Leading or Following - Reconsidering FilmSchool
There are many debates that surround the idea of Film School. The internet abounds with them. Largely these centre around why go? What are the benefits? And is it better than just teaching yourself by picking up a camera and going for it…?
10 reasons you should go to film school
10 reasons you shouldnt go to film school
Is film school right for you?
Getting the most out of film school
The very premise of many these debates over the value of Film School as an education bother me. They bother me across a number of levels.
On the macro-level I feel a deep seeded need to deplore anyone or anything that devalues Education as a concept and a process. To build any argument on the premise of an education not being necessary is a tragic indictment of contemporary culture. Instead of celebrating and treasuring eduction we seek to circumvent or dispense with it. We seem so often to deliberately seek out reasons to disparage and diminish it, make excuses to do without it. This is a mindset I find utterly depressing, a track that leads social and cultural disaster.
On on a more specific level those who would declare film school unnecessary or irrelevant, attest that theres nothing in the concept of a film school that cant be garnered by simply doing it yourself, quite evidently don’t like cinema; quite evidently have no respect for cinema.
Would anyone consider that you can become a competent and effective Doctor just by picking up a stethoscope and going for it..? Would it be considered viable to become a effective Lawyer by simply showing up at court and making a case? Could you function as a capable Mechanic by grabbing a spanner, popping the car hood and poking around…?
Of course not. Its absurd, an argument no one could defend. And yet, do those who declare Film School a waste of time, a useless expense, think so little of cinema, consider cinema so simplistic, directorial skills so lowest-common-denominator, that it and they cannot be compared to a Mechanic, Doctor or Lawyer..?
If so then these are exactly the sort of people that Shouldnt be making films. Filmmakers who think so little of cinema are exactly the sort of filmmakers the world doesn’t need! Theres enough 2-bit hacks in Hollywood already. If you don’t believe cinema is the most powerful, engaging, dynamic, exciting, inspiring and complex artistic medium the world has ever seen then why the hell would you want to be a filmmaker? Because I can think of a hundred other careers that are easier, less stress and pay better…!
Ok, so now that ive got that off my chest there are, of course, some caveats to this point of view. The first is that obviously and inevitably not all film schools are good. In fact Id have to tragically confess that a great many of them are not good; run by ill-informed, uninspired people who actually have no real interest in teaching. Its one of the great tragic ironies that 90 out of 100 teachers at film school around the world would rather Not be teaching. But this does not, and should not, undermine the concept of a comprehensive filmmaking and artistic education. Just as a collection of bad high schools doesn’t lead society to believe that high-schools are a waste.
The second is that there needs to be (and always should be) a broad cross section of means to a filmmaking, creative arts education. For some its university, for others its a dedicated film school college, for others still its a short course or an apprenticeship or internship. All are varied and valid, many roads lead to Rome, but all are a focused dedicated education, the conceptual value of which should never be undermined. We should question constantly how to make education better but we should never question the penultimate and intrinsic value of education itself. That road leads to the dark-ages. All the great societies and cultures of the world have held education as the single most important human endeavor above all else - the ancient Greeks, Romans, Israelites and Arabs - the 4 most influential cultures in human history - all held Knowledge and Education as the fundamental heart of their societies.
No doubt there will be those that, gnashing their teeth whilst reading, scream names like Tarantino at the screen as a defiant counter to the power and importance of Film School and formal Filmmaking Education. Tarantino is a successful Director who had neither film school nor a formal film education. Yes, indeed there are exceptions. There are exceptions to every paradigm. But these filmmakers are decidedly few and far between by comparison. For every filmmaker without a formal education in cinema there are fifty others who do. Exceptions do not undermine the core value; that education has intrinsic value and any good (or even half decent) education in cinema will invariably make you a better filmmaker than you might have otherwise been. Not to mention that any formalized tertiary education will also make you a more informed, engaged and articulate member of society regardless of whether you work directly as a filmmaker. As statistics and sociological analysis has proved many times, a society of a high level of tertiary education is, across the board, a more peaceful, productive, content and engaged one - regardless of whether individuals are proactively engaged in professions related to their education.
But there is another larger debate that seems to go unheard, and infrequently spoken, in most circles; What exactly should Film Schools teach…
Its a bold question, a big question, but also a flawed question because it doesn’t allow for a true access to a deeper understanding of what film schools, as institutions, represent. We need to know what they Are before we can know what they should Teach? To properly answer that question we actually need to question how film schools relate to the filmmaking industry….?
Should Film Schools service the ‘industry’? Cater to its demands and provide it with what the school perceives the industry needs…? Or Should Film Schools lead the industry? Challenge it, change it, reshape and guide it…? In other words, Should Film Schools be the forward scouts leading the industry or the rear-guard supporting the industry.
The truth is that overwhelmingly institutions across the world who define themselves as Film Schools (education institutions focused on specific education in the production of cinematic arts) fall into the former of these two paradigms. I would suggest that the prevailing view amongst those who run film schools and design film school curricula is that their primary role is to feed the industry with the skills and knowledge they perceive the industry needs; to act as an institution of service, support and maintenance to the demands of the industry.
Note here that I am placing the word industry in inverted commas not arbitrarily but to use a commonly accepted term with skepticism. I would defy anyone to viably define what the industry is in the 21st century..! To suggest that its feature-film is absurd since features make up the smallest possible proportion of movie viewing. Neither does TV suffice since it is beset on all sides by a host of competing and every growing alternative moving image forms. The only viable and functional definition of cinema itself is the art of the moving image and so by that definition the discerning of the cinema industry into discreet and neat categories is incredibly difficult; not to mention pointless because such distinctions are not useful.
A simple example of this mindset of a Film School focused on servicing, and reacting to, industry needs might be seen in the question posed to many flim schools “how much longer will they continue to teach celluloid film”. The answer very often is “as long as the ‘indusrty’ needs it”. This is a key example of Film Schools as reactionary; reacting to changes in ‘industry’ needs after they happen. This is a structure that positions the Film School to follow ‘industry’, changing what it is they teach only after the bulk of mainstream productions change they way they make.
There is merit in this approach that might be seen as a correlation to economic rationalism. Here the prevailing ideology is to free the market with the belief that markets invariably right themselves and create the most dynamic melting pot for progression through unrestrained competition.
So in our context the industry might be seen as the free market forces that will make changes in the way and what film schools teach if and when the market needs and demands. The idea is that the Film School shouldn’t lead the industry but respond to its demands because otherwise its the cart before the horse; the Film School focused on elements the industry doesn’t yet want or need. The argument would be that having a film school work beyond the industry, attempting to lead and shape it rather than follow, inevitably results in a lack of specific relevance in the education the Film School provides.
There is an obvious logic here, one that has brought the majority of the worlds film schools to the endeavor of delivering an industry relevant education.
But, the concept is not totally sound and indeed may be seen as fundamentally flawed. It would stand to reason that if the ‘industry’ is so broad, so diverse (and increasingly so) that it defies functional definition, then a film school attepting to service that broad expanse will inevitably fail. Attempting to be all things to everyone rarely works.
A broad ill-definable industry cannot produce cohesive or tangible service demands - in other words if the industry doesn’t know what it wants how can a Film School service it? What effectively serves one segment fundamentally fails another.
A Film School might alternatively choose to carve a specific and defined niche focus, to bias a specific segment of the cinematic media ‘industries’ - feature film, TV or online. But here the inevitable trade off is relevance for students whose education may prove too narrow and inflexible to be of real value in a 21st century media-scape. One where there is increasingly very little to viably separate these forms and where cross-over and multi-platform are the hallmarks of the cinema to come. The Film School subsequently renders its education irrelevant by its inflexibility to accommodate diversity and the future of what may come.
These scenarios are highly problematic; the root flaw arguably the conceptual ideology of the Film School in service of the industry. Its a perspective that holds weight for a clear and singular industry but falls apart when that industry becomes hybridized and infinitely diverse.
The conclusion this might lead one (namely myself) to come to is that an overt position of a film school attempting to serve and service the needs of the industry is a dysfunctional illusion. An effort at best clutching at intangible straws. At worse, a viewpoint holding on to outdated and outmoded perspectives on what cinema is.
If this were a more formal essay then I would hereby curtail my soapbox for a more clinical argument. But its not. its a blog, My blog and so I hereby pull out the soapbox to stir discussion amongst the cinema loving pigeons.
I believe Film Schools should lead the industry, not follow it.
Film schools should be ahead of industry demands, not servicing them.
I believe Film Schools should challenge what industry wants, not cater to them.
Industry should change and adapt to the forward markers the Film Schools set.
So if Films Schools should aim to lead the ‘industry’ (or industr-ies) how exactly do they do that? What are the benefits? What are the downsides? And are there comparative precedents to understand the perspective of Indusrty Leading rather than Industry supporting institutions?
The ‘industry’, by nature of its commercial framework and economic imperatives, will always hold conservative, traditional, well established and tested ideas and processes at its heart. It is not now, nor has it ever been, in the best interests of the bulk mainstream cinematic media to experiment or explore or challenge established workflows, concepts or even stories.
As with any artform, change always comes from the fringes, from the periphery, never from the centre. Mainstream feature film and TV is always the last to implement new technologies, ideas and processes. Picking up on the ‘new’ once the fringe has tested and proven viability of the new.
Film Schools, as institutions, are in this context uniquely placed. They are in a privileged position to exploit the ‘new’, to chalenege and lead with a level of impunity. It is often said that Film School for students is a great opportunity to fail; a rare and fleeting chance to experiment with permission, an opportunity that is rarity afforded in the ‘real-world’. And yet whilst this idea is often expressed to students it’s very rarely exhibited by the institution itself towards the ‘industry’.
Film Schools, with their oftentimes emphasis on serving rather than leading, squander their chance to push the industry, to be the test-bed for industry change. So concerned are they with guessing what the establishment wants and preparing students for the fleeting here and now that they avoid any chance to focus on the future and prepare students for what might be…?
There is in fact nothing new about this idea of an education institution serving as the primary progressive test-bed for new ideas and new processes. It is in fact the premise that Universities are built on. In science, engineering, architecture, medicine and hundreds of other fields it is the University that serves as the driver of industry. The ‘new’ begins in the University; is tested, challenged, considered, researched and implemented within the privileged environment outside the ‘industry’. Then the discoveries, ideas and processes developed, explored and engaged by students are then filtered through to industry to become the common practices of tomorrow.
If this is the standard modus operandi for other formal education institutions - that of leading and driving the industries they represent - why is it that Film Schools are more often than not focused on the subservient inverse?
If this system of Education Institutions being future-focused and educating students in an environment of experimentation, exploration, testing and leadership of industry process and practice, can work for a host of otther technology-based industries then why not cinema?
The argument is often made that Film School students need to be educated to serve current industry practice and needs or else be irrelevant. But the same argument can also equally be made that students educated to serve current industry needs will possess knowledge and a skill set quickly outdated, made irrelevant before theyve had a chance to put it into practice.
The perspective that may tip the balance is to recognize that a Film School focused on leading the industry, focused on what cinema might be rather than what it has been, has a far greater ability to prepare students for longevity and flexibility rather than more dogmatic current pracice that is specific to the now which may be soon obsolete.
It’s here that we need to consider what Film Schools Should teach? And indeed what they Can teach
One of the common weapons leveled at the concept of Film School (as with any art education) is the idea that Talent cannot be taught. This statement is often hurled as a Molotov cocktail to immolate the validity of Film School. If talent can’t be taught what need is there of Film school?
Whilst this kind of questioning may seem somewhat facile it does serve to prompt more a significant and deeper question about what exactly Film School Can teach if not Talent?
The common and immediate answer would be Skills; the practical and often technology-based, skills by which cinema (as a techno-art) is assembled.
What strikes me is that both these permutations above are flawed. Sure, there is a strong argument to the idea that Talent cannot be taught. But it can be fostered, shaped, developed and expanded... To dismiss Film School on the basis that Talent can’t be taught demonstrates a gross lack of respect for the art of cinema. The Godfather wasn’t made by talent, Talent simply isn’t enough to make a film That good. Godfather was made only after many years of developing, fostering and shaping that talent into a refined directorial instinct and consummate artistry.
Similarly, and conversely, to reduce filmmaking to a set of raw skills in operating the mechanical aperati of cinema is absurdly narrow and dysfunctional.
A monkey can be trained to use a camera. A child can be taught to operate an editing system. Yet all the skills in pushing buttons won’t make the monkey a Cinematographer or the child an Editor. All the skills in the world won’t forge directorial instinct; won’t build the ability to make informed and deliberate artistic decisions.
Again we arrive at the ingrained dilemma; if Film School can’t teach talent and skills alone simply aren’t enough what Can Film School teach that cannot be readily garnered by non formal learning? What is left to teach other than talent and skills…
Language and Learning
When we boil down to the very essence of Education and Art there are, in truth, only two things that a Film School can teach - everything else is just the trappings and trimmings. Moreover both are things that are extremely difficult to garner outside of formal learning and a dedicated institution. (Ironically however I would venture that these two things are very often either neglected or curtailed by many film school curricula).
The first and foremost is Cinema Literacy. Watching a lot of films and reading a few books is all well and good but a litany of shot framings and what they are supposed to mean is not Cinema Literacy. Such distillations of cinema language are the equivalent of my 2 year old daughter reciting the alphabet. The basis of literacy certainly, but until she can read (and more importantly Write) a novel its not a true sophisticated literacy. Its simply regurgitation.
Cinema Language is more intricate, more sophisticated, more complex and varied than any written form known to human kind. Its a vibrant and endlessly dynamic mediascape of runic audio-visual hieroglyphs where subtle serifs are the nuanced inflections that fundamentally alter meaning. Moreover it is a language that grows and evolves with every new cinematic work, with every new technology, with every new viewing medium.
So to suggest that you can begin to attain a comprehensive literacy of contemporary cinema from watching a lots of movies and reading books is either grossly naïve or profoundly arrogant…
Of course there will always those aiming for lowest-common-denominator filmmaking. In which case ignorance is bliss. But for the purposes of my soap-boxing Im going to pretentiously assume a more broadly held desire by aspiring filmmakers to be fucking exception rather than putridly banal.
The central and fundamental element Film School can (and should) teach is Cinema Literacy. All the technical skills in the world are merely the means to enact Cinema Literacy. Film School provides the most viable crucible to teach how to speak and write with all the sophistication of the cinema language. Film School is uniquely placed - if its outside and looking beyond industry, if its embedded in a concerted environment for engagement with cinema process - to build a more rich and dense vocabulary of cinema language than could ever by obtained outside of formal learning. Learning the words that make up the language of cinema is one thing, stringing them together into articulate and engaging audio-visual sentences of profound viewer engagement is quite another. Thats cinema literacy.
But still there is another step that true cinema literacy delivers…
Good cinema happens when the filmmaker can exploit the detailed audio visual language of the cinema - But GREAT cinema happens when the filmmaker invents their own language for the cinematic experience itself.
All the truly great works of cinema, over the century of cinema history, have in some way invented new cinema language. From Meliese and the cinema of the fantastical effect, to Cecil B DeMille and inscription of a true Epic cinema vocabulary, on to Kubrick who with every film he made invented entirely new cinema words subsequently used and exploited by all filmmakers to follow.
Its this possibility for true cinema literacy that is the potential beating heart Film School offers. Film School should, and can, be the most effective cauldron for smelting language into new cinematic words, new phrases, new inflections and dialects.
Film School cant teach talent and raw skills are just not enough. But what Film School can teach (or, more correctly, provide a dynamic environment for the exploration of) that cant be effectively learned on your own, is Cinema Literacy; The vast combination of knowledge, skill, experience, instinct, understanding and energy that when forged together by a distinct and focused environment produces a linguistic platform far exceeding the sum of its parts.
But there is one other unique offering Film School has, one it shares as the true pedagogical promise of all education institutions. Whilst a Film School on the surface may portend teaching camera, sound, editing and writing, these are all micro-level implementations of the one true thing Film School should and can teach… How to Learn, the art of learning itself.
The the overarching single thing any education can, should and must deliver for a student is a tangible and consummate ability to Learn. Students must be taught the process and art of learning itself, how to acquire, absorb, process and, most importantly, apply new skills, knowledge and ideas. Its here that I find flaw in the way many Film Schools position their learning.
Far too often the focus can fall to software-use rather than creative process, camera operating rather than the art of cinematography, emphasis on the here and now rather than the broader concepts of creative process that expand beyond the here and now. And its the misguided idea of what the industry wants is what drives this lowest-common denominator approach to skills.
A Film School focused on serving the needs of the industry rather than leading it largely sets itself up to become an institution that will fail to teach students How to Learn. It may well build skills to guarantee an immediate job, but it stands a good chance of failing to equip students for life-long learning, self-improvement, dynamic flexibility in creative application.
When a school aims to serve the industry it invariably bogs itself down in brand-loyalty, proprietary technologies, specific applications and inflexible models of production. We see film schools training Final Cut Pro/Avid Users (who know every software menu and function) Rather than real Editors (who can manipulate narrative, meaning and ideas regardless of which system they sit in front of - both now and 20 years form now.)
The Film School intent upon serving the industry effectively embodies a ideology of teaching the right way to make a film. To serve the industry is to declare that there is a right and accepted way to make cinema. And if it doesn’t meet with current practice it must be wrong, incorrect, not-viable.
This idea of an acceptable way and an unacceptable way to make cinema is plainly farcical in a contemporary cinema landscape where we are making cinema (moving image media) in ways, means and modes never seen before, in diversity not seen before, in scale and flexibility weve not seen before, delivering via mediums weve not known before. Machinima and real-time environments, compositing and motion graphics, 3D environments, interactive forms, online streaming media, mobile devices, gaming, download and on and on and on.
When a Film School focuses on Leading the industry rather than Serving it, it aligns its priorities in a fundamentally different polar pattern. It frees itself from slavishly adhering to malformed ideas of industry standards. Software brands and camera types take second place to Assembly, Form and Process. It dispenses with the idea of a right way to create cinema and instead intrinsically aligns itself with an exploration of the many ways to create cinema and moreover shifts focus to the analytical process to work out the Best way to make cinema commensurate with the needs of the creator and the creation.
The Film School focused on Leading the industry is one focused first and foremost on teaching students How to Learn. As a result it positions itself to be able to build skills and knowledge of cinematic processes that transcend the here and now, that can grow beyond the here and now and inform cinema production regardless of how modes, means and methods change over time.
To do this a Film School education must primarily provide an Environment not a Curriculum. The Curriculum dictates What to learn but the Environment dictates and shapes the learning process itself. Its the environment that makes Film School unique; an environment of experiential learning, collaborative learning, an environment where mistakes are not just allowed but encouraged. A Film School focused on making highly polished festival successful, industry-approved, films is one that is failing its students. A student learns infinitely more form making films that are ambitious and fall short than those that are conservative and succeed. Polished films are low hanging fruit. Films that dare to fail, that reach far beyond ability have the potential to teach infinitely more and have a far more profound impact on the pedagogical journey of the student.
All this is not to suggest that an education from a Film School aiming to lead and challenge the industry, rather than serve it, is divorced from technical craft and grounded production process mechanisms. It is a great myth to suggest that the two are mutually exclusive
Cinema IS Technology.
Cinema does not and cannot exist for either the creator or the viewer without the technical apparatus of its construction and delivery. As such any filmmaker who thinks of themselves as a non-technical filmmaker is simply deluded.
The difference however in the approach of the Industry Leading Film School as opposed to the Industry Serving Film School is that the former rejects ideas of industry standard tools - invariably a specific brand deemed acceptable in exclusivity - and instead embraces diversity and flexibility in understanding the technical underpinnings of all tools. This is something Ive written about many times before; most particularly the essay HOLISTIC THINKING - INTEGRATED MAKING. A manifesto of sorts, the key items of which reflected upon how to ensure students were not software users but real and empowered artisans. Fundamental therefore is the idea of Software Agnosticism and the Philosophy of the Tools.
One of the great tragedies of media making education over the past decade has been the supplanting of real knowledge, skills and core competencies with software specific, brand allied pseudo-skills. An editor, skilled and knowledgeable in the craft, technology and artistry of editing as a process, should be more than capable of sitting down in front of any editing system, any editing tool, and be able to produce functional quality work. A carpenter is not rendered useless by changing to a different type of circular saw..!
Sadly however we are in an era where instead of demanding this universality as a bench mark from creative artisans we accept the corporate-driven brand allegiance of software specific skills. Software and technology Users rather than real technical creators.
Any institution that teaches software specific functions above, or worse, in place of core processes is fundamentally dis-empowering their students and directly damaging the broader creative industry, making it slavishly adherent to corporate marketing directions rather than the needs and skill demands of production. A Film School seeking to serve industry by adhering to the myth of industry standard tools is intrinsically limiting creative endeavor by insisting there is right or correct tool to be creative with.
Furthermore, any cinematic education that provides only one type, one brand, one form of tool or system of production in exclusivity rather than providing options and diversity of tools to students without hierarchy - so that they might find the right tool that suits them and their internal methodology of working - is detrimentally hobbling those students. These students are rendered under-skilled servants of a software company rather than comprehensively skilled artists and craftspersons with abilities beyond the tools.
Each and every software tool for creative cinematic production carries with it an internally logical philosophy a conceptual mode of perceiving the creative production process instilled on inception into the tool by those who made it and the direct imperatives of the corporation for which it was made. Thus a creative media maker in choosing a particular tool for production is by default buying into a tacit, if not proactive, acceptance of that tools philosophical approach. Their work with that tool is subsequently governed, influenced and shaped by that philosophy.
If however the student through their cinematic education is restrictively indoctrinated into a particular tool (and its respective philosophy), without wider consideration of a personal creative and philosophical approach, then their work will be dictatorially shaped by the tool itself rather than by their own creative imperatives. The tool will dictate what can and cant be done and how it will be done rather than the creator seeking out these pathways to suit themselves and the needs of the project.
Whilst standard technical formats provide functional benchmarks and uniformity, the idea that there are Industry Standard creative tools is fundamentally abhorrent. There is NO SUCH THING AS AN "INDUSTRY STANDARD" creative tool. The very concept is anti-creative. It is a prescribing that there is only one way to work and that other techno-creative approaches are of lesser value or unacceptable. It implies that a work is only acceptable if made with a particular type of technology and this is absurdly destructive and the very concept must be done away. We must ensure cinematic producers are not conforming creative vision to the needs of the tool but seeking out the tool to extol the creative needs of the production.
The only true measure of intelligence and knowledge is the ability to learn, acquire and apply new skills and knowledge. Thus an editor whose comprehension of editing process, technique and technology has been built solely through the confined prism of one particular tools presented philosophical paradigm (on the idea that its an industry standard) is fundamentally weak; dis-empowered. They are at the mercy the ever changing whims of software developers rather than a servant of the creative process where by the tools are means to an ends.
A conceptual method for implementing this approach is the idea of Technology Transparency that we have endeavored to implement into the curriculum at the International Film School Sydney - embodied in the Technological Philosophy statement on the schools website.
The aim is to educate filmmakers whose creative vision is never limited by a lack of technical knowledge. Filmmakers for whom the tools of cinema are an invisible and transparent conduit to creativity.
In other words the goal of any Film School should Not be that students are expertly proficient in the particular creative tools the school has deemed industry acceptable but rather that they possess a solid degree of technology transparency; the ability to quickly and easily adapt to any given tool they are presented with. This stems directly from the idea of Teaching students How to Learn first and foremost before any particular skill.
The more self-confident part of me would like to think that my students, at the end of their course, could sit down in front of Any given editing system on the market and given a small amount of time to orient themselves, be able to effectively produce quality work. They would be able to do this NOT because they have learned ALL the systems on the market but because they have learned the fundamentals that underpin all the NLEs on the market. That they have consummate ability to acquire, process and apply new information. With that skill they will be perpetually in-work and capably able to adapt to any future develops in cinematic process.
This kind of learning flexibility and adaptability is virtually impossible within a Film School focused on serving the industry and meeting obtuse industry standards. This kind of learning is only really possible when the Film School as institution works outside and looks beyond industry. When it frees itself from the dogma of how things have traditionally been done and instead embraces how they might be done…
Film School is an institution to be treasured and respected but it only has the opportunity to live up its potential when its unshackled from industry. When its free to challenge and explore and investigate
