Film school is how you make it

[J_Fellini]

Alright... this debate about film schools has gone on long enough. I've read so many places that going to film school is a rip off for a number of reasons...

1. The teachers are losers and can't get into the industry so they teach
2. Its so bloody expensive
3. You can get the same experience elsewhere

Well I think these arguments are fair... and remember everyone is entitled to their own opinion. BUT I wish to discredit these notions.

1. Teachers bit- Sure they may suck, but their not there to make good movies... we are. So I don't care if my teacher can't make an oscar worthy picture, if they know enough of the technical stuff... leave the content to me. The teaching is how you make of it... sure theres crappy teachers... theres also really good teachers, but film school isn't always just about the teaching... which brings me to my next point.

2. Its so bloody expensive- People say that you might as well take that money and put it into equipment etc. to make their own movies. Here's why I say you invest it into film school. At film school in the one year that you are there, you get the chance to make a doc, a music video, a commercial, a short. 4 productions in ONE YEAR. Plus you have access to all of their equipment. That and your crew and such available too. Sure you come out with a huge a$$ debt... But you also have the oppertunity to enter these productions into various film festivals around the country or around the world.

3. Experience elsewhere- Sure, work at some production place and work your way to the top. That is always an excellent place to meet new people, and also to gain technical expertise. Or you could go to film school, and start at a much higher position in the same production place. Once you know all your stuff about technical, then you become a commodity because you are a skilled worker. However, skilled workers only take something so far...

This is why on top of film school, an undergrad in film studies is nice. Since you understand the cultural, societal, and critical implications to film. I know this sounds boring, and trust me... it is at times. It will help prepare you. If you know how to shoot.... but don't know the meaning of the shoot... this is what seperates the good movies from the bad. Do you want to make a corny, Rambo 3 (no disrespect to it... just an example) or do you want to make a Goodfellas?

The choice is yours... but I'm saying if you have the resources (parents... loans... robbing banks) educate the hell out of yourself... know every aspect of film and the quality of your project will become so much better.

 

[Zensteve]

 

[dylan61]

Film school has its ups:
Free equipment
Free crews
A good professor or two

But I've never had my film degree get me a job. It has always been based on my experience. To get the experience you're going to have to start at the bottom with a degree or without it... or know somebody.

 

[mr-modern-life]

Totally agree...

Film School was great for the ability to get your hands on the best equipment but my media degree hasn't counted to anything. If anything i steped backwards... before film school I made 20 short films, won a few awards and made a bit of cash.

After films chool I was demotiovated, unemployed and fustrated!

The best film school is watching films, getting a camera, an Imac and doing it! If you want to break into the indutry get a runners job, write to the big companies and ask for work.

This will help your career far more than sitting in a class room...

Phil Hobden
-- Modern Life? --
"Say hello to my little friends!"

 

[knightly]

I tried going to film school...or at least taking classes, but I have a home, career, family...and no film school in town that would bend to my schedule. Not an option, so I made up my own way to go about it...it's been tons of work, but I'm getting the learning on!

 

[directorik]

Alright... this debate about film schools has gone on long enough.
<snip>
BUT I wish to discredit these notions.

Maybe I'm reading too much into these statements.

The debate hasn't gone on long enough. Forty years ago the film school debate was an important one for people just leaving high school in the late 1960's when schools like NYU and USC were just coming into prominence. It was an important debate in the 1980's after filmmakers like Lucas and Scorsese became celebrities. And in twenty years people will be coming out of high school wondering if film school is better than work experience.

I don’t understand why you feel the need to discredit these notions. It’s great to offer your opinion based on your experience. I would never try to “discredit” your opinion even though my experience is very different.

I always enjoy hearing the experiences of people who went to and enjoyed film school. But it appears you are here to discredit my notions and not to discuss.

 

[J_Fellini]

I don’t understand why you feel the need to discredit these notions. It’s great to offer your opinion based on your experience. I would never try to “discredit” your opinion even though my experience is very different

I'm attempting to discredit the notion that seems to be plaguing discussion boards that Film school is a waste of time and money. As I said in my original thread, everyone is entitled to their own opinion... and just as I have my opinion on film schools, so do you.
But I never said I was discrediting any particular person... rather to oppose the argument that film school is a waste.
I am looking to discuss the film school debate, not discredit someone who opposes me as you have suggested. I think it would be good for this discussion to highlight the pros and cons of both sides of the argument...

 

[directorik]

I guess I'm taking issue only with the word "discredit". I’m not clear how you can discredit anyones notion that film school is a waste of time and money. Because it’s a notiion that doesn’t need to be discredited. It’s a notion that can be explored with respect - it’s a notion that people have very strong opinions on - it’s a notion that people disagree on - but it’s not a notion than can be rejected as false.

For some people film school IS a waste of money and time.
For some people it's a great experience. Where did you go to film school?

 

[J_Fellini]

I would definitly agree that the word 'discredited' was the wrong word.
My purpose of this thread was to make the fact known that film school IS a plausible option since most of the threads state that it is not.
Currently I am studying a degree in Film Studies, where I will then proceed to Vancuver Film School or Toronto Film school (still trying to choose the best option). However knowing several filmmakers in the Toronto Film school, they all agree that it is what started there film careers.
Obviously since the industry is completly competitive, who you know is usually better than what you know. Which is why this 'debate' is evidently happening (this thread is an example of that) since people from both sides have gained entry into the industry.
I think that anyone who uses the indietalk.com webpage already has a leg up (despite going to film school or not) since it gives filmmakers a chance to talk, mentor, and discuss with other filmmakers.

Which path did you choose... filmschool or learned on your own?

 

[directorik]

Structured academia isn’t for me. I do much better in a working environment. I dropped out of high school. Like everyone else I thought film school was my ticket, but I couldn’t afford it. So I moved to Los Angeles and lived out of my car for nine months while I worked for free on low budget features.

I finally got jobs because I was meeting working professionals who were hiring.

For me the telling moment was about six years after high school. I was working for an effects house when my best friend from high school walked in looking for a job. He had his MFA and was just getting started in the pro world. I had already worked on about 10 films and was making music videos about four months away from making my first feature.

After he left I asked the boss if he hired him. My boss said he seemed like a great guy, was very enthusiastic and had his degree, but he was really looking for someone with a little on set experience.

He eventually made it, but he and I were up for a the same job three times and I always had six more years of experience than him. And all three times my experience trumped his degree.

So I do think that film school is a waste of time and money. I feel I learned more in the four years after high school by being on professional sets with working professionals (and getting paid) than I would have spending four years (and a lot of money) in school.

But I would never try to discredit the notion of film school. For many people it is a valuable experience.


==========================================================================
The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress. -Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

 

[clive]

I never went to film school, but ironically I taught acting for film at a drama collegue. "I guess I'm one of those, If you can't work teach", people

My personal opinion is that education is a good thing, but it doesn't have all the answers. It's definately not a guarantee that anyone will have even a modestly sucessful career.

What it should provide though is the following, an introduction to cinema history and a widening of a person's viewing habits. These things are important because people tend to stick to what they know and without being forced to go and watch German Expresionist and French New Wave films most people don't. My opinion is that that broadening of film knowledge is the real benefit of a film school eduation.

The down sides with most film schools is that they seem very, very poor at teaching either writing or directing actors. I think this has to do with the the kind of people who end up lecturering, often very good technicians but without strong writing or directing skills.

One of the results of this kind of training has been a concentration in the industry of people who see film making as a technical process, rather than as a creative one.

I think the other thing that a good film school provides is critical feedback on your early work. I think it's dificult to be objective about our creations and I think there are huge advantages to getting reality checked early on.

One of the greatest disadvantages of film school is that you are working exclusively with people who are at the same stage of development. I learnt all my technical knowledge on the set of professional productions where everyone knew more than I did and had a lot of experience. They already knew how to do stuff properly and so I never picked up any bad habits. Film School is often a breeding ground for bad habits, poor crew etiquette and swollen egos. I was interviewed by a group of film students once and it was painful to watch, they bickered about the set-ups, they had brought the wrong equipment and the sound recordist turned up a hour late and hung over. My baby actors often got roped into student films and most of them had identical experiences.

I still think film school is a good idea, but I think anyone undertaking a film school education has to take personal responsibility for thier own education and career development. What I mean by this is be selective about who you work with, when you can, and stick with the winners. By winners I mean those who seem to be highly motivated, skilled and easy to work with. On top of that, do more than is required for the course, if a paper is set on cinematography read everything you can get your hands on, rather than what you need to, to complete the paper.

Education works if it is seen as an opportuntiy to learn, rather than a series of hoops to leap through to get a piece of paper. It's not the piece of paper that opens doors into the industry, but rather the skills, knowledge and attitude you have to the work.

Personally, even though I've already got numerous awards and a completed HD feature film, I'd really like the luxury of going to film school. In fact, I was looking at doing a Masters degree just last year. There are aspect of film making that I'd really like to explore in an environment with other film makers. And, I think for me the idea of doing it for a qualification allows me to not see it as eitehr career development or commerical, just pushing the boundaries for the sake of it.

 

[mr-modern-life]

Horses for courses I guess. I just think where I went was so demotivating... I quit film making shortly after leaving.

I guess the moral here is pick the right school!

Phil Hobden
-- Modern Life? --

 

[Rankles]

I've gotten farther with knowledge and potential in three months of work experience than my three year film degree has taught me.

The advice you get off industry professionals and the contacts you make working for them (albeit for free for the beginning for most people) is more valuable than what film school can teach.

The benefits to it are that film schools can teach you how not to make mistakes. The downside to that is that we learn from these mistakes to make us better filmmakers.

I don't regret studying film at university, but there are certainly other ways to go about it if you just live by the timeless advice that if you want to make films, get a camera and go and make them. That is really the only way to learn.

One thing I've picked up however from studying film is that you have to keep an open mind, open enough to take everything they tell you and tear it apart, taking from it what you personally think is worthwhile advice.

Out scriptwriting teacher told us that all our stories should have this structure.

Introduction - major event - middle/working through said event - resolution/ending

Now, that to me is backwards. You shouldn't be writing to fit such a strict structure, rather if you write a script it will generally follow that kind of structure naturally, although sayin that it wouldn't necessarily be bad if it didn't.

The filmmakers did the same thing. 'Film this shot so that you get this mood/feeling across.' That again, is backwards, you should film a shot as naturally as you think such a scene should be shot, and how it must feel right for that moment. Then, when put with the rest of the film it should naturally show the correct mood regardless.

Anyway, thats just my two cents and bare in mind this was a university degree course in film, not film school. However I can only see film school being a much more expensive version of it and to be honest, when people say it's beneficial because you make four films that sounds like the advice of an unmotivated potential filmmaker who needs the fact that they've paid money for education or the threat of a failing grade to get up and make something.

 

[clive]

Out scriptwriting teacher told us that all our stories should have this structure.

Introduction - major event - middle/working through said event - resolution/ending

Now, that to me is backwards. You shouldn't be writing to fit such a strict structure, rather if you write a script it will generally follow that kind of structure naturally, although sayin that it wouldn't necessarily be bad if it didn't.

Your script writing teacher was about half right.

S/he was absolutely right to insist that you write to a structure, unfortunately the structure you were given is woefully naive. However, you'll find more threads on good screenplay structure and screen writing on this forum than almost anywhere else on the net.

I think the point you've raised is an interesting one and mirrors my experiences of teaching. In that I'd turn up to a class with fifteen years professional media experience, give the class the benefit of the things I'd learned in the process and then they would by and large ignore what I said, especially if I couched it as a "rule."

So if I said -- you can do anything you like in your first film, but when shooting you mustn't cross the line, half a dozen hands would shoot up asking what the exceptions were to that rule. When I said, "none" they'd spend the next hour complaining that I was constricting their creative freedom.

This idea that breaking the rules is creative is painful naive and massively boring, because it pretty much always produces bad product.

I think the problem is probably the "R" word, because what we're actually talking about is the difference between good technique and bad.

This is where your teacher was right -- structure in screen writing is an aspect of good technique, in that it by and large produces better films -- the same is true of almost every area of film production/post production. There are very clear differences between good technique and poor.

And, of course, there are countless examples in film history where crossing the line has be used creatively -- but that doesn’t change the fact that the directors who did that completely understood what they were doing by first learning to apply the rules.

Most film schools/universtities are attempting to instill good technique -- some of these are better at it than others -- however the biggest failing in colleges doesn't come from the teachers, but from the students and it occurs in two forms:

1) An inability/unwillingness to accept that their teachers have anything to teach them
2) A belief that they should have all the answers handed to them on a plate (and that those answers should require no effort in their application)

Or is basic terms a fatal combination of "closed minds and lazy asses."

You do get bad teachers everywhere, but they are hopelessly out numbered by bad students.

Like I said before a formal education is a great thing if you take an open mind and the willingness to work like a dog, and part of having an open mind is actually trying what's suggested before you reject it out of hand.

However, the larger truth is that is way of thinking permeates throughout the whole indie scene, whether people have been to film school or not. The place I don't tend to see it is in people who have learned their trade on professional sets, where the rules are very, very clear and bitching about them leads to getting fired.

 

[bugzilla]

Do NOT go to film school unless...

There is only one valid reason to go to film school. To make contacts. It is a VERY important reason, but if you think you can make contacts elsewhere, you should take that route instead. For the money you spend on film school you can make a couple HD or 1 16mm feature film to get experience, make contacts, be your calling card and doorway into the industry.

The instructors suck and will only let the equipment out to students who suck up to them.

If you make a great film, the school owns it, not you, so forget about getting any money for getting it distributed.

About 3/4 of the students are only there to act like they are in the art scene. They are useless as film crew and only want to sabotage anyone who has a modicum of technical knowledge.

The equipment is mostly outdated and there is intense competition for the few pieces that work well. Some students will reserve equipment at peak times even if they can't shoot just so they can mess up others productions.

Asides from the fact that it is important to have a degree, a film degree will not help you in itself.

Filmmaking is going all digital. If you get a computer science or graphic design degree, you have much more of a leg up than your standard film student.

You can get all the filmmaking advice you need from the extra features on DVDs.

In short, film school is a waste. A waste of money, of time, of valuable years of your life, UNLESS you make contacts that help you get your script looked at by the industry. Then it's worth it.

 

[mr-modern-life]

Film school has its ups:
Free equipment
Free crews
A good professor or two

But I've never had my film degree get me a job. It has always been based on my experience. To get the experience you're going to have to start at the bottom with a degree or without it... or know somebody.

Film school for me was good because of the free kiut, although I did laugh when I told my lectures the plan to make a 30 min short and he said 'But even final year studnets dont make films that long!' (we had shot a series of 20-30min films before we went to Uni!!!).

But i have to agree - my degree has done nothing for me and EVERYONE I know in good positions in teh industry from effects people to riggers to producers and directors niether went to film school or got a degree. They made films.

And this is the issue I had - film school tried to stop me making films or at least fun films and after a while I ended up making the pretentious shite I hate and have always hated. They saw no value in genre films (where my heart lies).

The answer? There isn't one. If you like the idea go you can learn a lot but be strong and dont let them stop you making the films you want to make ... regardless of grades or scores and regardless that people will look down on you if you try to get commercial.

Dont let them. Commercial and genre films have just as much right to be made as high art and 'worthwhile' films and in fact it is often these films that make the more high art, risk films viable (studios will put money from blockbusters into smaller films).

So fuck em! Make what you want. But if you dont want to go dont.

The best film school in my humble opinion is a camera, an imagination, a PC with some editing package, a DVD player and a Netflix rental.

We made over 40 short films before we did a feature ranging from dreadful to average (the same kinda reviews our feature got!!!!) but we learnt everything from editing to filming techniques.

 

[dylan61]

The instructors suck and will only let the equipment out to students who suck up to them.

If you make a great film, the school owns it, not you, so forget about getting any money for getting it distributed.

About 3/4 of the students are only there to act like they are in the art scene. They are useless as film crew and only want to sabotage anyone who has a modicum of technical knowledge.

The equipment is mostly outdated and there is intense competition for the few pieces that work well. Some students will reserve equipment at peak times even if they can't shoot just so they can mess up others productions.

Wow bugzilla, I'm wondering what film school you went to. It sounds really, REALLY bad. In my experience, some of our professors were less than knowledgeable about what they were teaching, but some were really great.

I always retained the rights to anything I made at our school.

Most of the people I went to film school with are either working in LA, New York, or are still hanging around Michigan, helping out any filmmaker they can, including myself. Also, I met my wife at film school. Regardless, they made really great crew. I will say that a few seemed out to sabotage others, because of jealousy more than anything else. Sometimes artists can get a little wierd around other artists striving for the same goal.

The equipment at our school was kept up really well and was very accessible. We had XL1s as soon as they came out and always had access to Bolex's and some 16mm Arris. I know they keep upgrading since I've left, adding XL2s, Final Cut Pro and Avid editing systems, and so on. That's why I say access to the free equipment was one of the plusses.

I guess it all depends on the school. I will say again that my degree never got me a job. But I think that the school I went to was great at letting us experiment on our own and learn from our mistakes. I had a lot of production under my belt when I graduated ranging from SVHS projects to Super 16 short films.

Incidentally, I went to film school at Grand Valley State University in Allendale Michigan. Every year they have a summer film program where the head professor of the film school directs a short film. They use 35mm cameras donated by Panavision, get a DP from LA and use the students for every other position on the crew. I happen to know that next year they're stepping it up and making a feature length film. It's some really valuable experience for the students.

So, you can get the experience by just doing it, but some schools are obviously better than others. If you're opting for the film school experience, just make sure you pick a good one.

 

[Rankles]

The more I think about it, the more relevant my degree appears to have been in teaching me what I know so far about film. It is a heavily theory based course which whilst also incorporating media after the second year you can pick options which relate only to film. We've been taught film theory regarding storytelling, psychoanalysis etc, cinematography and visual style. Then we also have had courses on scriptwriting (which were poor but still taught you practical skills) and filmmaking next year which should involve three productions, a documentary and two shorts.

Is that basically a condensed and simplified film school course?

 

[mr-modern-life]

See I would argue that whilst you can be told how to write, the format and style you cant be TAUGHT.

Same goes for film making.

The BEST and in my expereince ONLY way to learn is to make films. Simple. Point the camera, watch the shots back, see what's wrong with it and try again.

 

[clive]

The more I think about it, the more relevant my degree appears to have been in teaching me what I know so far about film. It is a heavily theory based course which whilst also incorporating media after the second year you can pick options which relate only to film. We've been taught film theory regarding storytelling, psychoanalysis etc, cinematography and visual style. Then we also have had courses on script writing (which were poor but still taught you practical skills) and filmmaking next year which should involve three productions, a documentary and two shorts.

Is that basically a condensed and simplified film school course?

I don't know, but that sounds like a great way to get into film, simply because you're being asked to look critically at the elements that go into making a film.

You be amazed at how many film makers have never had the opportunity to learn how to "read' a film, how to watch it critically. This is one of the reasons that they then have problems making the kinds of films that they aspire to, because although they've seen those films a hundred times, they've never had the opportunity to hear other people's critical observations about those films. It also means that you've probably sat through films that you never would have chosen to watch, if you'd stuck to your own tastes.

What a university education in film offers is a different way of looking and thinking about film. The academic world has writing hundreds of thousands of words about ways of looking at films and each one, whether you agree with it or not, helps the film maker to have a deeper understanding of what they are doing.

A concrete example of this is Breathless by Goddard. Academics love this film, because it was made by an academic. They talk endlessly about how Goddard used huge depth of field to create flat, painterly images. Now personally I find Breathless a tedious movie, but the idea that you can use depth of field for more than just your basic hollywood pull focus, is useful information.

The same is true of script analysis (although it is by and large true that film school and university script writing courses are by and large very, very poor -- the one exception being Bournemouth) Script analysis is something that won't in itself help you write a great screenplay, but it will open you up to new ways of looking at the mechanics of script writing.