Anything Goes : Filmschool Yay or Nay? by Frederik Sand Hansen

I don't think that todays media with youtube and so on can give you education enough. I don't think film school is worth it. Both are fine and learning is ALWAYS a good thing. I think you should spend the next four years studying something like business while volunteering on films. Nothing like being on a set to learn about making movies. Start with student films. Let other pay the tuition and you learn by volunteering on their movies. Then volunteer on no/low budget films being made locally. Make connections with working professionals. During those years make one short film a month. Nothing fancy with top of the line equipment. Learn and show your talent using your cell phone camera. It won't be easy, working part time, school part time, volunteering on two/three student film and making twelve short films a year will be a major challenge. Some goals (like being a filmmaker) are not easy to achieve. If you aren't up to that kind of total commitment then film school (which is also a major commitment) is a fine way to go. After you graduate you will still need to spend several years working on small, no/low pay movies and making short films with no money. And get a job.

It really depends on where you go. Somewhere like UCLA, USC, NYU, or Madrid seem good and graduate people who have a better chance of getting jobs than non-grads. (especially if you want to work in set design or as an editor or cinematographer.) But, many film schools are terrible, taught by people more interested in politics and psychology than they are in filmmaking. (or, worse still, by "professionals" who are teaching because they don't know how to make a living from their work.) Most screenwriting classes are not worth it. You don't really make a living with Youtube, unless you own stock in Google (or you're making commercials that have a client pay you to put them on Youtube, or you're teaching crappy film classes.) A good film school gives you the chance to network with some people who are already in the business (child actors turned directors, that kind of thing), and gives you access to people who have studied film in depth, and with passion. A bad film school might give you bad experiences that inspire stories for the future.

I think your success depends a lot on your talent. The school should be there to complete and polish your talent. If you feel, and if you have feedback that your talent is great, you might do well with no school... you can learn from your mistakes and from others mistakes. Think about it: what would you do in school, what would you do in the same time not going to school. Take a piece of paper, draw a line in the middle and weigh your options.

What do you want to do in the film industry? That will help determine the type and worth of the education. No one goes to Columbia or NYU for four years and spends 300k to be Grip.

Frederik, I imagine you can learn lenses, editing techniques, etc. without majoring in film. Thanks to Do-It-Yourself culture, YouTube, etc., a means of learning film exists: Make your own movies, the hard way, with your own equipment. Take it from Robert Rodriguez: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-YpfievjSk .

All the Youtube videos in the world aren't going to give the theory behind cinematography. Trial and error is the long approach to learning anything. Shooting something asking for a critique? How many people are going to be painfully blunt in their comments? I don't see that here on S32 when someone posts a link to their latest short.

Good one JD Hartman. Film School instructors can be painfully critical. People on Youtube can be too, however, they usually always say why they think something sucks. (Giving honest feedback can get you labelled as a troll online.) Good instructors, if you're lucky enough to find them, tell you not only what's wrong, but how to fix it. Most of all, however, if people can't see you work, they don't know why you got it wrong. Sometimes you can tell, but you can't tell what limitations someone has (as far as equipment, locations, crew, etc) by the end product.

Film school is fun, but very expensive fun. I think you that first you need to study something else that you like , like business or engineering. Then go to film school like UCLA Extension where you can choose what classes you want to take for a year or two, but in the end you really don't need film school to be a filmmaker.

Feedback from a Youtube audience of wanna-bees, idiots and trolls is going to help you how?

Unfortunately, a lot of film schools rely on Youtube these days. Blogs, putting videos up on Youtube, and even doing searches online to get your lessons is how some students do it. Many instructors might as well be Youtube trolls. Make sure you choose your film school wisely. (It's not just film school, however. Education has been going down hill as politicians push more "information technology" into the classroom.) Don't ask "should I go to film school?", but "is this film school worth it?"

Frederik, the question is: why do you want to make films? Is it for a pleasant hobby? You don't need, or give a flying flip about, "harsh criticism" of your hobby, right? Or, is it to build a career? Well, you don't need a film school to land a job, or jobs, in the field - Steven Spielberg didn't attend one, and it does not seem to have much injured his film pursuits: http://www.lavideofilmmaker.com/filmmaking/the-big-question-for-all-aspi... . You ought to study something else for a degree, so you'll have some knowledge of another subject, and you will not only have maybe something marketable while you seek a film career, but you will have ideas for films to make, based upon your learning of other fields.

Speilburg started a media course, there weren't many proper film schools back then. I agree that many directors didn't go to film school (some are high school drop outs). However, many top editors went to good film schools. And there are technical courses in some countries (the UK has an NVQ for lighting.) I would rather hire a film school or theatre graduate than a physics graduate or a music graduate, based on previous experience. Someone who doesn't have the commitment to a four year degree in film, and needs a "fallback" makes me nervous. Do they have the commitment to stay with a film until its complete?