If you google ‘film schools in Vancouver’ you will come up with at least a dozen different schools mixed in with pages and pages of reviews and critiques of them. One of the more popular schools that people love to hate is the Vancouver Film School. Some people say it’s a complete waste of money, others argue that the information and the expertise is there, but you have to work hard to get at it. I recently did a headshot session with VFS student Ayodeji Oduntan (you may remember his face from an earlier post on headshot looks) and I asked him what he thought of his training so far. Here’s what he had to say:
“What I like about VFS is that it offers hands-on experience, which is what you need to get into the industry, not just technical knowledge. Nobody’s looking for certificates and grades. They want to know how much experience you have and how good you are and what work you’ve done.
Ayodeji Oduntan
“While in school you’re getting training in camera, sound, directing, cinematography, acting…all aspects of film. If you want to succeed you need to do as much as you can while you’re there. You need to do everything you can because it’s a great foundation to have. If you just close yourself off to only focusing on studying cinematography or directing (for example) then you’re really slowing yourself down.”
Some people would argue that the Jack of all Trades approach to getting work in TV and Film is not very useful since, as the saying goes, “a Jack of all trades is Master of none.” But DJ is sure that once he’s finished school he’ll have the necessary skills to enter the film industry and succeed on either side of the lens. Regardless of whether a movie is looking for actors, cinematographers or directors, he is confident that he can step in and say, “I can do that.”
Confidence, if fact, becomes a reoccurring theme in our conversation. When discussing what it takes to direct a film project, he says confidence and an organized game plan are crucial.
“Directing is about decision making and knowing what you want. There’s 20-50 people –and in bigger movies thousands of people — who’ve come to make this movie and if you don’t know what you want you’re wasting everybody’s time. Everything has to be planned out, every shot and everything within the frame of that shot. And if you go in thinking, ‘Oh, I’ll just figure it out when I get there,’ you’re gonna fail. And your whole crew’s gonna hate you and never want to work with you again, because it’s so easy to get grumpy on a movie set because it’s bright and it’s hot and those lights—they burn you. So it’s important going when into a shoot to be prepared.”
But before you can take the director’s chair, he says, you have to earn it. True, everyone is allowed a go at directing their independent project at VFS, but for the documentary portion of the program only 6 ideas are picked out of a pool of 30 students. And for the finals, says DJ, “You really have to earn the right to be the director of that one.” Just like in the real world in general, and just like in the TV / Film industry specifically, it’s a competition. And again, confidence and enthusiasm are the keys to success.
“It all depends on your idea, on how doable it is, how exciting it is…. If you go and pitch your idea and you’re really sour and unenthusiastic no-one’s going to pick your work.
“You have to sound excited about your work. Why is it different? Why do you want to do this project? Why should we (the financiers) do this project? You have to be clear on that and be confident. That’s one of the things that film school has helped me with, how to speak in front of a lot of people. If you want to be in the film industry, if you want to direct or produce your own film, you have to be comfortable with public speaking. Because if you’re really shy and you have a great idea but you don’t seem like you can carry this movie, no-one’s going to invest millions into your idea.”
Ah yes, The Great Idea. The million dollar story. I asked DJ just how much of a good film is the story and how much is technical expertise. His answer surprised me, considering he is a film student with so much technical know-how at his fingertips.
“I would say 5% is technique to be perfectly honest, and the other 95% is story,” he says. If you have a great story, an intelligent story, something that blows people away, then it doesn’t really matter how you shoot it. The story is everything. I’ve seen films that have had the greatest techniques — all those cranes and cool shots — but nobody cares. Sure it’s cool but the story is boring and nobody’s paying attention to it.”
Well, this gives some hope to the majority of us who are out there who have neither the time nor the finances to go to film school. Let’s imagine for a moment that I had an amazing idea for a movie. Is it possible, I ask DJ, to make a movie without any formal training? There is a lot of prosumer gear out there that is available to the general public to shoot quality video. And the internet looks chock o’ block full of useful information…. and there’s books….
DJ looks skeptical but tries to be helpful.
“Some of the biggest film makers out there – Lee Daniels for example (director of Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire) - didn’t go to film school. So I don’t think you have to, but it’s much better – you learn faster – if you go to school. You’re not going to get everything you need to know off the internet. Hands on experience is the most important thing. It’s all about getting comfortable with the camera and learning industry standards. If you don’t have the experience then it’s just not going to have that quality look and feel. In most festivals there’s a quality level you have to have in a film before they even consider it. If you don’t have it your film is probably not going to go anywhere other than YouTube, you know?”
He definitely has a point, and there are many other factors to consider as well, such as the connections you can make within the industry (“You never know who’s going to be the next Spielberg”) as well as the full time practical, hands on training you are given on set. But is it worth the money? And will it get you a job in the real world?
For an informative argument that covers both sides of the issue of whether or not you should go to film school I recommend checking out these great blog posts by Ryan Bilsborrow Koo entitled (quite handily) Ten reasons you shouldn’t go to film school and his counter argument Ten reasons you should go to film school. Make sure you read the comments made by readers of the posts as well, as that will give you more insight from real people doing their best to survive as true indie film makers, namely those still making films without the formal training of school. Especially interesting for me was his argument #9 against formal training:
“My problem with Hollywood today is not a lack of craft,” says Koo, “and my problem with film school is not a lack of theory; both of these areas of expertise are arguably more refined today than they’ve ever been. But what’s mostly missing in Hollywood today is the writing–what’s actually being said–and while they can teach you in school how to say what you’ve got to say, they can’t tell you what to say.”
So back to our buddy DJ. Is he a story teller as well as story maker? As it turns out he is:
“Yeah, I’m a writer as well, I’ve written a lot of scripts, a lot.” He says, laughing. “And I have 2 novels–sequels. I have a lot of stuff I want to show people, that I want to put out there. So…we’ll see.”
He kept a lid on what those stories are about, but I for one pray he is part of a new wave of movie makers. Someone with a fresh light to shine on this weird and crazy planet we call home. But, like he says himself, “we’ll see.”
So, whether you are for or against them, there are at least a dozen film schools cranking out hundreds of film students annually in Vancouver alone. There is no doubt that they are armed with the expertise to make a technically sound film (or at least one would hope.) The question is will these films be worth watching, or will it be more cyber junk floating in space, signifying nothing?
So bring it on young bloods. Let’s see what stories you’ve got to tell. I for one have hope. Let’s see what the next wave of independent film makers have to say.
