This week, I'm sharing the five things that you can do if you want to learn filmmaking outside of film school.
Hello, my name is Simon Cade, and this is DSLR Guide.
So I've got about a year and a half of regular school left before I could go to university
So I've been thinking about this a lot trying to work out what it is that film school has to offer
And then seeing that any way that I can get a similar or better
experience without going to college. So first up in film school,
you do actually get a decent amount of time dedicated towards actually making films.
So in my kind of made-up film school alternative, if I don't go to college
Then I would definitely make sure that I do a bunch of short films
So maybe something like a minimum of one short film per year.
Now I'm really interested in the narrative side, but if you're more interested in kind of corporate side or documentaries,
then you could still, you know, do that kind of practice and the thing is while you might be able to establish a business or
establish some clients who you can get to know and build an audience on-line maybe.
The key thing, the absolute most important thing is that you're learning tons because you're making lots of films
And I honestly believe that anyone who makes lots of films will see themselves
just getting exponentially better. Now one of the best reasons to go to film school
is that you get put in a community with some other filmmakers and you get the chance to get to know them really well.
So if I don't go to film school,
I want to make sure that I'm not just working on my own projects with the same people,
I want to branch out and work on other people's projects even if it's just volunteering so don't underestimate
the power of networking. People often say that
filmmaking is all about who you know and just the principle that every single person who you meet, they'll know some people and those people
know even more people. So it's definitely worth putting some real effort into
getting to know people and getting to meet people. So on a more practical level, you probably have to be more active
about it if you're not in film school.
So this could just mean Googling freelance
cinematographer and see if you can find anyone who you can just offer to work for free, you know contact them by Twitter contact them
via the email on their website and see if they have any projects that you can just help out and do whatever is the needs
doing and then before you know it, you'll be able to meet a whole range of people who are hopefully in the business.
And then when it comes to your own projects there's some people who you can contact, you know, to see if they're happy to help
or if they know anyone who would be happy to help. So I think it's a case of looking for musicians
you can make music videos for, interesting people you can make documentaries about and then also
agents and producers who might be able to help you get your projects going a bit later on down the road.
Now people often say that film school is the best way to learn how to use the high-end equipment
and why this might be true in terms of turning up on set and, you know, not being completely clueless.
I do think that it's definitely worth spending the maximum amount of time
learning about the creative side rather than just how to use equipment. So in my film school alternative,
I think I'm just going to stick with the camera I've got,
the Canon T3I and focus as much as possible on the things that make me enjoy film.
You know when I enjoy film, what is it about it, is it interesting characters, interesting ideas?
I want to learn how to make those sort of things and spend as much time as possible and not waste any time at all
learning about how to use, you know, this piece of equipment or
what the names of all these different technical things are. That information might be a little bit useful,
but I think it's almost irrelevant when it comes to actually making a good film.
So, because there's only so many hours in the day, I'd like to spend as much time as possible
focusing on making good films with cheap gear rather than just learning how to make a film that looks nice.
And I know it's not always a one or the other, but the reality is that you're going to have to prioritize
one of them, and I wanna spend as much time as possible on the creative side.
So if I wanted to learn to speak Spanish,
probably the best thing for me to do would not be to just sit in my own room and just practice speaking Spanish all the time.
The best thing would be for me to go out somewhere where people speak Spanish and
listen to people speaking all the time and just kind of immerse myself.
I could spend a bit of time learning the grammar and the kind of theory behind it,
but the main thing is just to kind of absorb as much as you can.
I think it's similar with film, if you want to communicate with an audience
via the medium of film and it's definitely worth watching lots of movies and kind of
absorbing as much kind of art and culture as you can.
Now the difference between spoken language and
film is that say in Spanish, there will be certain words that mean one thing
and that's the only thing they mean. Whereas in film,
you don't have to communicate in the same way that everyone else does, but I still think it's worth
understanding the kind of basic things and what people will expect when you say a certain thing with your film and
to then understand how an audience will react to your film.
So for example, if I used a close-up of a prop in a film, well
the chances are the audience are going to either consciously or subconsciously
expect something to happen with that prop. By giving it some screen time and giving a close-up, people expect that something's going to happen of
significance. So from watching lots of films,
I might have learned that one guideline.
And then I can decide whether I want to follow it or break it. So for example, having a gun in a close-up
But then never having the gun go off
that you could use that throughout your whole film that the audience are expecting the gun to go off,
but it never does and that could be something that you think works for the story. So in my alternative film school,
I'd definitely watch lots of films, and I'd really think about what it was that I liked about that film,
What worked and what didn't work. So I don't mean just reading what other people have written about it
and what other people think of it,
but really thinking about why you enjoyed it or why you didn't enjoy it because those are the things that's your
individual and unique
interpretation of a film which is kind of like in a way the most valuable thing that you have, you know, your
personal response to films and therefore what you want to make in terms of your own films.
And I think another thing to consider is to take inspiration from a whole range of different art forms, so books, music
but also things like photography and paintings because if you can try and capture
the emotion of a song if that was what inspired you to capture the emotion of a song through a film,
then what you're doing is interpreting it into a different medium. So to me
that's a lot more creative,
and we'll have a lot more of your own individual
fingerprint compared to if you are just kind of copying the exact style of a film director.
So it is good to have movie knowledge,
but I think it's worth being influenced by all kinds of art
whether it's, you know, foreign films, old films or even like, you know, the really old art through the paintings and books.
I definitely think it's worth taking inspiration from a whole range of sources,
rather than just kind of watching a film and then painting by numbers to try and do something similar.
Now, one thing to consider
is that I heard a
veteran filmmaker talking on
Some video a while ago calm voice when it was but saying that actually one of the best things a filmmaker can do is
rather than just going straight into film school or straight into learning about filmmaking, is to just experience life for a bit.
So this could be
travelling around the world to understand different cultures or just kind of, you know,
doing something that isn't just filmmaking so that you have something you can draw from in terms of life experience because those are the most
interesting films. Films are recreating a world through the medium of film,
so if you don't have anything to kind of draw from
then, it's definitely worth thinking about, you know, how you can kind of get involved with communities and just do, you know, real things
rather than always just going straight into right what can I do about filmmaking? What can I do about filmmaking?
So would film school be a complete waste of time?
I definitely don't think so.
But I also think that with the right kind of attitude,
that you can definitely get something that is just as good, if not better than the film school experience
So that's pretty much it for this week as usual,
I'll put some more information on the blog, in particular of a really good blog post that
kind of explains the pros and cons of going to film school.
So now we didn't really tackle that very much in this video, and if you've actually been to film school,
I'd love to hear what your perspective is on this whole thing. Feel free to write a comment,
I'm sure other people would be interested in reading that too, but that's it for this week, and I'll see you next time.
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