Film Schools

[Andrew Kimery]

Why are so many people looking at film students using RED's as a negative? It can only be positive IMO. Maybe it is because I am a student.

Hindsight. :turned:

It's not that there is anything necessarily wrong w/getting to play w/the newest toys, but it can be a distraction from focusing on more important skills. For example, I'm sure any student would say their edit lab sucked if it was populated with G4's running OS 10.2 and similarly old versions of Avid or FCP. But many machines that old, and older (OS 9 anyone?), are used every day in Los Angeles to cut prime time network and cable programing. Learning how to just operate an NLE isn't worth much but learning how to edit a story is.

Once you get out of school and start working full time professionally you'll learn that you didn't learn nearly as much applicable, "real world" knowledge in school as you thought you did. Think of it kinda like learning the "text book" version of a English in a classroom then moving to the deep south. The language you learned and the language used are the same in theory, but very different in practice.

My biggest piece of advice for college students is get as much practical, real world experience as you can. Intern at a post house. Work weekends schlepping cable for the local cable station. PA for peanuts on a low budget feature. Pretty much do anything to get as much practical experience as you can. Real World Work+Real World Contacts will beat Student Film+Bleeding Edge Technology any day of the week and twice on Sunday.


-A

 

[Bob Melville]

RED at Ringling College of Art and Design

RED at Ringling College of Art and Design

The Digital Film Department at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida has purchased RED and a professional complement of RED primes and zooms. Like everyone else we will be receiving the camera in due course.

The future is RED and we consider it absolutely necessary that our students receive an education in how a high end professional camera works. RED goes beyond mere acquisition of a 4K image at a great price point. With the accessories and lenses available from RED, Ringling College Digital Film students will learn all aspects of how a professional camera department works in a digital cinema environment. This means that our students will receive a feature film experience.

RED is as significant a teaching tool as it is a production tool. Ringling College of Art and Design has joined the revolution.

 

[Jonathan L. Bowen]

But, high-end Arri's and others like them are used at least by your fourth year if not before. Why not a RED. There's more to break in an Arri which has many moving parts (kinda). I don't see the problem. There is no reason why you shouldn't be on the cutting edge, even if you are a student. They don't want painting students using shitty paintbrushes in art school. They want the best paintbrushes! So get the best cameras!

Well, jt, you are actually smart, you understand some simple things. Most people either don't seem to understand this, or don't care, and especially not film schools.

OMG LOL WTF film school students will break teh equipment!1!11!!11111. You're kidding, right? Please tell me that was a joke. They have insurance for that, first of all, and second, I paid $37,000 for the Los Angeles Film School. Let me write that out so it's more clear: THIRTY-SEVEN-THOUSAND DOLLARS!!!!!!!! If you have 30 students entering every month you BETTER have 30 RED cameras so that EVERY SINGLE STUDENT THESIS FILM can be shot on that camera if need be, and you better have $25,000 Archer steadicams, and you better have professional sound stages, and you better hire teachers who have more than 2-4 years of industry experience, and you better not tell me that Avid is the only editing system anyone uses (I can't believe what BS that was). If you think I hate the L.A. Film School, you have no idea how much I hate it. I swear to god on everything I own and every dime I will possess in my life, I will bring that school to its knees. And if need be I'll buy it myself in 15 to 20 years and show the world what a real film school looks like -- and it looks a lot more like Chapman University or USC than Los Angeles Film School, aka Scam Artists, Inc.

That school's equipment was so pathetic that what I'm shooting with next March will be vastly superior to what any student there has access to using. First off, my computer will be much better. Second, my sound effects library is far better. I have 101 DVDs of stock footage. They have zero. I have 63 CDs of royalty-free music, plus two expansions to garage band. They have nothing like that. I'll have 4 REDs. They have a few XDCams, two Sony F900s, and two Sony F950s, nothing as good as my equipment and not that many good cameras, either, given the huge and growing student body. Their dolly is beatup and crappy, I still think my indie dolly is smoother than that POS regardless of what its original price was. The Los Angeles County landfill has better props than L.A. Film School, which couldn't auction its prop room off for a burger and fries at Carl's Jr. The sound stages are noisier than an airport runway. The actual space itself isn't as nice as most bums have under a bridge. They don't have generators you can use on location; I at least have one. Their lighting equipment they give to most students is garbage, unless you're using it on their quote-unquote soundstages. Even my Arri kit is better than anything the students learn to shoot with.

I can't express enough how angry everyone should be at a school charging that much money and then telling us that because we're students we don't DESERVE better than a $1,000 steadicam. Are you serious?! If you're training people to work in the business professionally, they damn well better have access to professional equipment and teachers who know what the hell they're doing, especially for $37,000. If it cost $10,000 a year I'd change my tune and say it's a great learning experience for such a cheap price. But that's like saying if a Honda Element cost $500 it'd be an amazing vehicle. It doesn't, and it isn't.

PS: I agree the story is always the most important part. But I also don't believe you can teach that. You can teach a formula, but you can't teach creativity. So IMO, don't bother with film school at all. If you have money, you can buy all the equipment yourself that you need to shoot low budget. If you don't have money, you can't afford to go into debt on something as uncertain as film because in general that's just stupid. This isn't law school, med school, or engineering school. So either way I move for a vote of no confidence in film school

 

[Keith Alan Morris]

Well, jt, you are actually smart, you understand some simple things. Most people either don't seem to understand this, or don't care, and especially not film schools.

OMG LOL WTF film school students will break teh equipment!1!11!!11111. You're kidding, right? Please tell me that was a joke. They have insurance for that, first of all, and second, I paid $37,000 for the Los Angeles Film School. Let me write that out so it's more clear: THIRTY-SEVEN-THOUSAND DOLLARS!!!!!!!! If you have 30 students entering every month you BETTER have 30 RED cameras so that EVERY SINGLE STUDENT THESIS FILM can be shot on that camera if need be, and you better have $25,000 Archer steadicams, and you better have professional sound stages, and you better hire teachers who have more than 2-4 years of industry experience, and you better not tell me that Avid is the only editing system anyone uses (I can't believe what BS that was). If you think I hate the L.A. Film School, you have no idea how much I hate it. I swear to god on everything I own and every dime I will possess in my life, I will bring that school to its knees. And if need be I'll buy it myself in 15 to 20 years and show the world what a real film school looks like -- and it looks a lot more like Chapman University or USC than Los Angeles Film School, aka Scam Artists, Inc.

That school's equipment was so pathetic that what I'm shooting with next March will be vastly superior to what any student there has access to using. First off, my computer will be much better. Second, my sound effects library is far better. I have 101 DVDs of stock footage. They have zero. I have 63 CDs of royalty-free music, plus two expansions to garage band. They have nothing like that. I'll have 4 REDs. They have a few XDCams, two Sony F900s, and two Sony F950s, nothing as good as my equipment and not that many good cameras, either, given the huge and growing student body. Their dolly is beatup and crappy, I still think my indie dolly is smoother than that POS regardless of what its original price was. The Los Angeles County landfill has better props than L.A. Film School, which couldn't auction its prop room off for a burger and fries at Carl's Jr. The sound stages are noisier than an airport runway. The actual space itself isn't as nice as most bums have under a bridge. They don't have generators you can use on location; I at least have one. Their lighting equipment they give to most students is garbage, unless you're using it on their quote-unquote soundstages. Even my Arri kit is better than anything the students learn to shoot with.

I can't express enough how angry everyone should be at a school charging that much money and then telling us that because we're students we don't DESERVE better than a $1,000 steadicam. Are you serious?! If you're training people to work in the business professionally, they damn well better have access to professional equipment and teachers who know what the hell they're doing, especially for $37,000. If it cost $10,000 a year I'd change my tune and say it's a great learning experience for such a cheap price. But that's like saying if a Honda Element cost $500 it'd be an amazing vehicle. It doesn't, and it isn't.

PS: I agree the story is always the most important part. But I also don't believe you can teach that. You can teach a formula, but you can't teach creativity. So IMO, don't bother with film school at all. If you have money, you can buy all the equipment yourself that you need to shoot low budget. If you don't have money, you can't afford to go into debt on something as uncertain as film because in general that's just stupid. This isn't law school, med school, or engineering school. So either way I move for a vote of no confidence in film school

i like it when you get on your rant, but i think you just had a bad experience. i mean--nothing personal--if you're going to dump 37k a year into art school, the joke is on you. it was your choice up front. kids that dump that much money into art school without checking how big the class sizes are etc...thats just bad choicemaking. once again, nothing personal.