you know it's a special effects/compositing system), but ask here and someone will be able to tell you.
Knowing what you would like to do will let you really focus on that and hone your skills at that, so that you're useful on set.
B- Always aim at getting a paying, entry-level job. You may need to do unpaid work (i.e. nepotism doesn't work for you)... which is good for experience, but don't stay too long if they don't pay you (I wouldn't stay longer than 6 months). Look at the training programs Saskatchewan has... that will let you work on the highest-end production being done in your province. Also try to snag a position on the feature films that come to Saskatchewan (i.e. Shall We Dance).

Saskatchewan should be a good place to be, since their industry is currently growing (due to their high tax credits).

3- Film schools and broadcasting courses generally aren't that good at teaching technical skills. When you start working, you'll have to learn the ropes from someone. Sheridan, which seems to have the best program if you want to get into Avid editing, doesn't teach you things like reading an audio meter or waveform monitor... which are technical skills you should know.

[Robert M Wright]

I asked if you wanted to go into film as a career, because then maybe it might make sense to go to a film school, because the cost of getting a film camera, and everything else you would need to experiment with actual film, on your own, might get pretty high and maybe not save all that much (certainly compared to the low cost of picking up a good miniDV camera, tapes and a computer, which many people already have). I really don't know.

I do know that I would never consider going to school for film or video. My interest is purely in video, and when I look back at what I've learned in just the last year, with some relatively inexpensive gear, it's hard to think that any school would have taught me anywhere near as much, in that same amount of time (not that I don't have plenty more to learn).

[Dylan Couper]

Originally Posted by Robert M Wright

I asked if you wanted to go into film as a career, because then maybe it might make sense to go to a film school, because the cost of getting a film camera, and everything else you would need to experiment with actual film, on your own, might get pretty high

You don't need to shoot on film though to start working in the film industry though. Many (if not most now) lower budget productions here (where you'd likely get a start) are shooting on Varicams and the like, not that you'll likely start your career actually touching a camera. :)

[Saturnin Kondratiew]

exactly, listen to the cowboy. :D

[Joey Dee]

Everyone seems to be consistant on one thing. Too Expensive and not as beneficial as doing it on your own or working as a PA. Im guessing thats' what everyone's answer will be.

I guess the reason why I have mentioned about Film School is because i have been in London for 2 months now and its such an exciting City to make films. For example you can shoot on location and it can look so beautiful because of the historical monuments and so on.... That's another reason why I love Europe its just sooo beautiful, the roads are narrow, buildings are old, there is alot of history and so on...

To work in Europe I need a visa - well let's say i was on holidays in Europe and I wanted to shoot a short film, do you think they would allow that? Maybe if its non commercial i can? Or they will mind if its commercial?

let me know people
Thanks again
Joey :)

[Heath McKnight]

Are there any accredited Universities that offer MFAs online, preferably in screenwriting? I can't tell 100% if UCLA does or not. I think only the summer program. Their site's a little vague.

heath

[Giuseppe Palumbo]

I'm EXTREMELY bored as this is the first year i havent gone to school since I graduated last year and decided to take a year off to get a new car and what not. But anyways, i just Emailed about 200 email address's to film school teachers/workers and what not just showing them my work and telling about myself...But, is there any way i can get like scholarships with my work.

People have told me that i could get scholarships cause of my work and i just dont know about how to go along with doing this. I've looked and cant find much, can anyone direct me please...