It sounds to me like you are happy with the quality of your work, but the problem is that you can do great work, but if you can’t get anyone to pay attention to it, you will never make a living at it. You might look at school as a way of connecting in the industry. Particularly since you are currently in Louisiana, you might think of going to L.A. or even New York to spend some time getting to know people who might help you get the exposure you need. In that sense, whether it is a four-year university or a film school doesn’t much matter; what matters is who is involved in the school, how they are connected to the industry, and how they suppoft and promote their students’ work.

Depends. If you ever want to be an executive or even a producer the 4 year accredited degree is important.

AFI

California Institute of the Arts

Columbia University School of the Arts

The North Carolina School of the Arts

NYU

San Francisco State University

UCLA

USC

University of Texas at Austin

If you are realy good an not woried about getting lost in the crowd, UCLA is number one

The UCLA Department of Film and Television is considered among the finest in the country and continuously monitors and revises its offerings in order to provide students with the best training possible for entrance into these demanding professions. The Department offers seven degree programs: the Bachelor of Arts in Film and Television; the Master of Fine Arts in four distinct professional areas: Production/Directing, Screenwriting, the Producers Program, Animation, and the Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in Critical Studies.

Students in all programs study the history and theory as well as the creative and technical aspects of both film and television, and may then proceed to advanced work and study in either medium and in whatever expressive form they prefer. The Department’s purpose is to provide a scholarly, creative, and professional approach to the study of film and television, and to help each person discover his or her powers as an independent artist and communicator.

The Department of Film and Television’s production and teaching facilities consist of three motion picture sound stages, a completely equipped animation lab, a scoring stage, a re-recording stage, thirty film editing rooms, mixing rooms, viewing rooms, and negative cutting rooms. Television facilities include three TV studios, a Master Control room, five video viewing rooms, two time-code rooms, ten video editing rooms, and a fully equipped remote van. In addition, there are seminar rooms, an Equipment Office, a darkroom, a title room, a film chain, and a sound effects library.

The UCLA Film and Television Archive is the largest collection of film and video holdings in the United States outside of the Library of Congress. The Archive collection of over 200,000 titles includes motion pictures from all film eras and television programs representing every aspect of American telecasting from 1946 to the present. Besides its internationally recognized preservation and restoration activities, the Archive presents more than 500 public programs each year in the James Bridges Theater, the Department’s 276-seat motion picture theater. The Archive Research and Study Center provides additional access to Archive resources through its educational programs, research and consultation services, and publications; and student and public access to Archive materials through ninety on-campus viewing stations.

Alumni: Stephen Burum ASC, Francis Ford Coppola, Danny DeVito, Tim Robbins, Paul Schrader, Penelope Spheeris, Jeff Margolis