RED, religion or business? (Film School Discussion)

[Larry McKee]

RED is creating a buzz elsewhere too. I was meeting with a client the other day about shooting some assembly line / production process videos. Out of nowhere they asked if I've heard of "that new red camera". So I gave them the scoop...

---Jeff Kilgroe


Yeah, I was shooting a scene a month or so ago in night club. One of the club patrons (real not an extra) came over and asked if I had heard of the RED camera. When I told him I had one on order, his eyes got big.

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Well, that's true, but I also don't think it's probably fair to say every kid coming out of film school can get a RED package, I mean are you serious about that? If they could, wow, the world would be a lot different!

He was just talking about FCS software, not a RED package. Plunking down a large sum of money for something like a RED packaged doesn't make a whole lot of sense unless you already have an established business that can use it. Or if you're a hobbyist/indie with the cash, that's great too.

As for the poor college student / college debt thing. I find that approach to an education all too common these days and rather disconcerting. I worked all the way through college (actually, I've been working since I was 12, but that's another story). I walked out of school debt free and I'm not the only one I know to have done that. My wife almost did it had her employer not gone belly up three weeks into her senior year. There are ways to pay for your education without racking up $35 to $100 thousand or more in debt each year. That's insane, IMNSHO, but many do it. I've got several friends who kick themselves regularly for partying it up through college while they racked up loans. Some had part time gigs flipping burgers or serving coffee, but many of them regret not being more serious... They ended up spending years paying off student loans instead of buying a house or something more constructive to their future.

I don't want to sound too condescending or rude. I'm fully aware that not everyone can handle full time work and school. Or it just may not be possible for someone to come across the right supportive job when they need. I just don't understand how so many students run off to school and rack up a huge debt with little concern over how they will deal with it when the bills come due.

Sorry, rant over.

 

[Ramesh Jai]

RED is creating a buzz elsewhere too. I was meeting with a client the other day about shooting some assembly line / production process videos. Out of nowhere they asked if I've heard of "that new red camera". So I gave them the scoop...

I am in Ghana, West Africa. We talk about RED too!

 

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

He was just talking about FCS software, not a RED package. Plunking down a large sum of money for something like a RED packaged doesn't make a whole lot of sense unless you already have an established business that can use it. Or if you're a hobbyist/indie with the cash, that's great too.

As for the poor college student / college debt thing. I find that approach to an education all too common these days and rather disconcerting. I worked all the way through college (actually, I've been working since I was 12, but that's another story). I walked out of school debt free and I'm not the only one I know to have done that. My wife almost did it had her employer not gone belly up three weeks into her senior year. There are ways to pay for your education without racking up $35 to $100 thousand or more in debt each year. That's insane, IMNSHO, but many do it. I've got several friends who kick themselves regularly for partying it up through college while they racked up loans. Some had part time gigs flipping burgers or serving coffee, but many of them regret not being more serious... They ended up spending years paying off student loans instead of buying a house or something more constructive to their future.

I don't want to sound too condescending or rude. I'm fully aware that not everyone can handle full time work and school. Or it just may not be possible for someone to come across the right supportive job when they need. I just don't understand how so many students run off to school and rack up a huge debt with little concern over how they will deal with it when the bills come due.

Sorry, rant over.

I couldn't agree with you more. The only thing I will say is that some schools, at least like the LAFS, have about 80 hours of school per week for the first eight weeks, and it's still very intense for the next three after that. It lightens up a bit second term (I don't know this from experience, but the teachers, the staff, and the students told us this), then it's tougher again third term, and after that you make your thesis film which occupies most of your time. The good part is you only have one year in school of unproductivity, I mean financially speaking, but the bad news is you really don't have much time to do work on the side. It's actually interesting because in the school's package they give you, their rules and regulations, they say you MAY NOT take a job while at film school. Obviously this is something they can't fully enforce, and many students do take gigs here and there to help pay their bills, but it's not realistic for them to make $37,000 doing it! Haha.

My issue, and this may sound harsh, is that I don't really think the film industry is one you should be going into debt to get into. That's just my opinion, and it's based on everything I know about how tough this industry is to break into and make money doing, but my feeling is that film school is a luxury you should do if it's right for you and if you have the money to attend. To go $70,000 to $100,000 in debt for one to three years of film school doesn't seem smart to me when most of the kids who get out of film school end up working as gaffers, grips, boom mic holders, etc., or even better jobs but on smaller productions, where IF they pay at all, the pay might be $50 to $100 per day, which is certainly not going to pay off any debts, it probably won't even pay for your cost of living.

When a film school tells you that you really can't expect to start anywhere but at the bottom after school, I don't get that, personally. Starting at the bottom, ok fine, but paying $70,000 to go to school and THEN starting at the bottom? I'm confused why that would be a good move for most people. Just get in there and start working! Meet people, learn on the job, read books on the side, do whatever you can do, but at least you won't be in debt. I think people really truly underestimate just how much money that is. I know people who are $10,000 to $15,000 in credit card debt and it has ruined their lives, really put a big strain on their relationships, their day to day living, etc. And that's "just" $15,000 or less, whereas these kids are going to have $70,000 in debt. Sure, credit card debt is worse, but that's still not an easy amount of money to pay off, especially if you're not going to be guaranteed a high paying job when you get out.

Also a lot of these kids are going into unpaid internships that are supposedly "great opportunities" (and I don't doubt that...), yet that's basically another hardship because now you're in debt, you got a great opportunity, but no money coming in. That's pretty rough. That's the main reason for failure in this industry, in my opinion. If you don't have the money to stick it out, then you end up working a part-time job to pay the bills while you pursue your passion, and sooner or later someone offers you a great opportunity but it's a week-long shoot, no pay, and you know it'll be a great chance to meet people and gain skills, but when you tell your place of employment, they say Bill's already gone next week, we can't afford to miss you too, if you leave that's it, you're fired. You end up realizing you can't pay your bills without that job, so you turn down the opportunity, and it's not long before you just end up taking a full time position outside of the industry and give up your dreams, which after a while start to seem unrealistic.

This guy asked me the other day, "What if you don't make it, will you go back home?" Uhh, no. I can stick around for the next 60 years, and that is one reason I'm doing film and not anything else, because I have the background to take risks without being worried about failing. But a lot of people I know don't have that luxury and they are definitely in precarious circumstances.

 

[Curran Giddens]

http://www.hollywoodcamerawork.us/

I purchased this 6 DVD set a couple years ago. Forget about film school this has everything a director needs to know about camera work. This alone is probably worth an entire semester in film school. But what do I know, I'm a hi-skool drop-out.... :blink:

 

[Cyclemanjohn]

aaahhhh the great film school debate. Here's a story for you. Several years ago I was asked to sit in and help judge a student film competition at the University of Texas in Austin. We sat through movies about being a student, and some gender bending art films, a big musical (shot on 35! it still sucked) and others. Then came a little black and white film shot on some sort of wined up camera, bolex or bell and howell, anyway, no synch sound. It was about a little girl who got revenge on her brother after she obtained kinetic powers and could make him do anything with her mind. God we laughed, it actually told a story with the camera. We awarded that movie first place. The short was "Bedhead" and the director was a young man named Robert Rodriguez. If you don't believe me check out Wikipedia. The point is Robert had "it". Young people today could make great films with much more accessible technology today than Robert had in 1990. Why don't they? Some do, but most don't have "it" all of "it". That is talent, ability to write, ability to tell a story with the camera, imagination, DRIVE, luck, real passion, perserverence, and WORK ETHIC. Film school can show you some things, but so can "Film School in a Box" (check it out it's pretty cool) and it's a lot cheaper. If you want to be a director write and shoot your project NOW but your project better tell a good story. After all it's really pretty simple, all any of us want is to see is a good story isn't it?

 

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

Yeah, exactly. That's how I feel. I just never had the confidence to try anything very ambitious because I thought I needed film school to do it. I had made shorts before, back in high school, and the stories were alright. Dialogue was pretty terrible considering we did improv a lot and really didn't write much down, and when we did it wasn't very well thought out, but we were more into playing with the camera, getting some cool shots, basically amateur stuff -- more emphasis on looks than on story, I think, which is what a lot of film school students still do the whole way through.

Most of the student thesis films we saw were truly terrible. I mean I'd say 40-50% of them were technically speaking fairly good, but they had really retarded stories. Those kids had 5-6 months to write a script and just a week to film it, and yet the filming looked mostly good and the stories were horrible -- I don't get it. It just is shocking to me how you have that much time and come up with such lousy stories.

Anyway no use turning this into a film school debate I suppose, but suffice to say it's right for some people and wrong for others. With the price of film school now days, which has increased drastically and nowhere near in line with inflation, and the price of filmmaking equipment, which has decreased drastically, it's making less and less sense to go to film school just logically speaking. I think thirty years ago it was a lot more logical than it is today. You have DVDs with all kinds of director commentaries and behind-the-scenes featurettes, great off-the-shelf software, etc. There's not much of an excuse for not just going out and creating.

I've seen a few really good student thesis films, and they did have one thing in common -- great stories. One had great effects, too, I was really impressed, I guess they put about $20,000 into it, but the story was so funny, amusing, original, I really liked it (it was called "Blockbusters"). Another one wasn't technically very good, it was sufficient, it didn't look great, but the story was really powerful stuff. I mean you couldn't see that movie and not be moved by it. If you can make audiences feel something for your movie, that's pretty impressive for a short. That one was called "Stealing Innocence," check it out online if you get a chance. It's good stuff, really relevant to recent events.

At film school, to me, it seemed like everything we heard was, "Go buy this book, it's great, it'll teach you all this stuff about (whatever)," and "The best way to learn is to go out and just shoot, shoot, shoot!" Well, ok, if that's the case, then my decision to quit was justified -- bought a lot of books, and I'm now shooting projects whenever I want. Why do I need film school? Haha, they kind of brought that on themselves! For $28,000 more (it was $37K total), plus the cost of a thesis film, plus parking at the school, plus 10 more months without being able to have time to make money in the industry, it just was a no-brainer for me and David. We got our money and got out.

Hollywood Camera Work huh? I went to that site about four weeks ago, I wasn't sure what to think, but if you recommend it maybe it's something I should check out. Heck with that $28K back I can spend $400 on my education.

 

[Curran Giddens]

I'm a big fan of Robert Rodriguez! Not because he made "El Mariachi" for $7,000 (partially raised by volunteering in medical research), but because he can make a hollywood blockbuster like "Sin City" in his own home studio. Shooting entirely in a greenscreen studio allows the actors/actresses to work when it is convienient for them. They don't need to be on set together unless they physically interact with each other during that scene. I'm going to use this method as much as possible especially if there are famous actors/actresses involved. I'm sure they would appreciate an extremly flexible schedule. Of course, there is a limit to what kind of story works with so much cgi....

 

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

That's true, not to mention a lot of actors complain about acting against green screens. At least everyone who was in the Star Wars prequels was b**ching and moaning about it, hehe. Mainly McGregor and Portman, actually.

 

[Michael "Dorkman" Scott]

At my film school, 75% of those kids are going $70,000 in debt for ONE YEAR of education -- $37,140 tuition plus the rest of the loan is for cost of living during that year, and if you take into consideration their lost earning potential during the year we're talking about a ton of money blown at film school. Those kids can't afford a Big Mac when they get out of school, let alone a RED. If they could, they wouldn't be working the lousy jobs they end up working. Like my friend said, "Moving lights and plugging in cables is a job, not a dream."

That may be true for your friend, but I know a number of grips who love being grips. They get to be on set and help the magic happen in a very real and tangible way, and get paid well on professional sets, while at the same time they have to deal with much less stress and angst than the director or DP, and don't have to deal with the loss of privacy of becoming an A-list actor.

I just worked on a set with a fourth-generation key grip who loves what he does. I get the point you were trying to make that film school is not an automatic "in" (I've had to give that speech several times to friends debating film school), but I don't agree with the mindset some people seem to have that nobody but the director is doing what they love.

 

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

*shrug* Sure, I guess there are people who have no more than fairly mediocre ambitions in the industry, but generally speaking people like to move up the ladder and have some creative involvement eventually. Then again, there are people who make good money doing a certain job and really don't care to do much else, like a life-long 1st A.C. who works with a great camera team, makes solid money, etc. Doesn't want to take the risk of trying to be a DP on smaller sets that pay less well, etc.

For me, I can't imagine not wanting to be in a creative position. And to me, there are only a few creative roles on a movie set, everyone else is essential and their jobs are very important, but they aren't creative as much as they are assisting those who are. That'd be the director, the DP, people in the production design department for sure, but no grips, no gaffers, not the 1st A.D. (definitely not, our teachers even joked that 1st ADs are usually the most uncreative people in the business outside of maybe execs), not the 1st A.C., not the 2nd A.C., none of those support positions really. That is not to say they aren't good jobs, or important jobs, or respectable jobs, though, so don't get me wrong. A professional shoot doesn't work without those people, they have special talents and abilities, too. It's just not as much the creative side.

My friend's other saying, it's a joke between us ripped from Troy (when Achilles says, "And that is why no one will remember your name!"), is to say of someone, "That's why no one will remember his name." It would be failure to me personally if I spent 60 years in the business and nobody remembered or knew my name, because nothing I did really mattered. That's not why I chose this path. If I wanted that I could sit home and just do nothing, basically, and have plenty of fun, live it up, etc., but I came here for the one-in-a-million chance to make a name for myself. Doesn't mean I will, but it means I'll give it a shot.

And yes, film school is definitely not an automatic in.

Incidentally, are you *the* Dorkman Scott of Ryan vs. Dorkman fame? I was watching your FAQ on YouTube the other day, lol, and you're mentioned in my upcoming book "Revenge: The Real Life Story of Star Wars: Episode III--Revenge of the Sith" (July 2007). If indeed that is you...

 

[GlennChan]

Different strokes for different folks. In some respects, working "un-artistic" below-the-line jobs beats working a mcJob or working in an office.

 

[chuck colburn]

Different strokes for different folks. In some respects, working "un-artistic" below-the-line jobs beats working a mcJob or working in an office.

Yeah man.. I always kinda figured that "No cameras, no movies" was creative enough for me during thirty years as a optical/mechanical tech. lol

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I would also say that creativity is in the eye of the beholder. Being in a director's chair doesn't automatically make a person creative. When shooting in an intense environment or on-location, anything can happen. It could be that one day the most creative person on set was the grip who solved a rigging problem.

 

[Craig Schober]

creative vs. ambitious

creative vs. ambitious

I would also say that creativity is in the eye of the beholder. Being in a director's chair doesn't automatically make a person creative. When shooting in an intense environment or on-location, anything can happen. It could be that one day the most creative person on set was the grip who solved a rigging problem.

creativity comes in all forms on all crews/positions. i think we're also talking about ambition. and when i think of a film set, that's all i see. i've yet to meet anyone (craft services, grips, extras, script supervisors, etc.) in film that didn't have their own little project "in the works". only thing is that 99% of these people will never get their projects off the ground. they'll complain about funding and favoritism in the industry but it usually comes down to guts. everyone usually gets one or two opportunities to jump in and start digging towards something that they don't know how to climb out of just yet. but very few of them actually do more than talk.

film school seems to provide somewhat of a headstart. you're not going to trade up your skills to anything higher than shooting something with your friends but you might trade up your friends. contacts and networking are the most valuable assets of any film school. that and getting freshman to bust their ass on your film for free.

 

[JVB]

Different strokes for different folks. In some respects, working "un-artistic" below-the-line jobs beats working a mcJob or working in an office.

very true..but in some cases you can be very artistic. Take a below the line job like special effects for instance, you wouldn't think it but you have to be very artistic when it comes to doing an explosion, squib hits or smoke. Look at the explosions in live free or die hard in which the FX team had to make a car crash into a helicopter and exploded in Downtown LA between highrise building and not break any of the class in those buildings. I'd say that's preaty artistic for a below the line job and I would take that job over a Mcjob any day. :biggrin:

 

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

Different strokes for different folks. In some respects, working "un-artistic" below-the-line jobs beats working a mcJob or working in an office.

That is *definitely* true. Who wouldn't rather be on a film set? Anything can happen. At least you have variety...

And that's a good point, creativity really can come in many forms, I didn't mean to suggest that it cannot. I just meant as far as having that passion to tell a story, I guess. But I'm not typical in that sense, I would say, because many directors don't write their own stories and may have no desire to do so either. For me, I majored in philosophy in college, I'm an author, what I love to do is communicate ideas or messages, and although I love writing I know that you can't reach as many people writing now days as you could hundreds of years ago. People don't pick up philosophy books to get ideas, they watch movies now. I respect the filmmakers who, through TV, movies, or even music videos sometimes, have communicated messages of political or social significance to a large number of people in a non-preachy way. Almost like being a philosopher through film, rather than writing, which is something that interests me. I don't see film so much as just one of many jobs, an industry I could "make a living in," but I see film as a language of expression that's just a lot more complicated (and a heck of a lot more powerful) than the written word. So my interest in film is not technical as much as it is for communication of ideas and stories.

Other people, though, have totally different fascinations with the industry. I know when I first thought I wanted to get into film, I was much younger and wanted to be a visual effects artist. But the fact is I have no technical skills or ability in that area, lol, and I figured that out pretty early on and gave up that idea.

Ambition is definitely something I see as a driving force in the film industry. Everyone seems to want to direct, or at least everyone has a story to tell, a script they supposedly have at home that they wrote, etc. It's true, though, most people don't have the guts to risk everything or at least risk a lot to make something. I think it's not so much that actually as it is that people are very negative, they lack confidence in all areas of their life, and they keep hearing these voices in their head about how they can't do this, they can't do that, they'll never be able to do this, etc. Or maybe they have voices like that in person, friends and family who tell them to "get real" and "get a real job, stop dreaming," etc. The people who are most stubborn are definitely most likely to create something of their own, they're least likely to believe they can't do something. That can either be genius or dangerous, haha, depending on the outcome.

 

[Ed Watkins]

ooh... this film school vs. non-film school debate always gets me edgy.
Because I'm just finishing grad film school, and because I constantly wonder whether it was worth it.

Still it allowed me to cross from a Science background into the documentary profession, and get the confidence to pitch and produce my own projects, so that has to be a major plus point.

Still I always advocate never putting all your eggs in one basket. Anyone need a DP, a website, some biological anthropology research, or my soul? :tongue:

 

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

Biological anthropology, interesting. I think one of the more interesting classes I ever took, that I thought I would hate, was a philosophy 499 class (special topics) and that particular term (I took another 499 later, I think) was Philosophy of Biology. The guy who taught the class wrote this book "Sex and Death" (he hated the title, the publisher was to thank for that) that basically combines his background in biology with his interest in philosophy. It was really cool stuff, because it wasn't all that technical, more philosophical. Good for me, since I wasn't much of a science guy after high school.

If film school gives you the confidence to do something you want, that has to be worth something, anyway. I only went to film school for about 7.5 weeks, but actually in that time I already gained enough confidence to quit. For me, that was plenty of time, the rest I knew I could do on my own for cheaper than the $28,000 I had to pay to be there for the rest of the program. It was a weird situation, because although I didn't care much for the film school, I wouldn't say I regretted going there, because from the first eight weeks of the program you do learn a lot, even if the organization sucks and the equipment is pretty shabby, you learn enough that you're already as competent as many film school students after a year, if not more so. I already had an extensive background in film theory and film history, so I wasn't interested in any of that, spent years and years of my life doing almost nothing but that on my free time, which was more than my non-free time, hehe.

 

[Ed Watkins]

I already had an extensive background in film theory and film history, so I wasn't interested in any of that, spent years and years of my life doing almost nothing but that on my free time, which was more than my non-free time, hehe.

:w00t: haha
I wish I had free time....