Chapter 35
Education
Planning a Career
How do you get started as a documentary filmmaker? And, after, say, 3 to 5 years of work, where can you expect to be? Parents ask, “Is it responsible to feed young people’s hopes when there are so few positions in filmmaking?” The answer is that there are as many positions as there are exceptional filmmakers and storytellers. Documentarians, like actors, musicians, and dancers, are part of an entertainment industry, and there are no limits to what the world needs that is entertaining. And even if those documentarians are good rather than exceptional, there is much today that people will pay to have documented. In my open admissions college we learned that, with few exceptions, it is neither fixed nor predictable who will grow and flourish while learning to make films. Those who do so are always those who persist because they like the process. Once you’ve got the bug, it’s something you must do. Doing anything from enthusiasm is always what makes you excel.
Documentary makers are like actors, musicians, and dancers; they belong to an entertainment industry that exists to give the public what it finds interesting and relevant.
How risky is it to learn film-making? Even if you end up taking another direction, an education in filmmaking represents as broad and encompassing a liberal education as you can find. What else incorporates mission, imagery, sound, light, characters, narrative, choreography, music, technology, team-work, project management, and audiences?
Education—institutional or self-administered—is your investment in your future. All investment involves commitment and risk.
If you can scrape together the funds to buy a car, you can instead start going to film school or buy the equipment to learn making documentaries on your own. You can do without a car, but you can’t do without a life of meaningful work.
To get ahead you will need, like everyone else in the arts, some ability, energy, flair, and lots of persistence. Luck and sociability play some part, but what you need most of all is desire and perseverance.
You first need to find out where your tastes and abilities lie. No matter which educational path you take, success depends on actively planning and executing your intentions. It’s not enough to plunk yourself down in an educational setting and wait for them to form you. Sadly, this is what the majority do, even though it’s no secret that film-making is the most entrepreneurial calling under the sun. The next chapter elaborates on how to plan and how to use your schooling.
Where you go as a filmmaker depends on planning your education and single-mindedly carrying your plans to fruition. No school can make you do this.
When you leave school to start working professionally, you may for some time have to make wedding videos, drive a cab, wait tables, or work construction to keep bread on the table. Doug Block, the maker of 51 Birch Street, mentioned earlier in this book, still makes his living by wedding videos; they aren’t at all easy to make well, and they are hedged around with dynastic politics.
If you gain a modest name and start netting grants and commissions, you’ll never have to wonder why you go to work every day. In what other line of work could Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me, 2004, United States; Figure 35-1) take the McDonald’s® corporation at its word and convulse the world with horrified laughter? What other job lets you entertain by setting out to find Osama bin Laden?
Learn on the Job or Go to School?
Taking the “industry route” and getting into a ground-level apprenticeship situation—always supposing there’s one to be had—can be a good deal or a bad deal. Maybe some kindly person (probably a relative) takes you on and happily teaches you all they know, but more likely you’re cheap labor so that five years later you’re still the company peon who drives the wagon and answers the phones. Why? Most employers are under pressure to survive, and expanding Junior’s horizons is not their job. Most, in fact, will take steps to avoid enlightening you, so you don’t become a competitor.
The on-the-job film training I got, then three decades of teaching, left me convinced that education is a bargain. A single example: In a 15-week editing class, students can use techniques and insights that took me a decade to work out for myself. Arrive at your first job overprepared, and you can always assume more complex duties as the need arises. And it will.
FIGURE 35-1 Morgan Spurlock in Super Size Me, taking McDonald’s® at their word. (Photo courtesy of The Kobal Collection/Roadside Attractions/Samuel Goldwyn Films.)
Good schooling provides:
- A cultural and intellectual overview of your medium
- Knowledge and history and ideas about the role you want
- Technical training in the use of the tools, techniques, and concepts
- Disinterested help in uncovering your talents, abilities, and energies
- A safe environment in which to experiment at expressing individual vision
- Aspirations to use your professional life to its fullest extent and for the widest good
- Collaborators with whom to face adversity, of which there is plenty in school and after it
A good film program is like a structured obstacle course. You get history, aesthetics, technical facilities, skilled teachers, and lively contemporaries with whom to discover the medium. Its benefits continue to surface for years after you graduate.
Film Schools
Film schools send you through all the roles in filmmaking so you can settle on that which suits your temperament. Discovering your strengths and weaknesses, you acquire confidence and self-knowledge and learn how to remain true to yourself under pressure and criticism. On the debit side, schools have to concern themselves with fairness and equal opportunity, so they teach to the common denominator—to the frustration of fast learners, slow learners, and from time to time everyone else.
Film schools are supermarkets that stock the shelves with what the majority consume. Documentary is still in the exotic aisle. “Humankind,” wrote T. S. Eliot, “cannot bear too much reality.”
Locate good teaching at film festivals by noting which institutions produce the work you like. A sure sign of energetic and productive teaching, even in a small and impoverished facility, is student work that is receiving awards. The school should offer a thorough conceptual, aesthetic, and historical framework allied with strong production expectations.
Most important to a production department are faculty energy, student morale, and what’s expected in the curriculum. Students should prove their knowledge in practical ways, not in film theory as a precursor to touching the equipment.
A School’s Identity
Depending on its faculty’s interests and traditions, a school that says it teaches documentary may in fact lean toward television journalism, visual anthropology, social documentary, oral history, sociology, or some other form of nonfiction film-making. Faculty résumés and honors lists will reveal what the school promotes and whether its students are currently getting recognition.
Read carefully what a department says about its attitudes and philosophy, and compare several institutions’ statements. Usually you have to push past a smokescreen of pious platitudes and self-congratulation.
Many schools teach at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, and there’s no guarantee they are equal. A school may practice selective admissions to a graduate division and concentrate resources on a chosen few in the hope of getting festival recognition. Their undergraduate school may be under-resourced and oversubscribed. Or the opposite can be true—the energetic work is coming from undergrads, and the grad school never has its act together. Schools are human institutions, with all that this implies.
Everyone who applies to film school identifies with winners and assumes they will follow those who’ve gone on to greatness. It’s important, however, to check out what the majority of students achieve, because you may be among them.
Students and Stars
What matters is not how the school picks and accelerates its stars (which may follow some odious patronage system) but what it does for the majority, the average student. As a learner, sorry to say, you are probably nearly as average as I am, so you need a school committed to realizing the average student’s enormous potential. So:
- If the school cites famous names, are they actively connected with the institution? (Some schools shamelessly parade names who passed thankfully from their gates eons ago.)
- Of the distinguished faculty and alumni in the school’s literature, how many are recent and how many from previous decades? (Some schools coast on their reputation.)
- Where do most of their students go after graduation?
- What do its former students say about it—both for and against?
Large or Small School
In the small school, the curriculum may be inspirational or limited to generalist “communications” courses that are overenrolled. It can be an ideal community with brilliant teaching or dominated by self-absorbed personalities who have turned their bailiwick into a dysfunctional family. Smaller institutions or departments, unless expensive, may lack vital resources and offer less choice of coursework, fewer faculty among whom to find a mentor, and less choice of film form to work in.
A large film school usually runs a core curriculum that fans out into a comprehensive array of specialization tracks; a small school cannot do this, so it might only be good for some initial work.
Large schools, though initially overwhelming, do offer choices in course times, teachers, professional paths, and mentors for advanced projects. You also get a wide choice of student partners and a greater chance to develop professional levels of expertise. My school, Columbia College Chicago, starts every-one out in fiction, but this is under review (www.filmatcolumbia.com). The student can choose to go into screenwriting, cinematography, audio, editing, directing, producing, alternative forms, animation, critical studies—and, of course, documentary.
Town or Country
Rural schools can be comfortably bucolic and profess all the right sociological and nutritional principles but remain distant from the film community you must eventually join. In an established urban film school, successful former students return as teachers wanting to give back to the next generation. Students and teachers criss-cross the dividing lines. Mentors give advice, steer projects, and exemplify the way of life that students are trying to make their own. Students work on professional projects, then get recommendations or even employment from their teachers. This regenerates the apprenticeship system of old and is very significant to learning. Even in the world’s largest cities the filmmaking community is a village where personal recommendation is everything. So consider:
- Where is the school located, and what filmmaking opportunities does the setting offer?
- What does the place feel like? (Visit at all costs.)
- How do the students regard the place? (Talk with your own choice of students.)
The filmmaking community, even in the biggest cities, is a village where networking and personal recommendation are everything.
Class Size
Learning to make documentaries is like becoming a musician. No academy would run classes for 40 clarinetists, yet administrators of large institutions often think 40 film students is quite acceptable. Used to history, chemistry, or engineering, they assume education is about students mastering a body of knowledge and taking tests. There are, indeed, body-of-knowledge lecture classes (film history, theory, technology), and these can sometimes be reasonably large (25 to 40 students). If so, don’t expect much feedback on your expertise or ideas. How well do you manage under those conditions? Some people prosper, others (like me) need dialogue, not a monologue.
You’ll learn to make documentaries best in a conservatory atmosphere, if you can find it at a price you can afford.
Documentary is a Conservatory Art
Becoming a creative artist takes place best in a conservatory atmosphere—that is, you learn from master practitioners and in small groups using intensive interaction as the mode of learning. Art schools, theater schools, and music schools all know this, but film schools often seem in denial—maybe because film classes are so expensive to run. As attendance exceeds 12 in film craft classes, they decline in effectiveness, although using a well-developed curriculum and assistants can mitigate this. Simply seeing a dozen sets of film tests, dailies, or projects—let alone trying to give an adequate and democratic critique—slows everything to a crawl.
Teachers and Workload
Wealthy schools that charge high tuition can afford to hire celebrity filmmakers and give them light teaching schedules in exchange for real productivity. Less affluent schools often lack sufficient full-time faculty and use underemployed graduate students for entry-level teaching. You learn from young, enthusiastic teachers, but inevitably they lack real-world experience. Upper level classes, peopled by seasoned students, may however function well and absorb all the full-time faculty’s effort. So sift through the department’s Web site information and faculty biographies to assess:
- What is the ratio of full-time to part-time faculty?
- How experienced are those teaching the majority of beginning classes?
- What do the senior and most influential faculty teach? (Another irony of film school life is that senior teachers’ energies are dissipated in administration duties that non-teachers could do.)
- Are faculty producing?
- Did a suspicious number of the faculty get their education in this same institution?
- Is there a diversity of ethnicity, nationality, gender, and age among the faculty?
Film schools hire filmmakers as teachers, then impose such extravagant teaching and administrative duties that they cannot make films. How active and accessible are faculty in the schools you like?
Graduate or Undergraduate?
Undergraduate Degree
If you are seeking an undergraduate degree, you may want to pursue either a B.A. (Bachelor of Arts) or B.F.A. (Bachelor of Fine Arts) degree. Institutions that teach technology to high levels sometimes offer a B.S. (Bachelor of Science) degree. As degrees in general go upmarket, the B.A. seems likely to fall before the B.F.A., which is a few more semester hours but likely to contain more specialized film classes. So:
- How many hours of general studies are you expected to complete, and how germane are they to your focus in film or video?
- Can you specialize (as a cinematographer, editor, etc.), or does everyone emerge as a generalist?
Some high-reputation film schools make students compete for whose work gets produced. You enroll, thinking you’re going to direct, only to discover several years later that because your project didn’t get the votes you are now recording sound for the winner.
Schools in the long shadow of Hollywood tend to promote (or are unable to prevent) pernicious ideas about success, ones that blight some students’ potential. The moral? A hard-to-enter, expensive school is not necessarily a good school, nor may it fit your profile as a learner. Look well before you leap. For either graduate or undergraduate programs, try to establish:
- Number of students in the department and whether size translates into choice
- Whether you study with students of other ethnicities and nationalities (a huge advantage)
- Length of the program (4 years for a B.A., 3 years M.F.A., and 2 years M.A. are average)
- Graduation rate, if it’s made available
- Number of courses the department offers, and what their structure reveals (documentary may be the poor cousin)
- Average class sizes at entry and advanced levels
- How often upper-level courses are offered (some, especially when taught by glitterati, may remain on the course list as a lure to the unwary)
- Whether upper-level courses strive for a professional level of specialization
- Whether your particular interests are treated as a specialty (speak to students studying in this area)
- Whether students own the copyright to their work (many schools retain copyright)
- Who among the faculty is making the kind of films you’d like to make
- What proportion of those electing to direct in school actually get to do so
- What the school’s record is like for placing its students in internships and jobs
Film school is like medical school; it takes some years of very hard work. This is an intense, shared experience that leaves few aspects of relationship untouched. Lifelong friendships and partnerships develop out of it. Film people often work much of their lives with those they met in film school.
You will direct documentaries after school only if you plan to be productive and fulfill your goals.
Graduate Degree
With schools competing for graduate students, there is now a plethora of graduate film study programs, some new and untried. A book packed with good advice and information is Tom Edgar and Karin Kelly’s Film School Confidential: An Insider’s Guide to Film Schools (2007, Perigee). You’ll see that entry to graduate school is competitive and based on academic record; acceptance usually depends on what you can substantiate creatively and what you have to say about yourself in writing and in person during an interview. Grad schools are usually small and selective. They give students lots of personal attention but may suffer from small school syndrome, where a few personalities dominate and a combination of airlessness and high expectations induces neurosis among their students.
A graduate student is presumed to be specializing and to have sophisticated interests and work habits, which are a great advantage; however, he or she may not learn some of the technical material as easily as someone younger with a greater natural aptitude. If you already have a bachelor’s degree and want an advanced degree, your choices are:
- M.A., which usually has a short syllabus meant to extend an undergraduate degree. It may not lead anywhere useful unless it concentrates on production, as Stanford does to great effect.
- M.F.A., which is a terminal studio arts degree and equivalent to a Ph.D. This is a good qualification for production and vital for teaching, though to seek teaching at the university level you will need several years of independent production and some prize-winning films under your belt.
- Ph.D., which signifies a scholarly emphasis generally precluding production. Since you’re unlikely to get any production experience, the work you might eventually get would be as a reviewer or, after extensive publishing, as a teacher of history and aesthetics.
Film undergraduates and graduates often learn similar things, and in mixed classes undergrads sometimes outshine grads.
Inquire:
- What is the degree’s focus? Different institutions specialize differently and aim to prepare you for different kinds of work.
- What proportion of graduates work professionally in the field?
- What kind of internship and job placement program do they offer?
Look for departments that are experienced, taught by filmmakers, and affiliated with a sizeable undergraduate school so there’s enough equipment and expertise to draw on. Best known for teaching documentary production in the United States are:
- American University, Washington
- Columbia College Chicago
- New York University
- School of Visual Arts
- Stanford University
- Temple University
- University of Texas at Austin
- University of Southern California
The best indicator of a quality program is when their students’ films win recognition at festivals.
Equipment
If you know something about equipment, this can be a good indicator of where the department puts its emphasis. During a visit see what you can find out about:
Costs and Visiting
With every school you consider, ascertain what the costs are going to be. Consider:
- How much equipment and what materials are supplied
- What the student must fund along the way
- What financial aid the school offers
- Whether the school has competitive funds or scholarships to offset production costs
- How available dormitories are and how expensive local accommodation is
- What medical and other insurance will cost
Always visit a school you’re thinking of attending and talk to students, teachers, and technical staff. The most reliable recommendation will always be that coming from someone you respect who recently attended the school.
You are going to spend a lot of time and money while at film school, so be sure you know its pros and cons. There are always lots of both.
Mostly North American Schools
Any institution you attend should be educationally accredited, but there is no accreditation specifically for film departments or even for their teachers. So it’s buyer beware. The schools listed below are affiliated with North American professional associations, but use your detective skills to cross-check a school’s reputation and what its education is supposed to deliver. Very few treat documentary as more than a side dish to the main meal of Hollywood fiction.
The Web site www.filmschools.com contains many film school links, while www.filmmaking.net also lists schools in many countries besides the United States that claim to teach filmmaking. Many are private and possibly quick-fix. The film school survey Web site www.filmmaker.com includes pungent comments on particular film schools. These are often by the disgruntled, so read lots of reports, scanning them gingerly for common denominators and peripheral information. Discount whatever lacks spelling or punctuation. Being free and anonymous, it’s a great arena for malcontents to unload spleen, but frequent and similar complaints about a school may head you away from a costly mistake.
The first list below is of mostly North American schools affiliated with the University Film and Video Association (UFVA), so you can see if there is a school near you. See the most up-to-date version at www.ufva.org under “About UFVA.”
All reputable film schools have Web sites that give a great deal of pertinent information as well as e-mail inquiry addresses. Google® any school you’re interested in by name and location. Facilities and expertise will vary. Check curricular offerings, since many don’t offer documentary as a specialization. Many American schools allow students in good academic standing to work for their tuition within the department, which offsets some of the high costs.
Film Departments in Universities Affiliated with the UFVA
Allan Hancock College, Santa Maria, California
Baylor University, Waco, Texas
Bob Jones University, Greenville, South Carolina
Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts
Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah
Brighton Film School, East Sussex, United Kingdom
Brooks Institute, Ventura, California
California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, California
California State University, Fullerton, California
California State University, Long Beach, California
California State University, Los Angeles, California
California State University, Northridge, California
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Central Missouri State University, Warrensburg, Missouri
Chapman University, Orange, California
Colorado College, Colorado Springs, Colorado
Digital Filmmaking Institute, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, New Jersey
Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida
Framingham State College, Framingham, Massachusetts
Georgia State University, Atlanta, Georgia
Grand Valley State University, Allendale, Michigan
Haywood Community College, Clyde, North Carolina
Hellenic Cinema and Television School, Athens, Greece
Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York
Houston Community College Southwest, Stafford, Texas
Humboldt State University, Arcata, California
Ithaca College, Ithaca, New York
Lamar University, Beaumont, Texas
Lawrence College, St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada
Long Island University – Brooklyn Campus, Brooklyn, New York
Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, California
Mel Oppenheim – School of Cinema, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada
Messiah College, Grantham, Pennsylvania
Mills College, Oakland, California
Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana
Montclair State University, Upper Montclair, New Jersey
Morehead State University, Morehead, Kentucky
Morningside College, Sioux City, Iowa
North Carolina School of the Arts, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Northwest Nazarene University, Nampa, Idaho
Northwestern College, Orange City, Iowa
Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois
Nova Scotia Community College, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Ohio University School of Film, Athens, Ohio
Piedmont Community College, Roxboro, North Carolina
Pittsburgh Filmmakers, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Quinnipiac University, Hamden, Connecticut
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island
Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York
Rock Valley College, Rockford, Illinois
Rockport College, Rockport, Maine
San Antonio College, San Antonio, Texas
San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California
San Jose State University, San Jose, California
Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts
Southern Alberta School of Technology, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois
Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York
Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Texas A & M University, Corpus Christi, Texas
Towson University, Towson, Maryland
UCLA, Los Angeles, California
UNIACC – La Universidad de las Comunicaciones, Santiago, Chile
University at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York
University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona
University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado
University of Hartford, West Hartford, Connecticut
University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa
University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
University of Missouri – Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri
University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska
University of New Orleans, Lakefront, New Orleans, Louisiana
University of North Carolina, Greensboro, North Carolina
University of North Carolina, Wilmington, North Carolina
University of North Texas, Denton, Texas
University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California
University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, Mississippi
University of Texas – Arlington, Texas
University of Texas – Austin, Texas
University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio
University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada
Valencia Community College, Orlando, Florida
Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York
Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan
Widener University, Chester, Pennsylvania
William Patterson University, Wayne, New Jersey
Worldwide Film Schools
For those living in other parts of the globe, you can find information on international film schools affiliated with CILECT, the international association of film schools based in Brussels, at www.cilect.org. They are organized by country; clicking on a film school will give you either a standard form that cross-lists information or a link direct to the school’s own Web site. The + sign before a phone or fax number indicates the overseas telephone code that you must first dial in your own country to make an international call. Many schools do not specialize in documentary, but many more are adding it. National schools have very competitive entry requirements, and private schools may be costly depending on the cost of living in the country.
National Film Schools
National film schools are flagship operations that are usually funded handsomely by the country’s government and that work hand-in-hand with whatever film industry they have. The Czech national school in Prague, for instance, runs excellent summer courses in English open to anyone; it has a fine tradition of cinematography and animation. Many schools in wealthy areas of Europe, North America, and the Antipodes are very good. Entry procedures can be lengthy and excruciating, and the chosen few, though undoubtedly smart, become the handpicked racehorses of a particular faculty. In Sweden, the documentary intake has been five students every other year—from a population of 5 million! It does not seem a very productive approach, but that’s what the government thinks the country needs. Don’t give up if your national film school rejects you. Mike Figgis was rejected by his, so he found another way—and so can you. People accomplish what matters to them.
Private and Open Schools
Many large cities now have private film schools, some very good. The London Film School is long established and has an excellent reputation, but as yet lacks a documentary strand. The Documentary Filmmakers’ Group Web site offers guidance to resources in Britain (www.dfgdocs.com/Resources/About_Us.aspx). To find private schools in your own country, do an online search by entering your country’s name + “film school.” For Denmark, I found seven schools this way under www.filmaking.net, which lists schools by countries.
Other Routes to Education
Short Courses
These give useful initial exposure so you can decide whether documentary is for you. The best known facilities in the United States are the Maine Media Workshops (www.theworkshops.com/filmworkshops) and the New York Film Academy (www.nyfa.com), which also makes courses available in other countries. Look critically at course content and cost, and don’t be bowled over by glossy hype. For high-cost places like London and New York, compute housing, living, and medical insurance expenses, which can hike costs astronomically. Britain has many short film and television courses in the regions, which may provide better value, and there is an explosion of similar courses in many developed countries. Short courses are usually equipment or procedure oriented rather than conceptual, so expect them to be taught by technicians. They usually aim to inspire beginners, rather than take you to the upper reaches.
Study Abroad
People sometimes assume that work and study abroad will be an extension of conditions in their own country and easily arranged; however, since the September 11 attacks, international students wanting to study in the United States have found entry slower and more difficult. Here are a few pointers:
- Apply far ahead, since obtaining visas has become a longer process.
- The school usually applies for your visa once they accept you.
- You will probably need to take a TOEFL test of English proficiency. Arrange this in your own country (see www.toeflgoanywhere.org).
- Medical insurance is mandatory but may often be purchased through the university at reduced cost.
- Supporting yourself through part-time work is not legal.
- Though you graduate in the United States, you probably can’t work there. Like most countries, the United States excludes foreign workers when natives are underemployed.
- Check local costs and conditions very carefully before committing yourself.
Many who consider studying abroad come from countries where education is supplied free by their government. Don’t let your affront at the idea of paying for education stop you from investing in your future, if you can afford it. You’d pay for a car, so why not buy the skills for a lifetime’s work? The stimulation of studying in another culture is itself a valuable education.
If you speak Spanish or Portuguese, Latin American film schools represent very good value. Though they may have little equipment, they often manage to give a wonderful and spirited education. The University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the University of Sa õ Paolo, Brazil, are two such schools. The International School of Film and Television in Cuba, the Communications University in Santiago, Chile, and the Mexico City schools are all well-equipped and thriving centers of filmmaking and are excellent values for the money. The Cuban school in particular sends out a stream of original and award-winning work.
Werner Herzog once said that anyone wanting to make films should waste no more than a week learning film techniques. This seems a little brief, but I fundamentally share his “can do” attitude.
Self-Help as a Realistic Alternative
If you cannot afford film school, then you must acquire knowledge and experience another way. Making films is practical and experiential, like dance or swimming, and you can tackle it with other motivated do-it-yourselfers. This book exists to encourage you to learn through doing. Do lots of the projects, and you will be on your way. Get criticism and participation from others—soliciting whatever specialists you can lay hands on and the nonspecialists for whom you make films. Along the way you will need a mentor or two, people to help solve problems and give knowledgeable and objective criticism of your work. If none is in the offing, don’t worry. It’s a law of nature that you find people when you are ready for them.