"You know Mike, I finally agree with something you posted. Of course you were quoting someone else."
Just to clarify, Brad, I do indeed hate film school. In fact, I probably hate it more than you hate FULL FRONTAL.
quote:
Anyone who goes to "film school" and leaves thinking they will be the next big Hollywood director/producer/whatever will definitely make CRAP!
This I can verify from first-hand experience. I once sold some editing and camera equipment to the professor of a university film school. During our discussions, I quickly learned that this person knew nothing about movies or the filmmaking process.
Astonished that someone could head a film program while being unaware of rudimentary concepts like aspect ratio, fill lighting, parallel action, et.al, I kept saying, "And you're the professor of the film school?" Oh, but this 20-something, oranged-haired chick was well-qualified to teach, I suppose, hip techniques like film-scratch animation, shaky-camera, and punk rock spray-paint motifs.
No form, no substance, just technique. We be filmmakers!
Last I heard, she spends the day sitting in an empty apartment, hoping the phone will ring with a contract for MTV interstitials.
Why film schools seem to teach only artsy-fartsy, nonsensical style and techniques, instead of training students in the creation of commercially-viable product, is beyond me. I guess I'm just not hip, but it seemed logical to me that the best filmmaking education I could get would come from working on real movies, studying classic texts, and getting lots of practice with my own equipment.
------------------
Better Projection Pays!
The people who made the "Blair Witch Project" went to my school. They didn't make it while at school, nor do I think they even took any film classes here, but that's what everyone brags about. Actually, this school looks for just about anything to brag about. (They'll spend $2M on a fountain for press coverage)
=TMP=
And I agree 100%... Full Frontal looked like a movie shot by a film school student.
Film school used to be different!
My late brother-in-law, Lucian [Bergmann] Bratu, studied painting and was sent by the Romanian government to the Soviet Union to study film
in the film academy began by Sergie Eisenstein. When Lucian arrived, in the late 1940's his teacher and the director was Edward Tisse, who had been Eisenstein's cameraman. The class of ten was required to study art history, theatre, literature and writing before they avanced, over several years, to actual film work, where they studied classic American and European films. Each student was required to make a short film, using the other nine as actors, set designers, makeup and costume, script writers, lighting, camera and editing technicians. Each projected his or her film.
So each student got to perform each of the crew functions in filmmaking. To learn editing, one assignment required re-editing the Odessa Steps sequence from Potemkin!
Why such a rigorous and thorough preparation? Because Lenin considered motion pictures essential in molding the populace towards
his view of revolutionary government; Stalin continued this course, and the Romanian government followed on its coattails.
[When Lucian Bergmann returned to Bucharest, it was as director in the nationalized film industry, where because of prevailing anti-semitism his professional name was changed to Bratu. He made the first Romanian blockbuster historical film, about the life of Tudor Vladimirescu, which earned him a medal and bonus from the government.
Unfortunately, as the government became a crazed, corrupt dictatorship
Lucian was driven more to the periphery of the industry, making highly personal features, scarcely avoiding the penalties of political censorship. His films had considerable success abroad, but were seldom allowed to be shown in his native land.]
Here in New York, when I took several film courses at Columbia U., the students seemed bored with studying classics or anything else,
and seemed to lack even dilletante interest. When I visited a Maryland art school with a friend, an art professor, his students
were interested only in weird experimental attempts or porno.
No doubt there are now meaningful, practical film school programs in the US, but the seriousness of purpose found in European film schools in the 1940's seems far out of reach today.
Most university education is not intended to teach a trade. It is intended to make you think and give one a basic education. The problem with too many movies today, even succesful ones, is that their entire reference point is other movies, television shows and pop culture in general.