>On that vein, if any of you are aware of directors who are open to
> apprentices, please let me know. I’ll happily jump in
>and work my ass off.

I do. And given your online savviness, you just might be right for it.

I work with a team led by Global Brain author, Brooklyn-based Howard Bloom, that produces futuristic films. See http://www.bigbangtango.net and http://www.howardbloom.net/bloombook for a feel. Big Bang Tango Media Labs is a distributed media lab with most of the brains in NYC and California.

BTW on Tatvam and reality, Bloom’s rather famous quote is “Reality is Mass Hallucination”. Are you game to working on movies that challenge and raise the imagination of Asians? Google my name and you’ll get a feel for the themes that suck me. Eg Why has India not produced a single quantum invention in over 1000 years when before that it together with China was responsible for nearly all of them?

On the other hand, ‘going’ to film school is no guarantee that you will get work, even if after three years you do the same going around and scouting around for work.

Eh? So, it’s a question of whether you wanna sink time and money into something that you want to learn formally, or just wanna learn it on the move, if you can. It’s a tough call.

I would opt for not going to film school and making some good short documentaries to start with. You will probably be amazed (I’ve been told this by others who’ve eschewed film school) at what you could learn from the people you hire to do the camera, editing, sound, etc. And in a couple of years you would ‘get’ a lot of things that you didn’t ‘formally’ learn. By then, you will already have made some good documentaries…:-)

All of this of course depends on whether you have the economic means to make these short documentaries. But think about it. Spend some cash making them docus or spend loads of cash going to primo film school.

I realize I haven’t helped much, but am just trying to get you to think of this in slightly different ways (if they are at all different!)…keep us posted!

The thing that’s hard before film school is finding a director who you can learn from who is also willing to invest in emerging/aspiring filmmakers.

From the business world, I’ve learned that “mentorship” is a must. I benefited from it and I made sure I passed that on to almost everyone who approached me.

The film industry does not seem to have that built into directors’ DNA. Once a lot of directors have proved themselves, they treat everyone like peons . Hey, each to his own and all that, but my take is that it would be great if we saw more directors willing to share what they’ve learned.

On that vein, if any of you are aware of directors who are open to apprentices, please let me know. I’ll happily jump in and work my ass off.

Thanks again for your thoughts!

Let me give you my opinion. I agree technical skills are important but nothing beats practicals. You know the A-B-C-D of movie making from your 12 weeks course and also you are in the right hub(NY). I would suggest you try finding the job of Assting a Director. You will have a better vision and understanding of your creativity, approach, style etc, then after that if you stil feel that you need to go to school to master the craft you can do that then.

Good Luck:)