I’m bored of what I do, and want to try something new! I think I want to go to film school. I have almost no film experience, aside from two classes I took back in middle school, and some video editing experience I did for a personal website.
Because my only real experience is with editing, I have no idea what exactly it is that I want to do that’s filming related. I suppose directing would be my ultimate goal, but that’s not exactly something a role one obtains as their first job.
So where do I start? What schools should I be looking at? I’ve done a little research (very little), and found one called the Los Angeles Film School . It seems they’re fairly well respected, but it’s only a one year program and it costs 40k!
Do any of you have any experience with film, or taking any such classes in school? I guess any advice, anecdotes, or whatever else comes to mind would be helpful.
My suggestion is find a place that’s high quality and low cost. (Even though **Johnny L.A. ** thinks Film School isn’t worth it.), I’m in a 2 year program which costs about $1600 a semester… and have access to amazing equipment whenever I want it… HD Cams, Final Cut Pro and Avid Editing Suites, Audio suites, and professional editors, directors and audio engineers as my instructors… and am taking advantage of it for sure.
I’m not sure I’m the typical student though… I have a clear vision of directing when I get out, and am sort of “using” the school as my personal playground.
While the “kids” are freaking out about grades, I’m more interested in what I can learn… I don’t really care if I get a C or an A… (Although, I have to admit I got 5 A’s and an A-plus last semester!)
Of course, I also have to put up with the fact that I’m the only person over 40 in the course - in fact, I’m the only person over 25 in the course, but I’m at school to learn how to make films, not to socialize… and am willing to take more risks filmmaking than the “kids” do… I’ve filmed all over the city already - from City Hall to one of the large museums here in Toronto - and that was only in my first semester!
There’s a great place in San Francisco that offers classes and equipment rentals at cost - but I can’t remember the name for the life of me… A bit of searching should find it… I think you’d be much better staying in the Bay Area than going to L.A.
Thanks all for the response. So a couple of things: I agree that, on paper, skipping school and making a film seems to make a lot of sense. But outside of editing, I have no idea what I’m doing, and two, I have no crew.
As such, I would hope school would help familiarize me with these concepts, in addition to providing other students to work with.
Daffyd, thanks for the informative response. Any particular reason why you think I should stay in San Francisco though? I’ll try and find that school you mentioned. Does anyone know of any others I should look into?
It depends on what you want to do. If you want to make your own feature films, then Rodriguez is right. Few people have ever gotten backing for a film by taking a year to make a short movie in film school. (Not in the U.S., at least.) They want to see a full-length film shot on a tight budget. However a class on the business of movies is helpful in that case. You can usually find people who will work for free (film school students) and know the technical stuff and can do it for you, and you can pick it up that way.
If you want to make documentaries or “experimental” shorts on your own, then film school could help. Or if you just want to have fun doing all the different things involved in making a film.
If you just want to get regular work on feature films, you don’t need to go to film school–it’s mostly irrelevant. Once you get a contact, you just learn by taking on the jobs and doing good work, and people will usually call you back. (You’d be surprised how many incompetents want to work on feature films; the people who hire are really happy when someone has a brain and works hard.) But you get pigeon-holed into one particular aspect of production, usually for the rest of your career. Also the work is sporadic at times.
I worked for a while in sound on lousy, low-budget, straight-to-video productions. The lunch breaks were unbearable: a bunch of people standing around trying to out name-drop the others about what famous person they were once on the set with.
Red, there was an article in yesterday’s SF Chronicle about Judy Irving, the woman who filmed “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill”, and her long career in filmmaking in the Bay Area… She talks about the Bay Area being sort of like a secret when it comes to filmmakers… Everyone immediately thinks L.A., but alot of great stuff is done in SF…
You need that contact with or without film school. Film school MAY help you get that contact, though most of the people I went to film school with never worked in the industry or worked in jobs that didn’t have the potential to be useful for a career path I wanted. (Knew someone who got employed running a film festival, another that became an archivist saving old films, a few people who worked as artists or independants.)
It is worthwhile to take maybe a film production class or two through a community college. I myself discovered that editing gave me migraines and that I wasn’t physical enough for camera or lighting work. I was mostly interested in the business end of things, but wasn’t willing to work for peanuts and ended up in IT instead because it had a living wage associated with it.
Do understand before investing time in school how competitive the field is. A degree is no guarantee of any sort of employment in the industry.
Since you’re in the Bay Area, start volunteering with a film organization. The SF Film Society, the Bay Area Video Coalition, and the SF Media Archive are some good places to start. There you’ll meet people who know people who know even more people in the industry up here. Any real world questions you’ll have about resources, opportunities, and internships will spring up there, and you’ll have people around you who you can use as a sounding-board (plus it’ll give you a taste of some of the drudgery that’s an inevitable part of working with film as a career or a calling). Good luck.
If he wants to attend a school that offers sufficient production experience, he’ll have a better chance in L.A. That’s exactly the reason I left the Bay Area.
I think S.F. State has a very modest production program. Off-hand I can’t remember much else. Nevertheless, S.F. is definitely a great milieu for independent productions and great schools with film history programs. But don’t be deceived by illusions; L.A. has just as much independent stuff going on as San Francisco. It just doesn’t seem so prominent because L.A. is so much larger in size and population.
Believe me: whatever is going on in S.F., is also going on in L.A. It just isn’t as obvious.
One more thing to add to this good advice. My daughter acted in a bunch of NYU student films, and the students all agreed that if you are really serious, it is better not to major in film as an undergrad, but to major in art or writing. It is also damn expensive.
For Californians, if your kid is interested, Cal Arts has a summer program which includes film, poetry, dance, acting, writing, art, and lots of other stuff. It’s a one month on campus program. When my daughter went about 9 years ago, it was subsidized heavily by Sony, and was very cheap - like $1,000 for the summer, including everything. She made a bunch of films, learned to edit, and decided she didn’t want to be in films after all, so it save me a lot more than $1K. You have to submit a film to get in, but if a kid really cares, and still care after the program, I’d say she’s serious.
You realize that, whatever sort of film you go into, it’s a long road to any sort of financial success. If you’re going to make a bunch of independent films you have to mostly finance these on your own dollar, and equipment, cast, crew, and post-production is damn expensive. I have friends making less than $20k taking entry-level editing jobs.
Don’t major in film, if you want a 4-yr degree, as someone else said. Major in English or Fine Arts. Plan to work parttime doing something other than film, as many artists wind up doing. Go to as many indie film screenings as you can, volunteer at film festivals, submit short works to festivals, get your name and face out there. Connections, as in any industry, are MUY IMPORTANTE. If you know the guy doing the film, you can possibly get in on the crew. Also, attaching your name to other people’s films is great as well, b/c then you can list them on your CV.
