film-school Filmmakers who went to film school: What did it change for you (Good and Bad)?

[Filmmaker Filip Hartwich]

Hi guys,

I'm Filip, and have been making my short films since I was 13.
My style of filmmaking was always very spontaneous and I never focused on stuff like scriptwriting, lighting, camera, as much as just creating and editing.

And I always wondered:

Am I missing something with this approach?
Because traditional and current filmmaking always does all this very seriously.
Like, most of the filmmaking community talks about cameras and lighting and I personally never really do.

And I wanna ask.
Does film school change someone's style of filmmaking like this?
And if it changed you like this - do you think it improved your style?
And what did it maybe worsen?

Curious to hear you guys' responses.
Thanks!

 

[Scoopicman]

I had a style, but school definitely improved it, especially being around filmmakers with different styles.

I started filming when I was 15. I would write a short story or with just a scene, so my first efforts were me operating on my dog, or simulating explosions with model rocket engines. I was interested in physical tricks, such as turning a propane stove into a flame thrower, and launching the model rocket engines through tubes. I was a full on pyro. Harder to do that sort of thing, these days. My first two narrative shorts were MR. BUTLER (where we simulate a bazooka blowing up our vice principal), and THE DRAGON (where the flamethrower was the dragon's breath).

I had made around 15 films before starting film school. There were two paths; Media Arts (which focused more on TV and Studio) and the Cinema Option, which focused on film production. This was in the 80's, so the production courses were:

170 Intro to film (Super 8mm) Assignments were:
1) Show someone trying to get from point A to point B (a journey).
2) Intercut Person A following Person B I had a giant lizard following a guy.
3) Show the character of someone or something.
4) Choose your subject (director's choice)

215 Beginning 16mm

315 Intermediate 16mm

415 Advanced 16mm


There were separate courses for lighting (which I was terrible at - I had a hard time grasping all the many choices of gel colors, etc.), screenplay writing, creative writing, intro to studio audio, a couple of film theory and history classes, and a few others, including some media art classes (camera, switcher, broadcast radio, etc.).

Some schools (UCLA, USC) will break up the students into specific crew roles. My classes tasked each of us with making films, where we were the overall filmmakers, which is what I was going into the program.

Did it teach me a lot. Yeah, I think it did. I knew what I wanted, before hand. But seeing each thing defined, better helped me understand the moving parts. Things like understanding The Line (for proper eyelines), angles and composition, track, dolly, and boom, etc.

Meeting other filmmakers and seeing their process, will teach you more than any curriculum. When we shot those film projects, the professor would screen them for all of us, and he would critic each one. You learned from watching yours and other people's mistakes.

 

[Filmmaker Filip Hartwich]

I had a style, but school definitely improved it, especially being around filmmakers with different styles.

I started filming when I was 15. I would write a short story or with just a scene, so my first efforts were me operating on my dog, or simulating explosions with model rocket engines. I was interested in physical tricks, such as turning a propane stove into a flame thrower, and launching the model rocket engines through tubes. I was a full on pyro. Harder to do that sort of thing, these days. My first two narrative shorts were MR. BUTLER (where we simulate a bazooka blowing up our vice principal), and THE DRAGON (where the flamethrower was the dragon's breath).

I had made around 15 films before starting film school. There were two paths; Media Arts (which focused more on TV and Studio) and the Cinema Option, which focused on film production. This was in the 80's, so the production courses were:View attachment 4222

170 Intro to film (Super 8mm) Assignments were:
1) Show someone trying to get from point A to point B (a journey).
2) Intercut Person A following Person B I had a giant lizard following a guy.
3) Show the character of someone or something.
4) Choose your subject (director's choice)

215 Beginning 16mm

315 Intermediate 16mm

415 Advanced 16mm


There were separate courses for lighting (which I was terrible at - I had a hard time grasping all the many choices of gel colors, etc.), screenplay writing, creative writing, intro to studio audio, a couple of film theory and history classes, and a few others, including some media art classes (camera, switcher, broadcast radio, etc.).

Some schools (UCLA, USC) will break up the students into specific crew roles. My classes tasked each of us with making films, where we were the overall filmmakers, which is what I was going into the program.

Did it teach me a lot. Yeah, I think it did. I knew what I wanted, before hand. But seeing each thing defined, better helped me understand the moving parts. Things like understanding The Line (for proper eyelines), angles and composition, track, dolly, and boom, etc.

Meeting other filmmakers and seeing their process, will teach you more than any curriculum. When we shot those film projects, the professor would screen them for all of us, and he would critic each one. You learned from watching yours and other people's mistakes.

Thanks!
Actually sounds pretty nice.

So kinda like I hoped it was, a way to solidify and enhance your style and transition it over to bigger projects.

Thanks for the reply!

 

[themcjayster]

Learn everything; then forget everything. Know how to break the rules with your own style and flair

 

[Lars B. Frahm]

First of all I think it depends on the film school. But my own experience, and my view of most film schools is, that they often try to fit you into a box, and if you don't fit in that box you will just get super frustrated. For me, I learned a lot about the technical stuff, but my creative energy was totally ruined. It took me several years to regain that creative energy. In hindsight I should have just put the bare minimum of effort into the school productions and used the free access to equipment to make some cool projects on the side.

 

[Adam Cosco]

The only thing that helped me understand was how to speak to actors. I learned camera stuff through trial and error, but things like actable verbs and playable scenes were demystified for me at film school.