Film School Help!

F

FONZOfilms

Member
Hello dvxusers,


I currently live in tallahassee and have wanted to be filmmaker since a very young age. I applied to a few film schools and got into some that were too expensive for my family. The others, I didn't get denied but was denied from the university itself. I go to tallahassee community college and I'm not happy there because I'm not filming or doing anything film related. Anyways I just want some advice from an outside perceptive.


FSU's film program is one of the best in the nation but extremely hard to get into. I would have to transfer to FSU first before I can even be considered for admissions. My chances just kinda seem low


Valencia film school, I can get into since it is a community college and is based in orlando. From what I've read its very protocol and technical based. I haven't been able to talk to anyone in the program and was wondering if any one knew anything about it. Also the degree you get, doesn't allow you to transfer into a university unless you choose one of the pre-selected majors (none film related).


UCF's film school is the one I'm most interested but again chances seem low. However, they also have cinema studies which works very close with the film school and makes it easy to transfer to that program. I would have to wait some time to transfer into this program however.


I know this seems a lot but I need to figure what I want out my life and can use any help I get.
 
I think Hudson says it quite nicely...

If you aren't filming or doing anything film related now, it's pretty clear filmmaking really isn't your thing.
 
I live in FL too. I was planing on going to Full Sail and go the school route. But to be honest, for me personally, It's not worth it. 50/50 either way. I am desperately trying to gain experience and get a nice portfolio. However, I realize school is a legitimate route. I am lucky as hell and managed to find a damn good scriptwriter and actor...who has pile and piles of scripts ready to go. Every one of them really good. We understand each other well, too. Damn lucky.

Maybe try to do film stuff outside of schooling too. Get together with classmates. Find people on Craigslist. If you where in the Bradenton, FL area I'd invite you to maybe become a part. But you wouldn't want to come to this town anyways. My advise. Film everything you can. Go out and film even if you know you won't use the footage. I started filming at 16. I'm 20 now and am actually pretty good at working with a camera now. Try to gain as much practical experience as you can. Be practical.


I still second guess my decision of not going every day.
 
I am Willing to Network as well. Ill only be in Fl for another year or 2 before I move to california. I live about 45 minutes north of Tampa. I have found if you want to get into and go to school for film, California and New York are the best places. The biggest advantage of going to school where film is prominent is to network with people while in film school to build a reputation with employers while you are still in school.

PRP
 
ALso in florida looking for networking, maybe we can teach eachother and start our own company instead of school ;). Tampa Area here.
 
Film school is good if you are not able to get experience and contacts on your own. After being accepted and actually paying a down payment on my dorm for a pretty decent film school I changed my mind and decided to go to school to be a Paramedic while doing my own networking and film work. This way I will not only get awesome life experience to apply to film but I will always have another job. The problem with Film schools these days is they mold you to be how they want you to be as a filmmaker. Not a lot of room for free thinking. Go experience life, read and shoot! Any technical questions or knowledge you can learn by gripping or PAing a film. And if that doesnt work for you thats what DVXuser is for.
 
School is lame. Goto Amazon and dig around. Order a few books. Go out and shoot. Order some more books. Get on the internet. Most of film school is free online. Make some friends, build a crew, shoot some more. Stay away from school, it's lame.
 
Film school can be incredibly good, but you will still have to do the hard work yourself. You cannot just sit back in your comfort zone and let college create an amazing filmmaker out of you.

I agree with the others though. If you aren't doing anything related to filmmaking right now, you don't love it enough to be successful.
 
Drew Ott said:
Film school can be incredibly good, but you will still have to do the hard work yourself. You cannot just sit back in your comfort zone and let college create an amazing filmmaker out of you.

I agree with the others though. If you aren't doing anything related to filmmaking right now, you don't love it enough to be successful.
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I agree. I loved going to film school, BUT, I spent all my time working on as many projects as I could. The people who aren't successful in film school (in my opinion) are the ones who do the required work and nothing else. You need to push yourself to make it worth your while. When I graduated, I had a portfolio of work 4-5x bigger than my peers, because I worked on every project I could.

And that's why I think my schooling was worth it. It gave me 3 years where I didn't have "real world" responsibility where I could just learn film/video like crazy. And I did. So it was worth it.
 
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