DOV S S SIMMENS seminar

Adam J McKay

Adam J McKay

Veteran
Anybody have any experience with the dov ss simens seminar and or dvd's?
I was thinking about going to one.

Also action/cut seminars, any experience?
 
If you don't know anything about how the industry works, Dov's seminar is a great introduction. It's a tremendous amount of knowledge that gets dumped into your head in a short amount of time. And the good thing about it is that it's direct, forcefully stated, and entertaining at the same time.

It's about producing, not about directing or lighting or any of those disciplines. It's all about producing.
 
So it would be good to know? Because when it comes to the business side of film, I am completely lost and was one of the main reasons I wanted to go to film school. Because as for tech knowledge, the wonderful people here have an answer for almost any question.

Thanks
 
I found it extremely useful. You shouldn't take it as absolute gospel, especially because his information may be getting more dated (I took that seminar over a decade ago). But it was a great weekend and just full of lots of good info.
 
zergtherobot said:
So it would be good to know? Because when it comes to the business side of film, I am completely lost and was one of the main reasons I wanted to go to film school. Because as for tech knowledge, the wonderful people here have an answer for almost any question.

Thanks
Click to expand...

I went to NYU's film school. They pretended to focus on theory, but they sucked at it. In truth, they were best at teaching technical skills...which is because those are the easy skills to learn.

They don't teach you how to produce a movie. They don't teach you how to sell it. They don't teach you how to write well (although, they think they do!) They don't teach you visual language skills.

In short, it's $160,000.00 education you can get right here.

I dropped out halfway through my senior year because I realized I'd gotten all I needed from them. Bastards sold one of my student loans TWICE and I had to pay it twice, so I've paid for my education and then some...and I feel I've earned the right to be VERY vocal about what a complete waste of time film school was for me.

If I was 18 I'd tell my parents to buy me a 42" TV, DVD player with A-B repeat, a stack of DVD's and a cheap-ass camera. I'd make one short movie a week for three years, studying every masterwork on DVD. I'd listen to the director's commentaries ten times. I'd watch every BTS documentary over and over again. I'd shoot scenes from those movies, mastering lighting, composition, color theory and sequential storytelling on my own. Then, I'd make a thesis film.

I'd have saved my parents a ton of cash, not gone into debt and learned far more.

Of course, you have to be VERY self-disciplined to pull this off. But, if you know you are highly self-directed don't get sucked into the film school trap.
 
Thank you all,

I believe my filmschool question has been answered. Another thing that was keeping me from attending school was the fact that I picked up photography as a hobby and am now more successful at that then alot of people I know who have a degree in the photographic arts. I think it is because I am self motivated.

So thanks for the input, I think im going to check out the Dov SS simmens seminar supreme, give me a nice heads up to business of film. I also have the hollywood camera works dvds which I think are very helpful. Anyways thanks for your input.
 
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