Calvin Pryluck's thoughts on film school are interesting, as are the various responses, but I find the essential consideration lacking. This for me is that filming is an art, and that filmmakers are artists. Questions of the value of art school for artists (whether Picasso needed art school, etc) notwithstanding, if one sets out to make films, there is a measure of personal expression and a need to create that will not stand still. Film school may or may not satisfy this need or teach one to express. To be sure, enrollment in a film school indicates immediately that one has embraced filmmaking as a calling, and this in itself could be a personal reason to enroll. But film school is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition in becoming a filmmaker. Filming as an art must be developed constantly and consistently through practice. Filmmaking doesn't start until you get out there with a camera. The great artists, Picasso, Miro, etc., worked in their studios every day, for long hours, at the times of day when they worked best. Miro painted every day from 6am until noon, at which point he took a small lunch and rested until 1pm, then he answered mail or saw friends until 2pm, and then he painted another six hours until dinner. We get where we get through work, practice, constant evolution. So my advice to someone who wants to become a filmmaker today is: get a Super-8 camera, buy up and store all the old stocks you can afford that Kodak has discontinued (Ektachrome and sound film), and go out there and film. Film every day, whether ten minutes or ten frames. Make film your medium, speak through it. For film is a medium and not an end in itself. The goal is not to make a film, but to reach people through film, to speak your heart through the images. When you start seeing what you have been filming, and start manipulating these images, you will discover not only your own film language and style, but what Calvin calls "knowledge of the world" (personal ideas as well as learnedness) will become subservient to the filming. "What to film" will become self-evident. So this is my advice, shoot film any way you can. Either put thousands of dollars into film school, or into raw stock (Super-8 film costs roughly $3/minute, 16mm film about $6/minute, and the chemistry needed to develop these films at home is inexpensive). For those of you who ridicule my position as a viable career choice, who uphold film school as a way to a job, I still maintain that investing in one's creative powers is key to a place in the film industry. The business is based on strong ideas and touching people through the medium. Each time we go see a new movie, whether we are a producer, a distributor, a studio head or just a filmgoer, we are searching for an "ideal film," an intelligent film that will respond to our sensitivities, a creative vision of the world or of film. A filmmaker who has nurtured this creative vision will have more to offer the film industry as well as the world than any technician; technicians can always be hired. This filmmaker will offer truth, beauty, the essential. So go out there and film, film, film. Each 400' can of 7245 has the potential to bring the world 10 minutes of revelation, of celebration, of pure vision. If only every can of film could spin through the Bolex of an inspired filmmaker, instead of serving to strike print number 472 of Robocop VII. "With every new buzz of our cameras, our hearts leap forward my friends" - Jonas Mekas, 1996 Pip Chodorov <[log in to unmask]> ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]