I think I'll struggle in film school [vent]

[Zachadoodle]

Film school when it comes to simple art rules, are extremely strict on them. Like the idea of an independent film or a micro budget film or even someone from the middle class making a film doesn't fly by them for some reason. People don't think young people being filmmakers being directors don't exist and think that if they did they're too busy making a nerf gun battle as a film with cardboard?

Like the professors are extremely rigidly locked in and overly serious about the craft. I get of how it has it's place, but it feel invaliding when you're the one highly passionate about being a film director and trying everything possible to be one and the guy who essentially smokes pot and just has watched 4 films his entire life thinking films are for lazy bums with no life and talks about sex nonstop being the lead of the team... And he's always like "hurr durr I hate film and all of you ******s and don't know why I have to look after you all doing a ****y job all the time. I wish I was the PA where I didn't have to do anything." I don't know what to say about it... And then you're the PA and every time you're there you're left out and just the PA of everything despite your passion and desire. Worst part is that everyone thinks you're a freak because they wouldn't know what a zombie film is done at a low-budget level so they think you're some methhead version Dylan Klebold in camo alluding to some home terrorist plot.

I don't know. It's really awkward how things end up the way they do. Like oh there's Brad with his parody film on the college where he says expletives and plays rap music the entire thing and it gets an A because of the professor's rigidness, but oh Zach's film on the problems being faced in the pressure of those with a low income being outcasted due to the 1% is completely ignored give him a D- because he didn't follow 3 point lighting because if he did the entire house's electricity would be shortened. Added too, the ones who tend to succeed tend to please the professor so much that the professor at some point wouldn't even care if you were murdered by everyone else in the class as long as things pull through in the projects. Sometimes the students can be problematic too in rigidness and with a by the textbook mentality.

It's an extremely rigid hard-headed jack*** attitude from those film schools.

Like most of the people there are there just to blow off an easy degree and you're there to know film, and the ones who blew it off succeed while you didn't because of how insufficient you were in getting projects done. Like the projects are group projects and it could be the entire class huddles up in one project and you're left to your own project having to juggle everything on your own and it's much harder for you compared to them.

I don't know just the way film school is academically unfairly structured, I wouldn't like it. Too many uptight 4.0 GPA classy kids who make test films or films about how filmmakers who go to YouTube to study film instead of focusing on class are setting themselves up for failure to get the professor to suck them off succeeding and too many bums who make films about getting laid last night succeeding and not enough people who are really into the craft there. In a way those colleges enforce a stereotypical mindset that people majoring in film just all they talk about is film, and well if that's true why the **** aren't all engineering students talking only about engineering, nursing students talking only about nursing, and so on. I confide in my grandfather and never had a degree in psychology am I supposed to assume he's a psychology major?

Like to me films are supposed to be about the audience not us. You don't watch the news to see stories on filmmakers, you watch the news to know about the issues with our politicians effecting our day to day life and the threat of WW3 or Covid still going on.

 

[aram]

First step: if everyone, not just most people, but everyone disagrees with you, double check your attitude. Maybe you are coming across the wrong way, maybe you are not communicating well.

Second: understand a school is a school. Treat it like a job. There should be success criteria which will be like tick box exercises. Tick the boxes, do the job for the marks and have fun around the limitations they provide.

Finally out of curiosity, can we have access to these projects? Maybe you can get opinions in this forum that support it contradict your views. Either way, it may be useful for you.

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[Zachadoodle]

Yeah but you can't accurately put a book or lesson on people and expect it to stay. Not my thing. Neither is it my thing if the overly harsh school principal regulation practicum, awkward Good Will Hunting style peer influence, and popular hard-headedness is the way to go. In many ways I'd much rather have an experimental art film filmmaker be my professor than what these film schools have as professors. "No Zach you're not supposed to use a Nikon lens on the Canon cinema cameras the school offered, you're supposed to use the overly expensive state of the art Canon Cine lenses that are made for it." and then you continue trying and then one of the students are like "Zach you're being ******ed for using the cine lenses. No one else is doing it. Follow the professor's instructions." and then you tell the 4.0 GPA student to follow the professor's instructions and then the entire class spends 5 minutes arguing with you with the professor making a jerk out of you in front of them all saying you should've learned your lesson. You show the professor your sci fi gritty star wars influenced film and the next few days you're called into the dean's office for perpuating a terrorist plot due to your lack of knowledge of how to properly pitch your film, and this is due to the unclear concept art and inferences you made for your film.

That's the last thing I'll say about that. I admit what I wrote is controversial, but in my opinion film school kills the art and passion of filmmaking. Then you come out of all of that barely with a C-B making mom and dad proud after they were yelling at you to get your homework done right getting all the knowledge and experience you have and am contradicted by the circumstances of the classroom and it turns out all that the film industry wanted were the people who blew everything off and made you look like a donkey's bum all the time you were there, and you work a job in fast-food at the bottom never getting to the top. The person who made straight A's all the time put every Jedi mind trick to use to avoid you and make you look bad, and you're stranded. Note too the 4.0 GPA student asks obliviously weird questions in class like, "is it possible to make a film black and white when everyone makes films in color now?" AND DUH YES.

In a way I should have been more interested in doing drawing animation than using the camera since I can do fine more with myself, but that's not my thing.

Besides to not be negative, Im taking the advice of the guy who said, if you dont like it then leave. So I'm leaving.

 

[CharlesPapert]

I had a hard time following that narrative, but sorry you had a negative film school experience. Sounds like you and should have probably swapped. I went to NYU (many...MANY decades ago) for a year and it wasn't for me. The focus was on avant-garde filmmaking and there was a generally anti-commercial filmmaking mentality, which was a tough fit for a kid like me who revered Spielberg. In retrospect it was good for me to have been exposed to classic avant garde like Luis Bunuel and Maya Deren, but I didn't really need to see the professor's buddy's film that consisted of him standing in a stream shooting down into the water on 8mm, occasionally zooming in and out. Not for the princely sum NYU was charging, anyway. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. Countering my previous statement about swapping places, I don't think any film school would have been right for me back then, I was too eager to get working on legit sets and spent as much time as I could leaving campus to go hang out on those.

From anecdotal stories I've heard over the years, the main takeaway from most who went through film school was the relationships they made with other students, which often led to collaborations once out of school (perfect example shown in this pretty fascinating documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAljCDBAHg4).

 

[Paul F]

What do you want from film school?

 

[Imamacuser]

I didn't attend film school, but it's standard practice at colleges to limit your topic choices and require professor approval. You have to meet the parameters of the assignment, nothing should be surprising about that.

If you can memorize the textbook for a short period and regurgitate it, you'll do well at college, otherwise, you'll struggle.

Take the professors critiques with a grain of salt, as the saying goes, "Those who can't do, teach,"

Film school is not for everyone, but consider persevering, and look extra credit options.


Are you saying that you were excluded from a film project, and the professor required you to produce a video on your own? Doesn't sound like standard operating procedure.

Student film projects are one thing, but generally speaking, I hated group projects; I was just carrying the stupid, and or lazy people along.

If I were the 1st AC, I'd prefer to have a cine lens with a proper distance scale, not to mention that T-stops are more precise than F-stops.

A degree doesn't equate to competence or performance. I'm often dumbfounded at the stupidity, and uselessness of highly educated people.

I didn't finish college, but since I have broad knowledge and skillsets, I often teach people who make twice as much as me how to do aspects of their job, because they are seemingly incapable of problem solving or teaching themselves a new skill.