Value of film schools/industry advice doc

[david farland]

Read this (http://members.aol.com/newfilmkrs/faqs/worth_it.htm) a few years ago and have kept it close to my heart!

Extract:"....it will take you seven to ten years of outrageous struggle to launch your career in film and/or television REGARDLESS of whether you attend film school or not.
There are no short cuts .....

......If you truly dedicate yourself to a seven to ten year course of aggressively preparing yourself for your chosen craft.
If you read and reread until it falls apart every book, magazine article, (web page?), etc. on the subject.
If you apprentice yourself to those who are few steps ahead of yourself
(make sure you are giving them something of value in exchange--it can be your sweat or, in the case of film school, your tuition dollars).
If you take every opportunity to go out and work on movie sets (yes, for free and in lowly positions at first).
If you build working relationships with peers, seniors and those coming along behind you........"

Don't know what happened to Filmmaker's Foundation but the article left a deep impression on me.

DF

[Adam C Lubkin]

Nice. Thanks for posting that, David. It's such a better perspective than trying to be the next boy wonder or, conversely, feeling that the odds are impossible so what's the point.

[Tom Lowe]

Sounds about right to me.

[Jaime Vallés]

Make your own indie film on DV. Best film school ever.

[Desert Rune]

First, you need a good story worth telling. Then everything else falls into place.

[GlennChan]

There are no short cuts .....

Yes there is: nepotism. ;) Just look at who's president of the US.

Ok ok but on a serious note, it seems like nepotism gives a leg up to some people and to others it doesn't help at all (i.e. Sofia Coppola gets little respect as an actress).

[David Mullen ASC]

Sure there are short cuts -- the trouble is that you can't plan your life around them because they are usually lucky opportunities that happen randomly. The main thing is that you have to be prepared to take advantage of those lucky breaks and be ready for a leap forward at that moment in your life.

Otherwise, you should plan for the long haul of being poor and struggling for awhile, at least a decade in my case. Keep a low overhead, or else you'll be tempted to settle for a safe job that pays more regularly.

[Steven Parker]

Extract:"....it will take you seven to ten years of outrageous struggle to launch your career in film and/or television

After five years working in Chicago and five more years in LA, all hand-to-mouth low budget stuff, I was lucky enough to meet -and complain to- a very modest and very amazing cameraman who told me just that - it takes ten years... IN THE SAME MARKET

I was kind of crushed, still impatient, but he was right. A lower-lower-level cameraman, I rolled up my sleeves and kept going. I'm still lower-lower-level... but I am actually ready for that opportunity when it presents itself.

Thanks, David. Good to see you on these forums, good to see more and more of your work out there. Wish I hadn't missed you at NAB.

RedGang - watch 'Northfork' - it is stunning.

[David Mullen ASC]

I started making short films seriously when I was 16, in Super-8. Finally went to graduate film school when I was 26, ten years later.

Ten years after that, I was shooting low-budget indie features and making less than $20,000/year, supported partly by my wife's salary. But that year, 1998, I shot my 13th feature, "Twin Falls Idaho" -- that movie got into Sundance in 1999, got me an agent, and got me an IFP Independent Spirit Award nomination. Didn't get my rates up, not by much, but after "Northfork" (same director) in 2004, my 23rd feature (on which I only got paid $1000/week!), I got another Spirit Award nomination, got into the union finally, got my rates up finally, and was invited a year later to join the ASC.

So now I'm reaching the ten-year anniversary of shooting "Twin Falls Idaho" and finally making what could be described as a middle-class income. So yes, I'd definitely say it can take 10 years to reach each significant level of your career.

[Bruce Allen]

1. Schools are tricky. I went to do my MFA at USC film school and found it incredibly expensive and mostly useless. But the theatre directing program I took in South Africa was the greatest learning experience of my life.

2. Totally agree on the 7-10 year thing. Much longer in my case. I started making computer animation using a program called DeluxePaint Animation when I was 9 (didn't know anyone with a camera so couldn't do live action) and learned non-linear editing when I was 14 (after lobbying for 2 years for my school to get a computer with video in / out). Boy was that a step up from hooking up two VHS decks together. Made some fun stuff with the help of a VHS-C camcorder. I kept on focusing on writing stories, drawing and painting, music and plays. Also taught myself computer graphics programming because I knew computers were going to play a big part in all of this. Read all of those script books a long time ago, worked and worked and worked...

...and do you know what? I'm glad I haven't made any feature films yet. Because each year I experience, the more I experience and learn about life and people and the beauty and the meaning of it all. I think that in a year or two I'll really be ready. The fact that I'm not rich enough to make a feature on my own keeps me honest - I need to write a script good enough to impress more people than just myself...

So for me, it's going to be more like a 20 year journey. Probably everyone else too.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Tom Lowe]

Bruce, good post.

[Frank Weeks]

Bruce, great lesson for those entering this business.
If you want to get rich quick, this might not be the right path.
I started editing video on 1/2 reel to reel. The guy who came to sell us the “new” ¾ inch technology started by saying “did you hear…Elvis died.”
Needless to say, Been at it for a while.
There have been good times and bad though the years ... mostly good. But the great thing is, I’ve never lost the passion. If you love what you do, you never have to work for a living. I ordered my red the morning the PJ’s stills were released.
Now I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas morning. I have been waiting for this camera since the late 70’s. Thanks Jim, for making it happen.

Isn’t life grand?

[Chris Kenny]

There are alternate roads to success these days, in addition to the freelance DP or owner/operator route most people have traditionally followed. Particularly with the flexibility a camera like Red provides.

You can now leverage the same equipment in the video production industry and with feature production. This opens up the possibility, if you can come up with some startup capital, of starting a video production company that does traditional video production industry stuff (event videography, industrials, commercials, etc.) and also shoots self-funded features. The traditional video production stuff hopefully pays the bills, justifies the money you spend on a Red package and other equipment, and helps mitigate against the high risk of the indie film production business.

This is the model the little production company I'm starting (with a couple of other people) will follow. I've posted about it a it a fair bit on Indie4K.

[Bruce Allen]

Thanks, Tom and Mr Videodisc. Tom, I have to agree with your "Location" quote and say that if I hadn't watched Badlands, I'd be 5 years further behind on my journey than I am now.

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

[Greg Voevodsky]

Here's my 2 cents on what film school doesn't teach you. I spent several years just trying to get into several film schools in LA. In the end, I did 3 of USC summer production workshops, doing 6 videos, 1 short 16mm, and 1 - 20 minute project with sound. I also had many camera classes from UCLA extention (highly recommend), 1 semester at LMU film gradatute school, until I dropped out and went to Art Center College of Design for 2 years and then dropped out to finish my short 35mm film. I also worked on 2 Roger Corman films in Venice as a PA before going to film school.

OK. If you want your shot as a writer/director - you must write a good entertaining commercial low budget film. 80-90 pages, 8 locations or less, all close to LA. This is Roger Corman's requirements. I'd recommend some sort of romantic / thriller. Many companies will not look at horror or sci-fi. If you can do comedy well - then do it. So, after you finish film school, you have a short film (in the same genre and style) as your feature script and then you can go shop it with your script at AFM in Santa Monica. I sent my reel, and feature screenplay to over 100 production companies after film school.

However, I made a mistake - I was trying to make something commercial (with sex and violence) and artsy (intellectual - is mankind inherently good or evil?). The problem was the art crowd thought it was too commercial and the commercial companies though it was too artsy. Hollywood's biggest lie is that they want an original screenplay that I had...

what they really want is the same thing but different. Easy Rider with 2 women became Thelma and Louise. That's why Hollywood always pitches movies in terms of 2 other movies. Die Hard on bus, Die Hard on a boat, etc. Read the history of most big directors and most started with Genre work. James Cameron did Pirranha 2. Oliver Stone did "the hand."

Lastly Hollywood is about the deal and many directors got in that way - William Shatner had everything that was in Leonard Nemoy's contract was in his. That's how he directed Star Trek 5. Dances with Wolves was done in exchange for Cosner doing Robin Hood. Ron Howard traded acting to direct a movie for Roger Corman. Read Corman's book and as many filmmakers autobiographies as you can and see how they made it in. Good Luck.

PS - always work with the best people you can. Fire negative or incompetent people ASAP - they will ruin your project.

[Ken Corben]

If ever I make it to the Oscar podium my first thank you will be to Jack in the Box (A California based fast food restaurant). If it wasn't for their 99 cent menu I would have gone hungry more than once in my dues paying decade.

[GlennChan]

Sharkguy, are you sure that's healthy? It might be a case of deferred payment. ;)

[Victor]

I thought about filmschool but instead used the money to buy some cameras, mics, equipment and a few filmmaking books and make my own movies. I've shot both video and film. The experience has been invaluable. Making movies and listening to the director commentaries on my favorite DVDs has taught me more about filmmaking (and about myself) than I think filmschool ever could--and it's been A LOT cheaper. I've made three movies so far of various lengths and am now writing a feature--a high school thriller.