Is film school a waste of money?
Yes, there really was a time in the early seventies when Hollywood just gave new filmmakers the power to do whatever they wanted, with minimal interference.
Perplexed by the popularity of movies like Peter Fonda’s easy rider, and unable to replicate the success on their own, the studios gave unprecedented creative power to a new generation of film school graduates. They thought that these brats must know something that they didn’t. This is how legends like Spielberg, Lucas, Coppola and Scorsese got their start. And that’s how some of the best Hollywood movies were made.
By the late 1970s, after years of study and quantification, Hollywood had learned to systematize the formula unknowingly developed by Lucas, Spielberg, and others. Thus the Hollywood summer blockbuster was born. In recent decades, Hollywood has continued to refine the system, developing a fairly predictable profit machine driven almost entirely by hype and spectacle.
What does this have to do with you?
Well, the fact is, you have a better chance of landing a decent studio job with an MBA than with a film degree.
Artists haven’t run the industry since at least the 1940s. Hollywood is run by huge conglomerates with more interest in making money than movies. Hollywood exists to make a profit, like any industry, and a movie is a huge investment. Studio films with artistic merit are understandably rare, given this paradigm.
So no one should go to film school?
Film school can be an amazing place if you are really passionate about movies, if you really want to live movies and create them. Where else can a budding filmmaker be surrounded by like-minded people, accomplished industry mentors, and some of the best equipment money can buy? If you can afford it, film school can be a wonderful place to build relationships that will last your entire career.
Film school gives you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to focus on your art without distractions. It allows you to follow your inspiration wherever it takes you. You can write what you want and film what you want. You can ignore the annoying call from “real life”. This could be just what you need to develop your artistic voice. It might also be just what you need to catch the eye of a mentor in the industry, or someone else who can help you get to the next level.
A lot of people think that money you could spend in film school is better spent making a movie. That’s not a bad argument. It’s true that not many film school graduates get a good job in the industry based solely on a degree. No screenwriter sells a script just because it has a title. It all comes down to what he can do, the product itself.
If you can prove that you are a strong filmmaker, you can make it in this industry, film school or not. The filmmaker degree is really just one step on the long road to your goal: success in the film industry.
And besides, who knows? Things could change.
Hollywood’s current formula could, and probably will, break. Then what? Perhaps the studios will once again hand over creative control to a new generation of movie brats.
You could be one of those brats.