FollowText.com » Recreation-and-leisure » Movies » Thinking of Going to Film School? Read this First!

Thinking of Going to Film School? Read this First!

by: WilliamSchwarz
Total views: 5 | Word Count: 715

Every year there are lots and lots of new movies produced and released throughout the world. If you've ever sat through the end credits of any of these films you have a good idea of the large number of people employed by this industry. Several film schools have opened in recent years to help supply studios with new technical and creative talent. Many of the graduates of these institutions are now enjoying successful careers.

But film school can be expensive or far away. Is getting a student loan and going into debt for several years a future filmmaker's best way to enter the business. Could there possibly be another way, and is film school even worth the expense?

It's up to the individual enthusiast to decide whether or not film school is the best way to gain entry into the field, but it's always good to examine all of the available options.

It is with the intention of helping the movie makers of tomorrow to become of another possible route to their goals that I'm telling the following story. It's about a friend of mine and how he got his start in the film industry. I've lost track of this friend (he's very busy), so I haven't been able to get his permission to use his real name. Let's call him Paul.

Paul had an inheritance coming to him. His mother was put in charge of deciding how this money would be spent, with the stipulation that it had to be used to further his education. Naturally, she asked Paul what his career plans were.

He said that he hoped to someday build a future in the movie industry and that he thought going to film school would be the best way to get started. His mother figured that his goal was reasonable, but she had a suggestion for a different route to take.

It seemed to her that if he used the money to make his own short movie, wouldn't that be a good way to learn how it's done?

Paul liked the sound of this idea, so he got to work. The first thing he did was look for a local special effects technician to get involved with this project. He found one who also happens to be a friend of mine. I'll call him John.

This is the offer that Paul made to John: John would gather some of his fellow special effects professionals together and they would put together a list of the effects that their dream project would contain. These would be all the things they had wanted to create but had never had the opportunity to do so. Paul would take this list and compose a script that would contain as many of these effects as possible and they would all work together on the film that was produced from it. He couldn't pay the technicians for their work, but all of the necessary materials would be supplied.

The response from the effects crew was enthusiastically positive and together they put together a very entertaining and well made short film. Everybody had a great time completing the project and Paul learned a lot about how films are put together. He also had a nice portfolio piece that would come in handy at future job interviews.

Of course there are a lot of people who went to film school and are doing very well, but Paul's story is certainly not unique. Many of the top professionals in the industry learned their skills by making their own films.

There are quite a few directors(Stanley Kubrick, Quentin Tarantino, John Waters and Robert Rodriguez are just a few examples) who have been known to publicly state that they learned filmmaking on their own and that in their opinions this is the best way to go.

With the availability of affordable video equipment and helpful software, just about everybody has access to all of the resources they need to make independent films. They can even get their movies seen by uploading them to the internet.

There are probably as many ways to find success in the movie business as there are successful filmmakers. Anybody with plans to enter the field would be well advised to check out as many of these paths as they can. I wish you all the best of luck in the future!

About the Author

Want to get into the film industry but wondering what the best way is for you to get into the movie business, take a look at Flashfink's Squidoo page to see if going to film school is right for you.

Thinking of Going to Film School? Read this First!

About the Author

More Articles from: Movies