Could someone tell me how or where I can learn all about film making?

[mike ogden]

For what it's worth, I guess the OP is asking how some of us who have had careers in this crazy business have learnt, what we know and what we've found valuable. So here's my 2 cents...

• Art school or an appreciation of art.
• Reading everything you can.
• Watch a ton of films, from Michael Bay to Satyajit Ray to Kurosawa, Keaton and beyond. Appreciate what has gone before and why things are done a certain way before you try and break those 'rules'.
• Learning the craft of screenwriting and telling stories. Good for editors.
• Getting paid to work with some of the best film & TV technicians and craftspeople I could in many fields, from drama to docs and entertainment. Even sports! Learn and listen to everyone from the caterers up. So go be a runner/PA to start.
• My degree course in business, helps with the film planning and understanding how to run things and raise the dough.
• Realising what interests you as a story. If nothing does, you're not a director or a screenwriter.
• Making some short films and having them win a few gongs, proving that I had some idea what I was doing. So make films and be prepared to fail.
• Not giving up.
•*Have your heart broken and get a few life scars. It will inform your film making.
• Keep learning new tricks.
• Have some fun along the way.
• Twenty or so years later... patience.

...and avoid film makers who say they have a 'vision'. I prefer the term 'story' as a starting point.

Some of us are happy just being technicians and craftspeople in the industry and you might find that's all you wish to be. The good ones are educated to some degree. For instance, I don't know any good colourist who isn't aware or interested in fine art.

Others actually want to make films. If that's you, give it a go but surround yourself with good people and get a good script and a decent cast. You'll soon find out if you're any good or not or like being the captain of your own ship.

At the end of the day, a film school will do nothing that being a PA/runner will teach you after 3 or so years apart from having a negative bank balance and no one on set gives a hoot about your fancy pants degree anyway. Film schools are way over rated, there are too many of them and the best ones are hard to get into and too few and far between.

Good luck.

 

[Kristjan Kristjansson]

And what have you made that demonstrates your closed minded/uneducated view?

Well I apologize for my closed mind I just don't have 68.000 bucks in my pillowcase to open it up.

I'm young filmmaker so I don't have much to show, just one documentary and one short.

But I have to short features in the water, one that is going into photography next month. Hopefully they will be great
(and I'm sure they will be with M Most "Luck" in my pocket)

 

[Shawn Booth]

I'm young filmmaker so I don't have much to show, just one documentary and one short.

This was obvious with your post...

(and I'm sure they will be with M Most "Luck" in my pocket)

I wouldn't mock and/or disrespect those professionals who offer wisdom, knowledge, experience... It will follow you and is plain rude. Oh wait, you wouldn't know such things because you have a vision...

 

[David Mullen ASC]

This is a chicken-and-the-egg sort of argument... without the ability to turn a creative thought into reality thru skill or craft (by means of knowledge, experience, and talent), plus hard work and luck, the "vision" has no means of getting out of one's brain.

And without that creative idea in the first place, one's skill or craft can't be applied to anything (except perhaps someone else's vision.)

So it's a bit silly to get into arguments over which is more important than the other, any more than to wonder if you can live without air versus water and food.

I think most of us can agree (except for torkrist) that we need both ideas and the means of expressing them.

I will say that as an autodidact, I don't have much respect, let alone understanding, of individuals who don't see the value of an education. It's like talking to a Martian. You expect people to get something from the experience of watching your movies while believing that the world and all of its knowledge and experience has nothing to offer you in exchange. That's sort of a one-way ego trip.

 

[Kristjan Kristjansson]

This was obvious with your post...



I wouldn't mock and/or disrespect those professionals who offer wisdom, knowledge, experience... It will follow you and is plain rude. Oh wait, you wouldn't know such things because you have a vision...

What is obvious is that in spite of being young I have actually made two serious films, and owe it all to my self for making them.

Considering innocent mockery
My first comment on this post was a view that I expressed that education is not the key to create films. It's just view, nothing rude or mockery about it. The "good luck" I got from the M Most was the first trowing of mockery and it's rude as you know best being a man of wisdom so it followed him coming my next post.

 

[Ace]

Well I apologize for my closed mind I just don't have 68.000 bucks in my pillowcase to open it up.

The idea that university students have 68k in their pillowcases is ludicrous.

Most people I know (including myself) when going through uni had to work night jobs, freelancing, whatever it takes to get through making ends meet. There's also student loans. Although I'm not quite sure how it works in the US.

Spending that money on a quality education is the cheap, not the expensive way, to get to point B. And it doesn't need to be in film making either. All art based degrees gear you up in the same way.

 

[Michael Vera]

What is obvious is that in spite of being young I have actually made two serious films, and owe it all to my self for making them.

Considering innocent mockery
My first comment on this post was a view that I expressed that education is not the key to create films. It's just view, nothing rude or mockery about it. The "good luck" I got from the M Most was the first trowing of mockery and it's rude as you know best being a man of wisdom so it followed him coming my next post.

I'm young as well (19 years old), and I still see the value (almost borderline necessity, excluding prodigies of course) to film school, or at least some sort of formal training...

Film is just as much a science, as it is an art. People are born painting masterpieces without training, but will not not make a century changing mathematical breakthrough without first going through basic math classes (at least being taught math).

So at the very least you can have the art side of film down to a certain extent (the "vision"), but you still need to learn the science dynamic. And as aforementioned, going at all that by yourself to equal film school can be just as pricey, and less structured...