For someone with limited resources it is very worth it because you get to work on higher level equipment.

Unfortunately I did most of my work before getting into film school.

But I found the Cinema History class interested, I sat in on the Lab Class which was taught by a guy from Foto Kem, it was interesting even though I had interactions with the timers who worked on my projects.

Since I did 12 years of unschooling in 8mm film, 16mm film, beat to beat editing and even linear work with U-Matic I didn’t really need film school all that much and breezed through most of my courses.

If you don’t do that kind of prep work you need film school.

It you don’t know what 16mm checkerboard conforming is, you need film school. If you don’t know a Meier Hanckock from a Guillotine you need film school. If you don’t own Avid Pro and a PC or Mac you need film school.

Film school won’t get you a job. You have to do that yourself and a lot of the work is low paying. You also have to be jack of all trades.

The kind of jobs you end up getting is working the production and editing for a car dealer or RV center, making demos for wanna be actors and newscasters, wedding videos.

If you’re lucky you get an entry level job at some hick TV station.

If you beat the bushes armed with all of the above you might place something. My partners in TV commercial work actually sold a show to Filmways that went to pilot for NBC.

But understand, they show got “stolen” from them because that’s the way of show biz. The Emmy winning producers from Welcome Back Kotter got to “Create” the show (that gets you in this day an age $12,500 residuals for each new episode shot) and Produce it. My friends were “source material” and if the show went to series they had a 1 year Story Editors contract ($800 an episode each at back then rates, probably $2,000 a week todays rates) no residuals and a flat payment of $20,000 for the rights.

But, that one win got them in the doors. To this day they can call up anyone and once they say, I worked on a show that went to Pilot, they get invited in for a pitch session.

One of them now owns his own Avid Rig and he directed some of Showtimes Late Night Adult soft core stuff.

Undestand in 20 years he got only a few big wins and the rest were all small stuff working out of his home. And he didn’t go to film school! He was a draftsman before getting into the work. He learned a lot from me in the editing room. Including how to think inside out and backwards. On our first commercial try, we coulding figure out what to do, so I ran ran it backwards from the last word of the tag to the front and timed it at exactly 30 seconds and those were our initial options.

They way you get in is you work at some hick station and work your way up to local show writer. The morning show. Some kids show (you know, ROMPER ROOM) and after 4 years of doing this you submit your resume with your BA and that 4 years writing and a demo reel of your work to Disney and if they like it they bring you over as a Disney Channel writer.

http://www.sanjuanislander.com/features/people/forrest-emery.shtml