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Message from The American Film Institute


Guest jjjackman

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Guest jjjackman

The Conservatory of the American Film Institute is currently accepting applications for the Fall 2004 program in Cinematography. The deadline for application has been extended to mid-February. Interested applicants should contact Admissions Manager jj Jackman at 323.856.7609 or jjackman@AFI.com. The application materials can also be downloaded from the web site at www.AFI.com.

 

The AFI Conservatory centers its focus on narrative, visual storytelling, relying on a production-based curriculum and hands-on collaboration as its primary teaching tools. Cinematography Fellows will have the opportunity to shoot a minimum of five projects, both on video and film.

 

The program offers the Master of Fine Arts degree in six different disciplines of filmmaking: Cinematography, Directing, Editing, Producing, Production Design and Screenwriting.

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As a few on the board know, I'm currently attending AFI and can't speak highly enough about the experience I'm having here; if anyone is thinking of applying and has questions, please feel free to email me.

 

Welcome to the forum JJ.

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It is indeed "wicked expensive". I often wonder if you can put a price on education (too little, too much, etc), but for me, I feel that my growth, both personally and professionally, but more importantly, creatively and artistically, at AFI has made it all, thus far, worth it.

 

Now......ask me again if I feel this way in two years when I'm done and have all that debt smothering me.........I may be singing another tune. :D

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Phil, outside of your cheerfully dour outlook on life at times (said with great humor, I assure you I'm not being too serious in saying that), I think you'd be ideal for AFI - I'm not trying to recruit; rather, don't be so bloody hard on yourself. One of our cinematography Fellows here came from an art background and had never seen a motion picture camera before, while another has been shooting professional commercials in Germany for five years now....it's a wide mix and a will to learn and excel are key above all else.

 

And wicked expensive translates to around $24,000.00 a year......plus change.

 

And now I need a drink...........that number seems bigger everytime I say it!

 

Seriously though, Bill Dill, ASC, is the key to the program and very much makes it worth it.

 

Come on Phil.....what's a few tens of thousands of dollars? :blink:

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isn't it more feasible to "make" a short film or two for 24 grand rather than study it. one could produce 3 to 4 shorts for that amount... Just a thought... MFA must be worth something too. I've begun to wonder that myself, for I am considering applying MA in film making... but 24.000!? wicked in every sense of the word :huh:

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isn't it more feasible to "make" a short film or two for 24 grand rather than study it. one could produce 3 to 4 shorts for that amount

So often people think of a film school as a place to make a student film. That is incredibly limited thinking. People believe that they can make a film simply given the resources. But there is so much to the education and discipline of learning in a workshop environment such as a film school. It's as if one said, "I can paint like Van Gogh, if only I had a brush and some pain." Well, obviously there's a lot more to it than that. Film schools can offer a wonderful education and teach us to think and study in ways we would be otherwise blind to and incapable of doing. It is a way to expand one's horizons and disipline the mind and craft. Beyond that it is also an excellent way to build relationships and network. One of the great values of attending a school such as the AFI beyond the excellent education is the direct connection to the working world of Hollywood production.

 

A good film school will teach you not only how to make a film, but also how films are really made. This is an education that you'll never glean simply by making a few of your own shorts.

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Hi Mitch,

 

I remembered reading what Welles and Antonioni said about film making; "You can learn it in three months". Which is totally true, whatever there's to know about filmmaking, basics to intermediate filmmaking per se, you can learn it in just 10 weeks. In fact Antonioni did attend a workshop and then started shooting. This is not to say film schools are not useful, I'm a film graduate myself but... what you learn that's gonna help you later on, you can learn anywhere. What they don't and can't teach you you can only learn by doing.... and paying 24.000 bucks for learning what you will only learn by doing is, in my oppinion, luxury. I hope I didnot offend anyone and if I did I'm deeply sorry... all this to say it's too fricking expensive!! and ask is it worth it?

 

PS: I'm considering applying to MA in Film Making... seriously. Self-contradiction all over me these days.

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isn't it more feasible to "make" a short film or two for 24 grand rather than study it. one could produce 3 to 4 shorts for that amount

So often people think of a film school as a place to make a student film. That is incredibly limited thinking. People believe that they can make a film simply given the resources. But there is so much to the education and discipline of learning in a workshop environment such as a film school. It's as if one said, "I can paint like Van Gogh, if only I had a brush and some pain." Well, obviously there's a lot more to it than that. Film schools can offer a wonderful education and teach us to think and study in ways we would be otherwise blind to and incapable of doing. It is a way to expand one's horizons and disipline the mind and craft. Beyond that it is also an excellent way to build relationships and network. One of the great values of attending a school such as the AFI beyond the excellent education is the direct connection to the working world of Hollywood production.

 

A good film school will teach you not only how to make a film, but also how films are really made. This is an education that you'll never glean simply by making a few of your own shorts.

It's as if one said, "I can paint like Van Gogh, if only I had a brush and some pain." 
...A creative typo. ;)
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If you truly believe that three months is all you need to encompass a complete education into the possibilities and processes of cinema then there's nothing I can do to expand your world.

 

I know there's the 2-day film school, but I'm still waiting for the 2-day brain surgery school. I'll spend the rest of the medical school money practicing on my friends.

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  • 2 weeks later...

3 months ,well that doesnt leave much for discussion.does it.

2yrs at film school , 10 yrs of filmmaking i still feel there is so much more to learn.

let me tell you a film school as a matter of fact any school can only teach you if you want to learn. otherwise even an a hour is enough

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  • 3 years later...
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Welles, Kubrick, et al. were generally referring to the basic principles of film grammar when joking about the three month notion (I think Kubrick said "in a week... if you weren't too bright.") Obviously any artform takes years to master, with a lifetime of learning.

 

I spent ten years on my own studying filmmaking before I went to film school, the end result being that when I arrived, I got asked to shoot everyone else's projects. But that right there was a tremendous opportunity since I wasn't paying for these short films -- imagine what you'd learn by shooting over a dozen 16mm shorts and not having to pay for them, only for tuition (which wasn't bad in my day.)

 

After film school, I had a career direction and a wide variety of job contacts, which is what the problem was before film school, I felt sort of stuck not knowing how to break out. Of course, I still feel that periodically...

 

Now if you're asking if a film school today is worth $24,000 to $30,000/year, going into debt for nearly $100,000 for all I know, I can't answer that. Unfortunately, those sorts of costs tend to encourage only rich kids to enroll. I can't say whether it's a good deal or not, but I don't really think any art or academic degree with such poor chances for graduates to quickly earn high salaries is such a good thing.

 

Today, I'd probably be desparately trying to get into UCLA's film school, which is at least affordable for in-state residents.

 

All of this to say that if you live in a town with decent archives of film books and other resources, you can certainly teach yourself filmmaking without a film school... but there is more to filmmaking than just knowing how to make a film.

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What do you mean?

 

I guess I mean that beyond the mechanics and the art of filmmaking, there are three other factors:

(1) How to have a professional career, find jobs, etc.

(2) Filmmaking is a human enterprise that requires collaboration and the ability to organize people

(3) Filmmaking is expensive and requires the ability to find financing

 

Those three aspects are much harder to learn by yourself with books. They all require a person with good interpersonal skills and social experience that is sort of the antithesis of someone who an auto-didact (self-taught) and does everything independently. I learned to make movies by myself as a sort of one-man band, but that didn't give me all the skills needed to work in the film industry or put together a significant film shoot.

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  • 4 weeks later...
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But do they teach you about the business, in film school?

 

Depends on the school I suppose every school is going to have different programs. I am in a business class now, and it has taught me alot about how the industry actually works.

 

In my opinion though, nothing can really substitute for the actual experience, which is what I believe David was saying when he talked about shooting all those kids films. I read books, I take my film classes, but at the end of the day, I always get far more out of being on an actual set and using the equipment I've read about, then just being told how to do it.

 

Good Luck all

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  • 2 months later...

I attended AFI?s Center for Advanced Film Studies in 1981/82. I haven?t remained in contact with anyone from those days and I only stayed in LA briefly, so I was fascinated to read that the school is now a conservatory which offers a Master of Fine Arts degree. Except for me, (possibly the only drop out in their history) when I attended, you earned a certificate.

 

We shot and edited on Betacam equipment sponsored by SONY and I don?t believe film was an option in those days. Though I was in the screenwriting program, I had the opportunity to produce and direct my own short. I never got near the camera, but I did learn the proper way to roll up a power cable. And I learned to edit. We had 5 days to shoot a 30 minute script, and we got the editing decks for another 3, just enough time for a very rough cut. I guess I got about 35 hours of sleep in the 8 most exhilarating days of my life.

 

The cost for the one-year program was about $3,500, which seemed reasonable even 25 years ago, considering the available options at that time for aspiring filmmakers who wanted to get hands-on experience.

 

I was the youngest in a student body of about 80, and the only one without a background in filmmaking (except for having written two full-length screenplays) or an undergrad degree. Then too, it was a very mixed bag. Some of my fellows had already been working in the industry for years. I didn't get to know them very well unfortunately, as I skipped most of my classes and spent my days writing scripts I hoped the directors would use for their projects.

 

There was an aura of glamour about the place. Regular seminars were given by folks like Barbra Streisand and David Lynch, and one of the director fellows got Sean Penn to play the lead in his short. A friend of mine had Christopher Walken and Susan Sarandon play the leads in one of his.

 

I have little doubt the point made about the value of networking in Los Angeles and learning teamwork is equally true today. Unfortunately I didn?t benefit much from that as I was socially debilitated by severe depression in my early twenties, but I sure wish I could do it all again, knowing what I know now, and for 3,500 bucks!

 

Thanks for letting me reminisce.

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