Why do you want to go to film school? (3 Viewers)

[Chris W]

Why have you decided that you want to go to film school?

Personally for me, I was always interested in film from a young age. Like I'm sure many other kids of my generation (I turn 50 this year ) , I saw the original Star Wars films (saw ROTJ in the theater) and my dad had a Super 8 camera and I'd make films with my friends.

I dreamed of being a director myself and got into writing. While I enjoyed writing I never really was good at writing endings for my stories. I was able to create moments or starts that I like but never good endings.

In high school I took the film class and we shot films using VHS camcorders and we had to shoot the entire film in shot order as there was no editing. I however did save up and and buy a tape to tape Hi8 editing system so I could edit things that I shot. I really enjoyed editing but thought I wanted to direct.

I distinctly remember watching the Shawshank Redemption in high school and I thought as the credits rolled that it was films like this that made me want to work in film.

I saw that BU was doing a summer program for high school students and I had a wonderful time - shooting on a Bolex 16mm camera on B&W reversal and editing by hand. BU was the only college with a film program that I applied to and I got in and attended. For some reason applying to other film schools didn't really occur to me. This was before the internet etc. I did get into Wesleyan which had a film studies program. The person I interviewed with at Wesleyan said I was more a fit for a film production program. I got into both school but attended BU and had a great time and got my BS in 2000 (class year of 1999 - stayed an extra semester as I studied abroad).

I went in thinking I wanted to direct but quickly learned that I loved editing and didn't really like being on a film set. I loved going through a mountain of raw footage and telling a story out of it - editors are really the final writers of a film.

Now I've been working for the past 25 years as a union editor in TV and film. So it turns out I got good at writing after all.

What about you? When did you start getting interested in film and why are you applying to film school?

 

[ashwinalok]

My journey was quite different. I was never a movie buff growing up and till the end of my college in 2016, I barely knew how cameras actually worked. I bought my first DSLR for a trip to Thailand and initially used it on auto mode. A few months later, during a trip to Nepal, I started learning about aperture, shutter speed and ISO. One night, after finally getting a low-light shot exactly the way I had imagined it, something clicked.

I made my first short film in 2018 and became fascinated by the process of turning a simple thought into a story and then into moving visuals. Since then, I’ve spent the last eight years making short films, documentaries, commercials and government projects, mostly through self-learning and real-world experience.

I’m applying to film school now because I feel I’ve reached a point where experience alone is not enough. I want structured learning, mentorship and exposure to stronger storytelling methods so I can take my work from independent filmmaking to an international level.