Anybody who goes to the movies is aware of the huge number of new films produced each year, and anybody who has sat through the end credits of a current Hollywood blockbuster knows that a lot of skilled people are employed in their production. To learn these skills, many aspiring movie makers attend one of the many film schools that have come into being during recent decades. Some of these students have gone on to great success after graduation.

But film school can be expensive or far away. Is getting a student loan and going into debt for several years a future filmmaker’s best way to enter the business. Could there possibly be another way, and is film school even worth the expense?

Only the future filmmaker can decide whether seeking training at a school is the best way to get in the door, but it’s a good idea to check out the alternatives.

It’s with the hope that it will help future movie makers decide whether or not film school is the best route to take that I’m offering the following story about a friend of mine and how he got into the business. This friend travels around quite a bit so I haven’t been able to ask him if it would be alright to use his real name, so I’ll call him Paul.

Paul was informed that he would be the beneficiary of a small inheritance. This money had to be used to further his education and Paul’s mother was assigned to make sure that this stipulation was adhered to. Naturally, she asked Paul what he wanted to do with his life.

His reply was that he hoped to get into the movie industry. In his estimation, film school would be the obvious way to get eventually enter the business. This career goal suited his mother just fine, but she had another idea about how Paul could learn the necessary skills.

What if he used the inheritance to make his own short movie. That could be his film school.

Paul thought this was a good idea, so he went out in search of some help on this project. He found a local special effects technician who was interested in getting involved. I also happen to know this man. We can call him John.

This is the deal Paul offered to John: John was to contact some of his special effects colleagues and together they would compile a list of effects that they had always wanted to create but had never had the opportunity to do. Paul would write a script that used as many of these effects as possible and a short film would be made from it that they would all work on together. The technicians wouldn’t be paid for their work, but Paul would supply all of the necessary materials.

The response from the effects crew was enthusiastically positive and together they put together a very entertaining and well made short film. Everybody had a great time completing the project and Paul learned a lot about how films are put together. He also had a nice portfolio piece that would come in handy at future job interviews.

Paul is by no means the only person to enter the film business by making his own movie. A lot of successful people in the industry learned the trade in film school, but there also many self educated professionals in the crowd.

There are quite a few directors(Stanley Kubrick, Quentin Tarantino, John Waters and Robert Rodriguez are just a few examples) who have been known to publicly state that they learned filmmaking on their own and that in their opinions this is the best way to go.

Video equipment and movie-making software are now relatively affordable and easy to find, making it possible for just about anybody to get started making independent movies. Once they’re completed, these films can even find an audience when uploaded to the internet.

Once again, there are many paths to success in the motion picture field and it is in the best interest of all who plan to enter it to consider as many of these paths as possible. Best of luck to all of you in the future!