Jbells123

A hackneyed old trope that I suggest is not true in 99.999999999% of teachers, lecturers and professors - believe it or not, there are some people who educate because they love to educate, because they love the working environment, get real job satisfaction from helping kids and because they are sick of associating with the type of scumbags who inhabit the industry who have no qualms about, say, taking advantage of an inexperienced person, trying to persuade them to work for free whilst showing them nothing more than how to work a coffee machine. They are certainly not doing it for the money, prestige, low working hours or ease, I can promise you that!
 
If you do choose to work for someone for free, be really, really careful.
 
All that being said, be really careful about choosing a film course, there are plenty of really bad ones and very few good ones and don't expect to come out bustling with contacts and a relevant portfolio, you almost certainly wont.

I knew a screenwriting teacher at UCLA that told me confidentially he wished he'd gone to USC as an undergrad, not because it was better than where he studied, but because he would have had better contacts. One catch, you need to be rich!

Academic education is paramount in filmmaking. Any of those names that supposedly didn't go to film school actually did. Just, not the kind of school that gives you a degree in the end.
 
Many succesful directors and cinematographers have built a career without going college or any "formal" film school. You can skip it if you read tons of books, attend seminars and experiment a little. You need to crawl before you walk, let alone run... Nowadays you can get the education without going to school (the Internet has made available many study programs an bibliographies that can serve as a guide), but you need to get the education anyway!!
 
Making a feature with that money would probably a waste of money (one that I've seen more than once). Taking time to study and learn, and then spend money on some film (preferably not a feature) would be more sensible. I've been working for almost 20 years and you can easily tell the difference between the formally trained professional and the self-taught through experience. The latter is a one-trick pony, effective in his/her task but easily confused when taken out of his/her comfort zone.
 
You see, the thing is that not only should you know HOW to do a task, but also WHY is that task performed in a specific way. The phrase "because it's always been done that way" or "that's way everyone does it" is sadly quite common and reveals a professional with shallow knowledge and little ground for improvement or evolution. Some gaffers will always be gaffers and some get to be DPs. And it's not beacuse of their "talent", that's a made up word which means "lots of hard work, perseverance and continuous study".
 
Get some vast base -not basic- knowledge, either going to school or by your own means, watch and analyse as many films as you can and then go on screw up some minor production. If you've done the former, you'll be able to know why you failed and learn from your mistakes instead of repeating them systematically. And ten years from now you won't have to watch the expensive pile of crap that you shot when you were not ready. I don't mean to offend anyone or be patronising, but I've seen that mistake made so many times... and not once have I seen anyone spend their "college money" on a feature that was even watchable. And the worst thing is that not even they knew why it was so bad.

It was really cool!! I like the whole lighting technique and everything. Haha I apologize. I am also a newbie. In fact, I've only been learning about photography for a few months. My main interest is film but I know that the two go hand in hand in a way. You seem to know how to add a nice touch to a video!