The 5 Best Film Schools and What Sets Them Apart
Having gone to film school three times and being a member of a family where education was held in the highest regard, I am obviously a fan of educating myself in film. However, I do emphasize becoming “polite.” School is not the only way to educate yourself, and in certain situations, there is no official school for learning critical information. However, the school is a time-tested successful method of establishing a formidable foundation.
the big five
The Big Five film schools are the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), the University of Southern California (USC) and the American Film Institute (AFI) on the west coast of Los Angeles, and New York University (NYU) and Columbia University of the East Coast of New York.
UCLA is best known for its writers who dominate summer movie screenwriting credits, USC is best known for its powerful directors, AFI often has amazing cinematographers, NYU is known for its East Coast filmmaker flair. and Columbia is a great overall school with exceptional film theory for all programs. Any school you go to in the Big 5 is going to be an amazing experience for every program. You will also have renowned professionals and directors of large companies who will teach courses or speak as guests due to the notoriety of the school. You can not lose.
The downside to USC is that they run it like a studio. Only 5 people can direct a thesis project if you are a graduate directing student. Every directing student gets to be one of those 5 and then 20 or 30 people in the end don’t get a thesis project, but they help the team of 5 people who made a movie. The advantage of USC is, again, that they run it like a studio. USC is often unparalleled in its networking ability and aggressively markets its students in the industry.
UCLA is best known for its screenwriters. USC might be able to outperform UCLA’s network, but its writers can’t outperform UCLA’s writers. An average UCLA screenwriting graduate student will walk away with 8 feature film screenplays. UCLA screenwriters write a feature film script in a 10-week quarter, the closest thing to a real-life 8-week writing assignment. USC screenwriters will write 1 feature film script over a period of 1 year. You do the calculations.
The Peter Stark Production Program at USC is great for producing movie executives, but the UCLA Production Program is great for teaching producers everything there is to know to get out there and start making it.
Like USC’s “only 5 will direct a thesis project”, AFI is even tougher. Not only are there a limited number of thesis projects, not all filmmakers are always invited back to school for a second year. It’s harder to get into any of these film schools than it is to get into Harvard Law School, simply because Harvard accepts a higher percentage of their applicants than the big film schools, so for me AFI and USC really wasn’t worth the effort. shame to be removed. or rejected after you already had to beat the odds of winning the lottery to get accepted. Having to win the lottery a second time just wasn’t desirable.
Other film schools
Another school worth mentioning is Florida State University, which accepts an equal number of writers, directors, cinematographers, and editors so they can team up for thesis projects. This seems to take full advantage since then. Temple University Philadelphia is excellent and a must have app for experimental filmmakers.
But in general, any movie show is a great movie show as long as you’re learning.