Film school owns your films

I remember back in kindergarden in school when I would draw or paint a picture or create some craft object, I would be able to bring it back home and show my parents. Then I could post it on my wall or give it to someone special. I put my work into creating it so I got to keep it.

Once I got into film school, things changed. Things that I had put my work into would be owned by the school. Films would be required to have "The University of Southern California" printed onto the credits. I would not even be able to post the film on to youtube unless it got "cleared" by USC.

And yet I had paid $200,000 to attend USC.

And yet I had produced, shot and edited everything.

And yet USC had not given me even 1 cent to produce my film.

USC will own all the films you create in class. Don't waste $200,000 on film school cause you won't even own your own film. All you will get from film school is a piece of paper.

"Faith" in film school will get you no where

The act of attending film school is putting faith in a system and the idea that the system will make you a filmmaker. If it's not faith, call it something else. But the fact that film students are spending $200k+ and 4 years+ on film schools means that they believe in something. And usually that belief is that film school will enable them to direct films.

That mentality of an external system or force(i.e. a film school or money) may be correct when viewing an industry(law, medicine or even the industry of filmmaking). Doctors and lawyers need to pass exams and need to get licenses... However, when it comes to filmmaking(the art of filmmaking as opposed to the industry of filmmaking) this does not necessarily apply.

Filmmaking requires passion and creativity among many things. Passion and creativity are not things that can be bought(at least not with money) and there is no set formula for them. They cannot be taught in class.

Go pick up that camera and be a filmmaker. Strive to make great films and then actually do it.

Most of your time at film school is spent not making films.

Of course, film school students don't spend most of their time making films. Its almost absurd to assume otherwise. Film school students like normal people actually have lives. They must feed themselves, meet people, sleep, etc.

But unlike normal people, film school students have requirements/classes they must fulfill in order to graduate/receive their diploma. And many times those requirements are classes that are totally irrelevant to film. For example at USC a film production student will be required to take classes such as "Oceanography", "Earthquakes" or "Our Monsters, Ourselves"(BTW what kind of class is "Our Monsters, Ourselves"??).

Aside from the useless "general education" classes, most of the actual film classes are not about filmmaking but about the industry of filmmaking. As a matter of fact, film production students are only required to direct/produce 6 of their own films while attending USC. 5 of those films are produced in one semester of CTPR290, an introductory class on "Cinematic Communication" and 1 is produced in half a semester of CTPR310, "Intermediate Film Production".

Of course there are advanced production classes that can be taken, but then you are limited to a maximum number of credits/units of advanced classes you can take. I hit the maximum in my Junior year, had to appeal to the school for more units(to graduate), and ended up taking no film production courses during my whole senior year(I didn't have a choice)!

Absolutely fantastic...

And if you thought that wasn't enough, you will only make short films at USC. There is no class at USC in which you actually work on a feature length film.

21 of the Best Short Films on Youtube

10 Minutes

Ahmed Imamovic

Still Life

Jon Knautz

New Boy

Steph Green

No Man's Land

Clara Glynn

Frankie

Darren Thornton

Please!

Paul Black

Nought

Jonathan Beamish

Model / Photographer

Zak Forsman

All About My Dog - Marimo

Atsushi Sanada

sweet night good heart

Dan Zeff

Strangers

Erez Tadmor & Guy Nattiv

The Girl With The Yellow Stockings

Grzegorz Muskala

The Black Hole

Phil & Olly

The Open Doors

James Rogan

This is Me

Sam Arthur

The Computer Virus

Jesse Chambers

The Bloody Olive

Vincent Bal

Pierre Oliver

On S'Embrasse?

Alive in Joburg

Neill Blomkamp

Signs

Patrick Hughes

Lovefield

Mathieu Ratthe

Filmmakers who never went to film school

Ever-growing list of notable filmmakers who never went to film school...

Werner Herzog
James Cameron
Stanley Kubrick
Ridley Scott
Wong Kar-wai
David Fincher
Peter Jackson
Quentin Tarantino
Alfred Hitchcock
Cecil B. DeMille
Clint Eastwood
Roger Avary
Sam Raimi
Frank Darabont
David Mamet
Spike Jonze
Richard Linklater
Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Todd Haynes
Bob Clark
Raoul Walsh
Sydney Pollack
John Ford
Victor Fleming
Fritz Lang
Mel Gibson

Basically everyone who made films before there was film school.

Let us know who is missing from this list.

Why wait for film school?

One reason why many aspiring filmmakers aren't making films right now is, "I'm going to make a killer film once I get into film school". Good luck getting into film school...

Well once they actually do get accepted to USC or UCLA, the reason becomes, "I'm going to make a killer film once I enroll in the (blank) class". At USC the class tends to be Intermediate Film Production AKA CTPR310.

CTPR310 is a required class for all Film Production majors at USC and it entails creating a short film in half a semester. Previously, 310 films were shot on 16mm film but recently they switched over to HD(Sony EX1). Students are provided with practically all they need to make a short film(lights, grip, camera, editing station). And being that 310 is one of the highest level production classes that is required, many students wait until it comes around to make their film.

However waiting to make a film is absurd. Just imagine your film is being funded, but you have to wait a long time before you can actually make it... Oh, and you're funding the film. Huh?

That's right. Waiting to make a film is absurd but waiting to make a film when everything is already available to you is extremely absurd. The stuff the school provides is not free. You paid $200,000 to attend film school.

What's more?

-Your provided budget is $0.

-If you break any equipment, you pay for it.

-You are forced to work with a random partner.

-Weird rules like aspect ratio must be 16:9 and all sound must be post production sound.

CTPR310 and many other film production classes are absurd. You are not only paying for it, you are not getting your money's worth. And you only have one chance to make or break a film. That's like buying a $500 lottery ticket.

They use ancient technology at film school...

One of the things that has always surprised me about USC film school is the amount of ancient technology they use. Sure lights, lenses and grip last forever, but camera's do not.

As a camera fanatic I was interested in seeing what camera I would be working with for the introductory film production class(CTPR290). I expected some kind of HD prosumer camera like the Canon XH-A1 or the Sony FX1. After all it was the year 2008 and HD was pretty standard.

However when the cameras were introduced in class, I was sorely disappointed. The camera was the Sony PD170, a standard definition camera. It's not ancient, but it looks ancient.

The professors seemed excited about it though.

Professor 1: We will be using the Sony PD150 for this class.

Professor 2: No. I believe we have upgraded to the Sony PD170.

Yeah big upgrade. I bet you can't tell the difference between a PD150 and a PD170.

Anyways it's as if USC wanted to pick the biggest camera that produced the worst image. No high definition, no 24FPS, no 1/48 shutter, terrible sound(you are not allowed to record sync dialogue in 290 anyways)...

But wait... David Lynch used the PD150 for Inland Empire, Danny Boyle shot 28 Days Later on a standard definition Canon XL camera, Chan-Wook Park shot Paranmanjang on a freaking Iphone.... Those films looked good...

Those directors had their reasons. I'm not saying that the PD150 or standard definition is not capable of producing good cinematography. In fact it can produce great cinematography. But I think in an introductory class, the last thing students want to worry about is why the resolution is so bad or why there is a loud hiss in the sound or why everything looks like a documentary because the camera can only do 60i.

The idea behind the PD150 is that students get to learn about manual controls and also learn about limitations. First of all, at least 95% of 290 film will be shot in auto mode. They teach you how to manually expose and focus but they never really teach you why manual controls are important(it's not advanced cinematography!).

Secondly, HD cameras have manual control as well(well duh). They also have 24fps, 1/48 shutter speed, better sound, less grain etc. And with technology getting cheaper and cheaper every day, it is not hard to find an HD camera with manual controls that is a financially viable option for USC.

Thirdly, how uncreative is it to impose/create limitations on students? Filmmakers who aspire to make the best already have enough limitations/challenges to deal with. Filmmaking is about solving problems, not creating them. Students should be worried about how they should do a certain camera move, or how they will get a believable performance from an actor.

Cameras are not perfect. They are not meant to be perfect. But come on... Either get some HD cameras(perfectly financially viable option), or save some money and get some flip cameras.