Going to film school will not make you a good director
Summary
Film school? Not necessary, argues a straphanger who sold her eggs to fund her first movie. Like Robert Rodriguez with his plasma donations, she used her body for art and found the experience more valuable than any MFA program could offer. Kareem's rider insists that going straight from high school to a cinema program creates a cloistered bubble. Nothing new happens to you. What would you possibly have to say? The conversation touches on how film programs often become networking hubs for rich kids and their lawyer fathers, but this director chose a different path. Her logic: trauma is inherently interesting, and lived experience beats academic training when you need to lead a crew and have something meaningful to communicate.
Full Transcript
So what's your take? Going to film school will not actually make you a good director. 100% agree. If you go from high school where you're in this like cloistered small world into a film program where everyone is obsessed with cinema, you are just in this like little bubble where there's nothing actually new that's happening to you. So what on Earth would you possibly have to say? That kind of school, it's for aimless people.
Yes. I think that you end up being with a bubble of the 1% that's not a bad thing. If you want to be a successful filmmaker, you have to know rich kids. You have to know their fathers. You have to know the lawyers. There are other ways to make your movies that avoid those 1%ers. I mean, I sold my eggs to make my first movie.
No, yes. No, yes. And I was able to use my money and my body for my art like Robert Rodriguez before me with his plasma donation.
Now it's cool. Now it's now it's cool. And see, if you have trauma, that's inherently interesting, and that gave me way more to make movies about. As a director, you have to be a leader and you have to have something to say.
100% agree. Film school sucks.