Film School Secrets -- Why Do Most Film School Grads Fail?

Public educational institutions just weren't designed to foster the kinds of creative and independent thinking required to succeed in filmmaking. The result is that the vast majority of film school students never get to have anything like the careers they dreamed of.

Here's a dirty secret that makes me upset; students aren't getting their money's worth when they go to film school, and they are wasting many valuable years of their lives.  The hard, cold facts are that only 1 percent of students actually ever make a single feature film, let alone have a viable career in their choice of university study. I have my ideas about why this is the case, despite the fact that students spend many years studying their craft.

I believe it's the school's fault, and it's not the students fault. It's all in the way the universities train the students, or should I say it's in the way the universities lack in training the students. If a person thinks about it, they understand that film making is a creative industry.  It's also a business, and students aren't learning how to be successful in the creative and business aspects of the film industry.  The universities aren't setting the students up for success. It's really sad, because this could be fixed if only the schools stopped repeating history.

The history behind the university system as an institution dates back to a time when only the wealthy received any education. It would be hard to believe now, but there was a time in which lower class people didn't have the least bit of basic education. On the other hand, the upper classes had all that they could want.

When education was opened to all classes in the form of free or low cost public education it was really to produce docile, obedient workers for the industrial age factories. Students were taught the basics of reading, math and obedience to authority but it was felt that teaching independent thinking would be dangerous. Bells were rung when it was time for student to change classes to get them used to the idea of responding to factory bells. Obedience to teachers prepared them for wanting to please their factory bosses.

But obedient, skilled workers don't make it in the film industry. Successful filmmakers are the creative rebels that know how to network and persuade and think outside the box. These are not skills that are generally taught. Although students should be inspired to be creative in both their film production, and knowledgeable in the film business, they are not being taught how to be successful.

Adding insult to injury, the students will spend years in film school to learn skills that can be taught in weeks or at most months and run up huge loan debts they will never be able to pay off working at the few jobs they will be qualified for in Hollywood. I think it's sad, and it seems as if things aren't going to change anytime soon.

There are many options to starting a career in filmmaking that cost less and take far less time than attending a traditional school of filmmaking. You can learn about this and many other film school secrets by visiting my site at 4Filmmaking.com.