By Carl Schoenfeld, Program Leader Raindance Postgraduate Film Degree.
What is the point of film school?
There are quite a few filmmakers who suggest that emerging talent should put their money towards making a film and presenting this at festivals instead of investing in a degree.
Ask any festival programmer: they see a lot of films that have been made by filmmakers who’ve not attended film school long before their festival starts. Submission numbers to the Sundance film festival have more than tripled since 1999 when films like The Blair Witch Project shaped the mould and gave rise to that question above. This year, more than 12,000 films competed for less than 200 screening slots, from which about a third may find a buyer, and so a future audience.
