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Article: Choosing A Film School

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Choosing A Film School

It's natural to desire a film school based on its alumni.  Star Wars fans are likely try and work a Jedi mind trick on the admissions board of George Lucas' alma mater, USC, which accepts only 150 out of 14,000 undergrads into its film school.  This is not, however, the best route to success.  As impressive as are the alumni of the widely accepted "big five" film schools, they should not overwhelm the many complexities of this decision.  Film schools are expensive, competitive, and have very distinctive teaching slants.  Plus, the truth of the matter is, Martin Scorsese may have time to pop onto the set of The Muse, but he's not likely to stop by and shake hands with the entering class of his alma mater (NYU).  Alumni of a particular school may be a few degrees of separation closer to the students of their alma maters, but will remain a name-only presence for most students.  Being a fan has little to do with being a filmmaker and, as the reel work begins, these two internal personalities should break up (or at least consider a trial separation).

Party of Five (and Florida State?)

Action! Every year, tens of thousands of hopefuls apply to film school to start a career behind the camera.  If you're of them, you probably dream of one of top five film schools - UCLA, NYU, the American Film Institute, Columbia and USC. (Aren't film students big dreamers, after all?)

Of the five, USC and NYU are considered the top of the heap.  USC is, both literally and figuratively, closer to Hollywood. Applicants may need Jedi mind tricks to gain admittance into this alma mater of George Lucas - the school accepts 150 undergrads out of 14,000 applicants annually.  NYU, the home base of Miramax and Tribeca Productions, has an "indie" edge, personified by prominent grads like Spike Lee, Ang Lee, and Oliver Stone. 

If you're lucky enough to gain admittance to either, however, you'll find that both schools have a ground-up approach to training.  Nick DeLoretto, a B.F.A. from NYU's Tisch School, says to "go elsewhere if you just want to sit around and talk about movies.  I needed [production oriented] film school.  I didn't know how to shoot a camera.  I needed to learn the aesthetics, the basics.  I needed guidance." USC was chosen by one grad student because "they [had] an excellent reputation for training neophytes." He rejected UCLA, a cheaper option, because "it tends to have a reputation for anything goes." (Keep in mind that tuition savings at public schools can be offset by the fact that private schools pay for more and better filming equipment.) ~ According to Karin Kelly and Tom Edgar's book Film School Confidential: The Insiders Guide to Film School Studies, the only graduate schools that truly teach filmmakers to survive in Hollywood are The American Film Institute, USC and Florida State.  Well known for producing intellectuals, Columbia is hailed for its screenwriting courses and simultaneously criticized for having an overwhelmingly "theory-based" agenda. 

Honorable mentions

There are other "sleeper" schools aout there.  As many as 30 schools across the country offer graduate classes in film and hundreds of others are churning out film majors.  According to the New York Times, in 1980 only 35 percent of filmmakers had gone through film school.  By 1992, 72 percent had been formally trained.  As the numbers of interested parties grow, so do the institutions to support them.  At the top of the new film school are the University of Texas at Austin and Wesleyan University.  Wesleyan offers a five star liberal arts education as well as a film department run by Jeanine Basinger.  The school sponsors, in the words of one grad, "the last great campus film series," which shows about one hundred films per semester in a state of the art cinema.  The Wesleyan approach metaphorically embraces the idea that if you just add movies, filmmakers will grow.

The University of Texas has been popular since The Texas Chainsaw Massacre hit the big screens, and has escalated since Richard Linklater (Slacker) and Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi) returned to Austin after their hits had been distributed far beyond the border.  In a feature entitled "It Schools," Entertainment Weekly magazine gave props to Wesleyan and U Texas, as well as to the California Institute of the Arts, SUNY Purchase, and The University of Sussex in England.  Ithaca College and Emory College have both established L.A. offices to help grads establish networks.  Boston University has long been considered a top-notch school for film and television.  ~ Yes, I would like fries with that!

Graduating from a film school doesn't automatically bring glory.  Film producers tend to see interns as coffee and fruit shake mules.  The rub is that film students rely on internships (usually unpaid) as their best way to break into the business.  Even paid entry-level jobs often lack dignity.  When asked what he did in his first year after graduating from USC film school, one sour alumnus replied, "I took two PA jobs - so I drove around the monkey in Monkey Shines and then drove around Tom Brokaw for an NBC news special.  What do I do now?  That's the million dollar question." I

The editing room

So you've spliced and diced all the facts, now the big question is whether or not to edit yourself out of the film school scene.  Truth is, some enter film school wanting to direct and end up becoming cinematographers.  Some screenwriters find a niche in the editing room.  Others may spend the better part of their twenties plugging away at the same dream they carried into school.  The only sure ticket to failure is an inability to understand that film careers involve grunt work side by side with carefully crafted technique; improvisation alongside carefully plotted shots.  Consider style, budget, director and resources before you make the final cut.