Film School or Film Festivals

We had a question from Michael on YouTube, he asked:

“Now that I feel I am very comfortable doing some advanced visual effects I'm going to put my focus on making some short films to be entered into film festivals. Can I get noticed doing short films and possibly end up skipping the film school thing all together? Or would I have to have a successful feature to get noticed.”

Firstly, if you are going to be focusing on film festivals, make sure the emphasis for your film is on the story. Special effects are tools to tell a story and should never overshadow or take the place of a good plot and interesting characters.

With that said, it is possible to get noticed by entering your short film into festivals. I’ve heard of many directors and writers getting their start using this method. Jonathan Liebesman (the director of Darkness Falls and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning) was first noticed by Ron Howard after he won the Austin Film festival for his film “Genesis and Catastrophe.” Click here to check out his film. After that he was able to get an agent and finally land his first gig helming “Darkness Falls.” However, he did attended film school at NYU, which is where he shot his award-winning short film.

Although nothing is impossible, I do think that without some kind of training, be it an apprenticeship or film school, you’ll have a much harder time constructing a film that would gain festival praise and launch your career. But I don’t want to be discouraging; I truly believe that if you are passionate enough about something you can accomplish it. So if you don’t have the money for film school, go out and get every book you can on the subject, become a sponge and soak up every bit of info you can get your hands on. A great magazine to subscribe to for tips and tricks is Student Filmmaker Magazine:

http://www.studentfilmmakers.com/

Also, click on these links for some great books:

Writing

Cinematography

Directing

Editing

Start with writing, because if you don’t have a story you don’t have anything. Also, remember the internet is your best friend, with sites like AtomFilms.com, TriggerStreet.com, YouTube.com, Vimeo.com, etc… These sites can be a great help in getting your name out there.

Thanks again to Michael for the question. His YouTube name is AAEuser, so go check out his stuff.

-Ryan