Should You Go To Film School? - Conversation with Dan Olson

so what are you doing with your life I [Music] actually just finished a finished working as the dit on a feature feature-length film and what is that ode so dit is the digital information technologists it's basically the person who takes all of the footage that the camera shoots and backs it up creates redundancy and gets it off to editing and where did you learn to do these things Danno so by and large I learned how to do these things at film school really yeah a question that I get asked all the time on Twitter yes is should I go to film school maybe like Singh should I take this job or should I go out with this guy no depends it depends I would say one of the big things that really should factor into whether or not you want to go to film school is you got to look at what film school actually means so in my case so we both went to film school but we went to to having vastly different experiences in regard to that because there's a university sort of level film school and then there's also like technical colleges vocational school yeah so I went to a technical college for film school so it was a two-year diploma program very a tech and how to get a job focused so so Seldon Alberta Institute of Technology was where I went and they were very much focused on like okay getting a job in film in Alberta or Vancouver or Saskatchewan what was the cost for your education um about 22,000 to 2,500 per semester so four semesters so a little under 10 grand for tuition USC does not offer aid for their grad students at least in the first year or at least they didn't in 2009 maybe that's changed its it was about 1400 per credit hour um there was a 6 to 10 credit hours per semester I've completed 40 credit hours but then there was like the fees and the insurance yeah then you're gonna go then you're gonna have like all of the other stuff so that's just your yeah that was for the course registrations then there was the cost of the film's itself which of course you have to pay for I'd finished two and a half years of the coursework and I had $60,000 in debt um and I had paid in another 45 ish I was one of the lucky ones I knew people who left with 200 plus in debt I mean and on top of that like particularly with the the way that debt accumulates that you're going to be paying off interest before you're even touching the principal yes I left with 60,000 I have paid into it about 19,000 I now have 69 thousand yeah my undergrad was at NYU and I wouldn't I don't know if I would call that a film school because it was film studies which is the way I described it back then was it's like an English degree only instead of studying books you study movies it's much more about like film history criticism academia theory I decided to go with into production which is completely different like we the only time when I was an undergrad the production people and the studies people's has cross was in like this intro course and the production people were like uh why do we need to know interpretive stuff why do i this is stupid let's just go out and run around with a camera and it's just uh-oh tell them other sides of the tracks people don't understand the interpretive and just create stuff you're like why we will get that meaning from it so I also feel like for that reason there's like a massive disparity between grad and undergrad we could talk about that but I decided a very snootily I was like well I'm not going to go to film school if I can't go to the very best one there there's three very best ones NYU AFI and USC UCLA would say they're in there they're not um I applied to two I got into one and that was USC I also I went to AFI and UCLA I didn't bother applying to those it was also very focused on industry stuff and getting a job but I think the only way to describe it is like a conservatory it was like a three-year boot camp and there is nothing else like there are no like other classes that you take except for like the business classes it's just it's completely intensive and also really intense and I think the main difference between USC and other film schools is um no one really had a film background or not a very substantive one like they didn't want people that did film an undergrad sate was a it was just kind of general I mean a lot of actually people were coming into it kind of straight out of high school some people were switching careers and of course it's a lot more local I mean because it is smaller like especially in terms of total industry output like Calgary is a film city but we're like a fifth tier film city like if we're honest about it so a big consideration in whether or not to go to film school is what school are you going to and how much is it going to cost you and what do you intend to get out of it whenever people say should I go to film school I feel like there is a massive massive divide between do you want to go to a top film school and do you want to go to a vocational school while for instance the debt is insane um I went to school with a lot of people who are already working in the industry in a way that I don't think you see in other film schools like I went to school with a guy who directed Creed and is directing Black Panther like I worked on his student films hit the editor for black panther was the editor for my thesis um I also you know I went to school with Merriman on whom work who did equity recently and these are just like directors and big-name people like you know I know people who work on the Mindy project and so it was like the thing about USC is if you want to work on big-name things and really be like come on star yeah you want to work on big-name things above the line cuz I mean I've got tons of friends who have worked on some big-name things I've got tons of friends who have worked on big name things tons of friends who worked on tons of friends who worked on the revenant who worked on intergalactic someone's got to go door-to-door with checks being like hey business we're gonna be shooting here here's your money for the day in case your business ends up in the background of our movie whenever you have your eye to a top film school it's basically just a huge leg up it's not a guarantee for anything and there are people that didn't go to film school that are also like huge starts know like Tarantino didn't write know but then it is like then there are the all the other ones like Bryan Singer went to USC Robert Zemeckis George Lucas Steven Spielberg didn't but he's got an office there I think the other thing is like at least in my experience I know this feels like it's like a like an apologia for horrible student debt and like yeah let's all go to the University of spoiled children um I honestly do feel like for like the the level of just immersion I got in the amount of time that I did I feel like their approach where you're not allowed to take a specialized anything until you do a year where you specialize in everything you know their rationale being you can't be a good editor unless you know what it is to be a director or a cinematographer so you have to even if you don't like it you have to do it however um I feel like I my experience is limited to the grad program and I also all the successful people came out of the grad program I don't know how I feel about undergrad liberal arts film production programs film production yeah yeah film studies I'm I'm I'm a huge fan my I believe in in media literacy yeah uh quite strongly so I think any kind of literary course whether it's film studies or you know literature classics whatnot like I think those are those are very flexible in teaching you kind of how to navigate information yeah I feel like people who call [ __ ] like that useless degrees don't know how degrees work yeah or what degrees do so um I mean I can point to myself as someone who does directly use their degree and in their chosen field of study but I don't think that necessarily has anything to do with anything you know that also said it's like like I said everyone in my master's program came out of some form of liberal art or maybe they were in their 30s and they worked for a while where they came out of journalism you know they came out of like all walks of life and that was sort of the intent and no one had done for undergrad and like I did I was a TA for the undergrads for a couple semesters and like the disparity and quality that came out of the grad program and the undergrad program was it so vast yeah the grads weren't that much older than my regrets I think just from what I've seen around I think undergrad film production programs are I don't want to say they're the worst value because the worst value would be the like for profit yes like mills yes yes the like full sales in the University of Phoenix and yeah you know you you do have a lot of there are you do need some discretion there are a lot of doing kind of mills out there that won't actually improve your ability to yeah you do need to look at the school's reputation so University film production is probably the second worst deal if you're looking at grad level you're probably better off doing another undergrad in another topic and then taking that into into grad level production or if you don't want to go into grad level look at a vocational school yeah cuz it'll cost you a fraction and you'll be done in half the time I think whenever people ask should I go to film school they wanted to go to a vocational school they would I think there is a sort of prestigious attached to it yeah that said even schools like NYU and USC again even for undergrad the top ones you're not even allowed to touch a camera until your junior yeah and then that's and people get so pissy about like you have to go you know rejoiced ofc and you know we have to take your math class in your physics requirement and it's like but that's that's a liberal arts degree that's part of it and the problem with film production is it doesn't really mesh with that in a way that say like in English or any kind of writing creative writing film studies would um and I think the undergrads do kind of get the short end of the stick in terms of actual experience I think that is the important question like would you say that you're able to make a living purely off of what you went to school for with the skills I went to school for yes um there are some caveats in that that would come down to like the nitty-gritty of the coursework of like I don't think they did wide enough to cover things like the reality of corporate video or freelancing like hey hey guys if you're watching this just a reminder you need to put in how to charge people as a freelancer into that course material it's a bit of feedback that comes that I know they get every single year when you go into any film school it could be like you know one you went to or SVA or USC NYU there is a certain level of expectation that people have not all of it is realistic and I think that that is also the difference between like going into film production when you're older have a little more life experience because in my grad school experience the the younger ones to be a little more big-headed and unrealistic learn their little more high in the sky yeah they learned their lesson eventually there was definitely like I think you would see this more at a school like USC where everyone expects to end up like George Lucas and have like this huge name so if you're going to school in Calgary if you're going to film school in Calgary and you're not looking to move immediately afterwards then you're probably going to have a little bit more grounded expectation that it's like hey if I'm going into production I'm probably going to start off as a grip or a lamb pop if I'm coming out of the editing stream it's like I'm going to be an assistant editor or a compiler or something like that I'm going to be a dit I'm not going to be you know I'm not going to be a DP on a feature cuz that's another thing like people getting big-headed at the top schools it's like again people be like one would be drooped or the secretary wait Ryan Coogler did yeah he directed Fruitvale station I think he hadn't even graduated yet and then he directed Creed two years later so yeah it does happen you know so I think tempering kind of that expectation both in terms of like what are you going to get out of it like are you good are you aiming to be technical do you just want to work in movies or or do you want to be a youtuber and so if you've got you know both good aspirational and realistic expectations that vary wildly depending on like where you are and where you're willing to physically move mm-hmm and that's a huge thing because like Ryan googlers example couldn't have happened outside of California you know so no and also like with the right connections which I believe in his case was Forest Whitaker yeah he you know he crossed paths with Forest Whitaker at the right time which he would not have done if he had not gone to the school he went to when he did like I mean there's a lot you can do to stack the odds but there's also still kind of a lot of luck that comes into it and you know right place right time and if you're kinda if you can't be in that right place like if you do want to stay in a 50 R like place like if you want to stay in Georgia if you want to stay in Kansas if you want to stay in Montana or Utah or oh well Georgia fist you think you are there probably were subdued yeah I think Georgia solidly steered solidly I guess CNN yeah like all the Marvel movie yeah George is do and I George is doing good if if you're in kind of one of the the smaller markets you know and depending on kind of how small that market is like you know temper your expectations to it you do you want to work your way up to bigger and bigger markets like you know if you're in Canada it's like if you're in Calgary are you willing to stick it out long term and keep working on the government grants keep working on the stuff until you can get you know basically break into that small circle of Canadian filmmakers who get money mm-hmm or are you going to sort of work your way like all right I'm in Calgary I'm gonna move on over to Vancouver and then I'm going to move to Toronto and then I'm going to move to New York and then I'm going to move to California yeah expecting to know what you want right out of the gate before you make that kind of decision it's not going to happen um I think some people some people do but probably because they've already got a taste of it yeah it tastes of it in high school yeah and not the people who are thinking should I go to films oh yeah so that and that is another thing to talk about like whenever you want to talk about like what's the big five it's a use USC NYU AFI the one that doesn't matter and I think Florida State is that right exactly like you care it's like well pass before I guess yeah I go I could you see no I know it doesn't matter it doesn't matter what I mean we don't we don't we don't say the name of our archenemy yeah they're not my arch until eight AFI recently took the crown from USC at the top film school and the reason I didn't even bother applying to AFI AFI does assume some actually not in substantial amount of experience in your field of choice you have to apply to a track like directing cinematography editing writing and you cannot straight out of that track afi's program is a lot shorter for that reason I think it's only a year year and a half and it doesn't really offer you much outside of whatever your specialized vocation is a lot of the more artistic sorts come from AFI your David Lynch your Darren Aronofsky and they kind of they want to cultivate your art Ernest yeah hey if I was kind of a up your game mm-hmm sort of destination yeah so um and that obviously only applies to Greg Columbia's grad program also Columbia doesn't bother having an undergrad program but their grad programs definitely on the ups and has some you know big-name alumni like Kevin Bigelow for that reason I assume they are more commercial I don't know I didn't go there NYU is a lot more indie and artistic uh you have from their alumni like Martin Scorsese Woody Allen Spike Lee Brett Ratner yeah yeah Michael a Wesleyan Michael Bay Joss Whedon and one of my NYU professors actually all went to Wesleyan at the same time for undergrad no less hmm see undergrad can do you good Canada would be a University of Toronto McGill and st. there's a lot of other like decent decent programs and more spent and specialized programs scattered around the post-production mm-hmm but those those would be the three big that are either producing working directors which would be McGill and U of T or technicians which would st. and U of T strangely most of the most of the people in Vancouver just sort of learn on the job I think that's what most people do because whenever people tell you that you don't need a degree or you don't need to go to school in order to go to bed work in film they're right yeah they're absolutely right um but here's the thing like it's so much harder yeah it's like just I mean I can't I guess the same could apply for like engineering or any other thing that like requires actual skills and knowledge like it is really difficult to just dive into something and just work your way up from like a PA it's really easy to flame out yes so one of the great things that film school gives you like even if you go to a vocational school or Technical College for for it is that it gives you a sense of a better sense of the whole so that rather than like hey I want to work in movies and it's like okay so you took your set at a kitten's protocol course and now you're a PA blocking off roads and you're going to be doing that for the next two three years because you don't have a better sense of the whole you're not going to be able to think strategically about your job which is that like okay I'm a PA I'm doing roads I want to get to know the people over in locations I want to get the people know the people over in set and either want to become a specialized PA or I want to get into the office because even though an office PA is still just a PA they're working with the director they're working with the first ad they're working with production coordinator they're working with the production manager they're seeing the producer they're getting to know names and faces if you can't think strategically about it then you're going to be a locations PA forever mm-hmm and you're just going to be locking off roads for three years until you're like screw this I'm gonna go get a normal job that actually it pays the same and doesn't require me to work 16-hour days for three weeks in a row the way you think film sets work if you've never worked on or never been taught how they work you're wrong holy God are you wrong like I'm not gonna name any names here but I've been on some sets by people who have never been on a real set that are just a total [ __ ] show and you know you need to know basic things like how we're craft services on those sets yeah I think it's also really dangerous to free for like the entry-level person to just fall in with a bunch of ass hats that are going to exploit you into yeah oh oh there's another dimension to it is that there are a ton a even still to this day a a metric ton of exploitative [ __ ] out there who are looking for people who want to be in movies uh and they will overwork them under pay them or not be there to put them at risk if you if you're looking to work on a film set do not work for free yeah don't do it even if they're your friends I mean if they're like your best friend then maybe but don't work for free you don't have to work for free you should be making at least a hundred dollars a day as an entry-level person probably more here's one of the biggest things that you're going to get from film school that you're not necessarily going that you're not going to have enough of because you can never have enough of but that you're really not going to have enough of if you just dive right into it and that's safety training because film sets are brick and dangerous uh you have a lot of people moving around you have a lot of heavy equipment you have a lot of specialized equipment if it's anything approaching a big set then you're talking about really really high voltages like there are a ton of safety safety concerns and when you run into these like potato-like non-union shoots where it's just some fly-by-night company so one like yeah like something that girl enjoys yeah yeah that's what you see Jenny was going like this like hey let this fly-by-night production companies like hey we we're gonna make this movie and so they got a whole bunch of teenagers and twenty-somethings who wanted to in movies and they had a couple train people and Sarah was one of them and she was first camera assistant and they had this setup where they were doing this dream sequence out on train tracks and they the production coordinator had called the rail office to try and book the track and they had been rejected because there was a train going through hot like there was a shipment going through at that time and the producer who is also the director is like well screw it we're just gonna we're just we're gonna be we're gonna be maverick filmmakers we're gonna be we're just gonna go rogue and do it anyway and and a woman lost her life there are other issues to consider a you know like race and gender issues and discriminations which we're not going to get into now that's I think maybe the topic for another yeah it's just that's a biggie um but it's difficult to say is it worth it because it depends on what you want and it's so it's like such a wide spectrum of questions to ask whether you want to get into a vocational school so you can learn a trade and then just make a living or if you want to be like a big-name film person and you know go to all the fun film festivals every year and or be a professor or something I think a lot of it really does come down to cost because I I whenever I ask that question whenever get asked the question is it worth it in my case I go back and forth because it all comes down to that debt because I'm like if I didn't go into debt or if I'd even gone into less debt like even half the debt I'm in now um I would say yeah it was totally worth it but to be 10 grand more in debt now despite having paid in 20 that's insane and I know that doesn't really have anything to do with the school except for the fact that the school doesn't really offer aid to grad students because it what's the top film school and if you don't want to pay it there's 200 people in line behind you that would kill to be in your place and that's part of the real challenge with be with the big ones is it's it's almost like gambling mmm like yeah you could be like you are kind of getting potential access to the shortcuts to make a spotlight career mm-hmm really quickly but if you're not the lucky one I mean all I mean even if you are the lucky working like I think it is your only exception I know is right Googler even the other people I know that are like super doing really well still a lot you know it's like yeah so it's like unless you were the one lucky yeah you're probably then it's still gonna take a while like grad schools it slip to if you go if you like sixty hundred two hundred thousand dollars in debt you know it's like that will just follow you around and it will affect your life decisions although one important thing if you pay your minimum payments every year for twenty five years if you have federal loans they will get forgiven at the end of that period people don't know this is true and aside I I can think of very very few downsides to taking the vocational route you know yes it's not going to like you have a much lower chance of being a star mm-hmm um but you can you know it you can make a living in working in movies or working in related related fields and it's not the easiest life is not the easiest living there is a lot of I'm saying uncertainty um but at the same time it you know it's it's a do it's doable it is doable and you know and the pay in like particularly for a vocational school like it's a state school or a a like federally funded school or even you get financial aid if you get funding here happens at the school that shall not be named yeah like so if if you're going through your entire like if it's two years and it's only gonna cost you like 10,000 in tuition mmm-hmm then yeah totally worth it cuz I know like you if you're young and you don't have any debt liked in your own ten grand might seem like a lot it's not that smells like amazing the difference between 10 and 60 yeah like I mean I I had paid for most of it and I was on like so by the time I was done I was only about 3 grand in debt and I got a film-related job right out of school and I was debt-free by Christmas mm-hmm feel like I could be debt-free based on like just solely based on like my freelance income YouTube and command patreon income I could be debt-free 20 30 20 30 14 years another horrible thing there's a ceiling on the amount of student debt interest you can write off every year it is 2500 AIA crew about 4,000 very good I think that's a good place to end and then I'm going to jump on a plane and go back to the land of socialized medicine and and mitigated student debt I'm gonna marry wealthy

Channel: Lindsay Ellis

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Keywords: film school, usc, ucla, afi, sait, lindsay ellis, lindsay ellis videos, lindsay ellis video essay, lindsay ellis dan olson, lindsay ellis folding ideas, folding ideas dan olson interview, lindsay ellis interview, lindsay ellis film school, lindsay ellis usc

Id: hrxKwUi78zc

Length: 28min 55sec (1735 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 09 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/FuzzPunkMutt]

Dan's "In Search Of A Flat Earth" is what I listen to instead of LoFi Beats to Study and Relax to.