Film Education

Traditional film school will cost students tens of thousands of dollars a year for up to four or more years. This amount of money is so extravagant that it likely keeps many potential filmmakers from pursuing their dreams. Some of the higher level filmmaking courses can end up costing upwards of a $100,000 before a diploma is achieved.

The sad truth is that most of what is taught in film school is unnecessary. Filmmaking is a talent. It is partly a natural ability to create. Learning how to make films well can be taught for much less than what high dollar film schools are charging parents and students alike. Most filmmakers got their start with a lot of practice and a standard video camera. Why should you be any different?

If you want to break into the film business getting a traditional film education through university filmmaking courses isn’t your only option for making a living in the industry. Many students are turning to better economic alternatives for their film education. No budget film making is a great low cost alternative to traditional filmmaking courses at high dollar universities.

The program will teach you everything that you need to know about filmmaking for a price that is less than what a day of university filmmaking courses would run you. Traditional film education is often a rip off that produces thousands of students a year who end up moving on to different careers. Why not teach yourself at home for a portion of the cost and spend those four years getting your career off the ground instead of wasting in a university? Read the rest of this entry »

Having gone to film school three times and being a member of a family where education was held in the highest esteem, obviously I am a fan of becoming film educated. However, I do stress becoming “educated”. School is not the only way to become educated, and in certain situations, there is no official school to learn critical information. Never the less, school is a time tested successful method for laying down a formidable foundation.

The Big Five

The Big Five films schools are The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), The University of Southern California (USC) and The American Film Institute (AFI) on the West Coast in Los Angeles, and New York University (NYU) and Columbia University on the East Coast in New York.

UCLA is best known for their writers who dominate the summer movie screenwriting credits, USC is better know for their powerhouse directors, AFI often has incredible cinematographers, NYU is heralded for its East Coast filmmaker style, and Columbia is an all around great school with exceptional film theory for all programs. Any school you go to at the Big 5 will be an incredible experience for each program. You will also have big name professionals and heads of big companies teach courses or speak as guests because of the school’s notoriety. You can’t lose.

The downside to USC is that they run it like a studio. Only 5 people get to direct a thesis project if you’re a graduate directing student. Every directing student comes in to be one of those 5 and then 20 or 30 people in the end don’t get a thesis project, but get to help crew on the 5 people who did get to make one’s film. The upside to USC, is again, that they run it like a studio. USC is often unparalleled in its networking capacity and markets its students aggressively to the industry.

UCLA is most known for its screenwriters. USC might be capable of out-networking UCLA, but its writers can’t out-write UCLA writers. An average UCLA Graduate Screenwriting student will leave with 8 feature length screenplays. UCLA screenwriters write a feature-length script in a 10-week quarter, which most resembles a real life 8-week writing assignment. USC screenwriters will write 1 feature-length screenplay over a period of 1 year. You do the math. Read the rest of this entry »