help w/ school major

[aaron_wade]

overall goal: to become a working commercial/ music video director; signed w/ a production company. then moving into features later on in life.

im majoring in advertising at the Univ. of North Texas. the reason im doing this is so i could possibly get in w/ a ad agency of some sort. then build contacts/etc.. im going to continue to build a reel outside of school, i just didn't want to major in film production. i will still build relationships w/ the students & professors in the film program though.

does this sound like a good plan? any other advice? feel free to share!

 

[JasonFox]

Aaron -- Majoring in advertising is good, but not actually necessary for getting into an agency. Not that it doesn't help, but I've got a marketing degree and have been an ad writer my entire career. If you want to direct, I'd get into some sort of film program over an ad program. Even though many ad creatives do make the transition into directing (a feat I'm trying accomplish right now), you might as well start out where you want to be. I didn't simply because I didn't know how much I loved it until I was on set watching someone else shoot the spots I had written.

Feel free to bug me. I'm an associate creative director at a small shop in Addison. I'll give you our URL as soon as our new site launches -- hopefully next week. Ha!

Fox

 

[tshark]

My brother used to be an advertising major, but then switch to a psychology major with a minor in English at SMU. Now he is working for small company, but they have big clients. So you dont have to be an advertising major to get places in advertising. Its all about just working your way up, meaning probably doing all the crappy 12 sometimes 14 hour work days and getting paid ****, but its good when you are young and you will be a better person later in life when you get better jobs.

When it comes to film, take some film classes on the side if you are going to stick with the advertising major. Get the basics down, develop your techniques and style. Practice practice practice. Make lots of different short films, read (learn how a story is developed and so on), watch other movies... time will take its toll.

Im currently a film student at USC and just getting my GE's out of the way right now, but its all about just sticking to your dream and working with what you got and sooner or later hopefully someone will discover you and make you famous/rich.