Imagine if, as a pupil of filmmaking, you were scoping out film schools, observing the sometimes-astounding cost of tuition for those educational institutions, and then you noticed another program promising to give you a similar high quality education (possibly even better) for a small fraction of the cost of the other film schools. Would you come to a conclusion that such offer is nothing but a Film Connection scam?
Regrettably, the Film Connection is now stuck in that type of situation. Film Connection is a fully-accredited organization but it is their curriculum that often causes someone to think about them being a rip-off or not.
However, there is actually a very sensible explanation why The Film Connection can charge this small and make these claims about their system. The cost is not impacted by the quality of their program but rather by the method the company uses in order to provide their services.
Film Connection understood the significance of filmmaking and has come to terms with the reality that in order to master the tricks of the trade one has to experience it first hand. Through the centuries, both artists and artisans have mastered their crafts not through conventional education, but by means of mentorship and apprenticeship - by constant hands-on experience under the tutelage of a professional who took the apprentice under his/her wing. The Film Connection utilized the mentor-apprentice arrangement as foundation for their curriculum. As opposed to using the traditional classroom set-up, Film Connection exposes the students to the real world and enables them to learn according to experience. As you can imagine, this significantly decreases the cost of the education, all the while helping students learn filmmaking in the best way possible: by really doing it.
It appears too good to be true, just because it is a completely different strategy than contending schools are utilizing. Nevertheless, labeling an education approach that has been screened and proven through time a Film Connection scam may not be easy.
When there is a need for evidence that the set-up utilized by Film Connection does work then you don't have to worry because a good number of students turned out to be successful after becoming a part of the program. One film scholar says this: "A week after I joined up with the program, I was working on a famous music video which was a great experience. Then another previous student shared that while on the program he or she got to work on a movie by Roger Corman which runs on a budget of $200,000 and that by the time the movie was completed he or she was already a second assistant director.
The mentorship-apprentice approach has been used for centuries for this very reason: it works. This set up has been proven repeatedly and since Film Connection utilizes this set up and costs very little, is that enough to think about Film Connection a rip-off? Is It a Film Connection scam? Well, that isn't simple to consider such idea.
This article was added on Monday 02 August, 2010.
