Film School: Is It Worth It?

Let us not beat around the bush. Among your major reasons - and probably the only reason - in enrolling in a film school is to get you ready for work in the film industry. So you won't have false hopes, let's tackle what are to be expected from film school.

Creativity cannot be taught. Drive and determination as well as your capability to thrive under pressure can't be learned from any film school. As you know, these are among the most significant skills that you must have, if you are to succeed in this business.

What aany film school can offer you, however, are discipline as well as several production elements - the theories and history of filmmaking. At its core, filmmaking is story telling: rather than words, it utilizes light, mood, action, dialogue, music and images to tell the story and film school can be essential in honing your story telling skills. 

So, should you go to film school? If we look to the film industry for answers, our findings are not so convincing. Lucas, Scorcese and Coppola all went to film school. On the other hand, Spike Jonze, Richard Linklater, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodrigues and Steven Soderbergh didn't attend any film school.

As the film industry experiences a digital transformation, one of the primary reasons for going to film school has all but disappeared. Before the digital age, film and editing equipment were extremely costly and film school was a good place for the novice filmmaker to gain access to it. Presently, however, there is already easy access to such equipment.

The digital transformation indeed made it less difficult for novices to get a shot - as in filmmakers who get discovered after posting their works on platforms such as You Tube. True enough, those who will thrive in the business are those who "just do it," as Nike proclaims.

With that as our premise, is film school even necessary, and if it is, what kind of film school makes the most sense if the goal is to make a career in the film industry?