Schools and studies in the world

L

laurent.a

New member
I just got to know your forum from one of my students, and as i begin to have surfed a little bit more here now, i wonder if i should'nt sort of present my self, as it seems like new comers do usually.

I studied in Louis Lumière school in Paris, worked as a camera assistant and then operator and sometimes dop or director for 15 years. I worked on feature lenghts, commercials, tv series, short films, tv shows and as a reporter cameraman for the french tv...

Now I teach Image in an "audiovisual" public school in the south of France and in a private "directing" school as well.

It's not been a long time i got into this "internet" stuff, forums and so...

My purpose here would be of two major points :

- Try to know much better how technicians work all other the world, i mean on the technical point of view. Things like "how do you make the camera tests before shooting in your country" (camera assistants), or how do you gaffers or grips work... (technics worldwide)

- Try to know how do the studies rule for you students all other the world : how much does it cost, how long time does it take, for what studies...

if anyone wants to join ?
 
Hey Laurent,

It's great to have a teacher on the forums. :)
I attend San Jacinto College in Houston, TX. There isn't really a "film program" at our school, just a couple courses to initiate interest, so my studies tend to be more in depth when conducting research online than what is offered in my classes. I actually helped start my school's digital video course by petitioning one Spring semester to get student support and funding. I'm given alot of creative freedom in the class because I helped start it, and the teachers see how serious I am. Having that freedom allows to me to develop at my own speed, and build up a recognizable body of work, then transfer to a larger university, possibly University of Texas in Austin, then possibly a couple of other places, definitely someplace in Europe.
My first two shorts from last semester, "Adrift" and "Here and There" are currently featured on this site in the showcase section, http://www.studentfilmmakersforums.com/news/showcase.shtml
I'd like to know what you think of them...?
 
Jacob,

First a few questions about your school : how many years does it take ? is it free? if not, how much does it cost ? how old are the students when getting in (i mean did they do other studies before ?)

I've seen your films, i like the mood that's in it. but i can see some imperfections that are of course natural for a student, basicaly rythm and pov matching problems...

I actually love the sand blowing effect and how you've match the comedian and the bed in this composite matte. It was a major work... and it works.

I don't know if i can be more precise in my critics "here and... now!" ?²
 
My school certainly isn't free, it's basically a bloated community college, intended for bunches and bunches of students to get their basics out of the way and transfer off to another University to pursue their interests.
I believe the average age of the students enrolling at the school is probably somewhere between 18 and 21, but it's hard to determine because there are so many offsetting factors, like kids who enroll in their early teens and adults who enroll in their 30's and 40's.

Anyhow, I appreciate the critique.
But, there actually wasn't any compositing, or CGI in Adrift at all, it is all real.
 
Do you mean it's not just a cinema school ? (I mean, is cinema one of the activities, then what is the dominante, if so ? litterature ?)

It sounds like our university, tough it's not free (I knew in US university is never free, but I wanted to make sure about yours).

The major difference seems to be that you have material in your school, as there is nearly non in major french universities.

They only have acces to shooting materials one or twice a year, and editing is quite poor as well.

But we have a few technical free schools. Some are 3 or four years of general studies I mean you study writing, sound, image, editing, with no specialisation.

Another kind of free school is the one I teach in. It's 2 years studies, free, and you choose a specialisation. We have 5 of them : image (that i teach), sound, editing, production and video equipments ingeneering.

People can enter at after high school, but I like better students who have done a little after that, that means 20 to 22 years old.

This technical schools have good material, like digital beta or/and dvcam or dvcpro, some have 16 mm material, have a studio and lights, editings system like avid express...

You also have 2 free schools that you might have heard of, Louis Lumière, that is a technical school, teaching photography, sound and camera (you have to choose one of the three), have a 2 years diploma after high school to enter it, and it's 3 years studies.

The other one is the "Femis", that actually replaced IDHEC, on the same basis, and you have directing, image, screenplay writing, maybe sound (i'm not sure) and you also have setup (décor) and one or two other sections.

This 2 ones have the best reputation. They have 35 mm material and 16 mm plus video stuff like dvcam i guess.


You have private schools also, they usually don't have such a good reputation as the free public ones, they cost about 6000 $ a year, are generally of 2 or 3 years, but the "diplomas" are not reconned, though they give you some knowledge (I teach mise en scene in one of them)

In all these schools, you also have theory courses, that actually takes the major part of the time, even though the major course may be the practical one. For instance, in my school, they have about 30 hours a week, in wich you have about 15 of practice. They study technics, physics, history and of analysis cinema and arts, rights of cinema/audiovisual and english.

You didn't tell me how much your school costs a year (give me a comparison price for "normal" schools as we can have an idea of what it costs considering the material - what kindda of material do you dispose of, actually ?)

Does anybody could tell us what about other countries ?
 
Sorry about the compositing, Jacob, That makes me feel even more enthousiastic about the desert scenes ! Looking at it again makes me realize that quicktime gives the strange feeling that the bed is moving.

That's why I thought it was composite.
 
No, my school isn't a cinema school, we don't have a program for cinema, just a couple small courses. One of them is an introductory course that does a good job of covering almost every angle of the filmmaking process, and then there's the digital video course, which is a brand new course, which means we're kind of given the freedom to do what we want, the teacher is very leniant, almost too leniant.
My school covers a wide range of educational courses. We have some honors courses set up, which are more intensive. I've been in a couple of those courses, and did well. For the most part, most of the courses are openly designed so that the student can succeed by either following the course just to get a good grade, or they can be an "overachiever" by getting good grades, but also gaining recognition outside of school if he or she chooses, which is what I am trying to do.
I don't think any of the other students in my class submitted their work to festivals or anything like that, they just put together some shorts, showed them to classmates at our school's little fest, and that was it.

Anyhow,
There are three levels of cost at my school that I'm aware of.
1. There's In area, which costs the least.
2. There's In state but out of area, which costs more.
3. And there's Out of state, which costs the most.

I live within walking distance from the South Campus, so I'm registered in area, and I pay roughly $1,000 a semester. Those who are out of area, have to pay an extra $500/$600 a semester, and those who are out of state have to pay much more.

So, as a full-time student in area, it generally costs about $2,000 a year, but it can fluctuate depending on the hours of the courses and depending on the extra materials needed for purchasing, such as books etc.
So far, the only thing I've had to pay for in my digital video class is for media (tape), everything else is available in the class, but once something is broken, like a camera, the whole class suffers, because we all have to share the equipment, it's kind of worrisome considering none of the students are actually taught how to use and maintain the camera before taking it out.

I've been considering a transfer to a university that actually has a recognizable program, but I'm very picky, I really want to go somewhere with an excellent writing program, but also has high quality digital tools. I really want to start working on HD Cinema Cams, and learn everything there is to know about 3-D programs. I'll be getting into a 3-D course next semester, so I intend to start incorporating some of what I learn there with what I've been doing in video.
 
hello laurent,

I can give you some info about studing filmmaking in Budapest, Hungary. Usually, we have secondary 'art' schools for it (after graduating from the secondary schools), most of them take one or two years, and of course you have to pay for them.

I attended to a two-year-long school, which costed cca. 300$/semester (3 years ago). Most of them are more expensive (cca. 5-600$). These are private schools, but in some years media&film studies will be compulsory in the state secondary schools. Now I attend to a university where I study film theory&history (5-year-long major), so most of us (me not) can be teachers of this subjects in secondary school&universities. This univ. is free, our studies is financed by the state (this is not that simple, but I don't want to go in the details). Since it's owned by the state, it's not that well-equipped and since it mainly focuses on theory it doesn't have to be...but still we have some small DV cameras (only 1CCDs) and some Hi8s. We can shoot in a cca. 40m2 studio, with two cameras w/ basic analogue effects. In the last two years we got 10-15 PCs and 2-3 Apples to edit video or audio. It's not that much, but nearly all of the exam work can be managed with these machines, if not we have to hire them (better camera, lightning, grip, etc.) for our own expense, i.e. we finance our own projects...
There are 4-5 univ. of this kind in country, but the ones in the capital (Budapest) are the well-equipped ones.

We have only one univ. for studying filmmaking, I give you the link if you're interested.
http://www.filmacademy.hu/

This is either 3 or 5 years long, it depends on the majors (film&TV directing, film&TV cinematography, cameraman, producer, film writer, editor, etc.). It's also financed by the state (=free!, if it's your first diploma), but only 4-6 students/major get in in every second year (though it varies sometimes). It's rather hard to get admitted, you need the knowledge for it (art&vision&technical) and have some good connections...
This univ. is not much better-eqipped than our film&theory major. Students make their exam film on video (dvcam or 3CCd minidv), rarely on 16mm. But they (at least the cinematography students) have a well-eqipped studio for practicing lighting&camera usage.
Most of the hungarian film directors&cinematographers (nearly all of them)you may know graduated from this univ.

I've already tried it 3 times (cinematography), but I go for it next spring as well...since that's the only univ. in the country. Of course, you can start working in the industry (as I started as well), but still it's quite hard to get started. But it's the same in every countries, I guess.

anything else you'd like to know?

tomthehun
 
Well, that's very interesting ! thanks to both of you.

It's great to see that people can do great things though not having so much sophisticated materials !

Here is the adress of my school's students site. Sorry it's in french. A student already gave studentfilmmakers's adress on it.

Remeber it's only 2 years after secondary / high school, and we don't pretend to make artists, only technicians. You'll find some video exercices in the video section. As we don't make no directors, remember directing is the major foible of these short films. Some of we teachers direct sometimes, but I'm not sure there are "end of school" films that we direct on the site nowdays. As we recently finished producing the ones ffor this year, they might be online pretty soon.

If you want to chat with the students here, go on the "forum", everybody's supposed to speak english... The site is in french, but the forum works very closely to the one here, I think you'll get thru.

www.citizen-cannes.net (our school is in the famous city of Cannes).

Sorry the filmmaking school I work in in Nice doesn't have a student's site !


Anybody from another country ???
 
laurent,

I forgot to mention that there are two more univ.s where you can study photo/film (3D, digital technology as well).
these are the univ. of applied arts and the univ. of fine arts.

how about entrance exams for foreigners in france? for instance in hungary you don't have to take an exam in some of the universities if you come from abroad, but you have to pay (quite a lot).

there's a masterclass every summer in the hungarian filmacademy if somebody interested. you can find a link for it in this forum.


tomthehun
 
how about entrance exams for foreigners in france?
Click to expand...

I don't know of any difference, I don't think they have to pay something special, but I don't think they shouldn't pass the entrance exams neither.

But they have to speak french.

talking about these entrance exams, I know that Louis lumiere and Femis are quite tough ! But in the universities or in the school I teach, you don't have entrance exams. We select people from their backgrounds (general and previous studies) and profile (motivation, experience...)

The private paying schools have nearly no selection. I mean, they set up entrance exams, but it's mainly to keep total nuts or dangerous people out. If you have the money, you can get in.
 
salut laurent, moi aussi je suis français:)

salut laurent, moi aussi je suis français:)

I'll write in english though so everyone can read me.
Hey, Laurent, I have some questions for you.
You were saying in your first post that you had studied in the school Louis Lumiere which I heard about.
I'd like to get in this school although I'm already 23 years old and I'm in a school of engineering right now but I've heard it's really hard to pass the exams. Is it? How did it go for you?
I wanted to know if it was more a technical teaching or an artistic one ( or both maybe, that would be cool)?
I was also wondering if those kind of schools are really necessary to make a carrier in the movie industry or if we can just try by usselves. I think that school provides such good basis to work after. I was interesting in the school FEMIS. I'm sure you've heard of it. Do you know if there is any difference?
 
laurent.a said:
But they have to speak french.
Click to expand...

Isn't there an english speaking class for foreigners?

could you send me some links to some of the french film univ.s?

thanks,
tomthehun
 
I'd like to get in this school although I'm already 23 years old and I'm in a school of engineering right now but I've heard it's really hard to pass the exams. Is it? How did it go for you?
I wanted to know if it was more a technical teaching or an artistic one ( or both maybe, that would be cool)?
Click to expand...

for getting in louis lumière you must have a 2 years diploma after bachelor (as well as for femis).

They like better scientists, or artistics student with a very good level in physics and chimy.

The entrance exams are quite a trip : you need to be good in general culture + cinematographic culture. They set in several steps : 1 general and cinematographic culture 2 physics, chimy... 3 you must do a prep work on a set like a 2nd director assistant would do (repérage) 4 motivation interview + another interview I don't remember what, may be a critical interview on a work of art or photography. You can get more informations on louis lumiere's site (see below) or ask my students on their forum :

http://www.citizen-cannes.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=718

I was also wondering if those kind of schools are really necessary to make a carrier in the movie industry or if we can just try by usselves. I think that school provides such good basis to work after. I was interesting in the school FEMIS. I'm sure you've heard of it. Do you know if there is any difference?
Click to expand...

In fact, may be half of the people who work in France don't necessarly pasthru a school. But, they certainly have some missing knowledges... The diploma of a good scholl is a guarantee for people who don't know you. People who dont pass thru a school need to know people anyhow, and doing the school is a good way for it...

Femis is a little bit different, I know you have to present a personnal research work as well to get in, ask people on my scholl's site at the same link.

Here are some links to some french univ and schools. Make a research by the key word "arts du spectacle" on a search engine, as this is the name of the main cursus in the french universities.

http://www.ens-louis-lumiere.fr/
http://www.femis.fr/
http://www.univ-valenciennes.fr
http://www.up.univ-mrs.fr/~wimgson/
http://www.univ-paris3.fr/enseignement/cinema/
http://www.univ-lyon2.fr/
http://www.univ-nancy2.fr/presentation/campus/ieca.html
http://www.uhb.fr/jsp/fiche_structure.jsp?STNAV=&RUBNAV=&CODE=90102&LANGUE=0
 
I tried to register but had some difficulty.
I thought I was going through the right procedures, I probably did something totally wrong, I was just sort of guessing through the registration process, I had no idea what any of it meant, but it looked familiar :)
 
inscription to register
connexion to log in after registering

go here :

http://www.citizen-cannes.net/forum/index.php?act=Reg&CODE=00

then : pseudo means "nickname"
mot de passe : password
type it in again
email adress
type it in again
forget the section item
confirm the security code : type in the figures you see
click on "j'accepte" (i agree with terms)
then on "soumettre l'inscription" (submit)

(You actually don't have to register (even though it's better))

May be you'll get a confirmation mail

click on the second link in the mail if so

click on my topic "welcome to foreigners"

or go there like this :

http://www.citizen-cannes.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=732&view=getnewpost

click on "répondre" to post. If you didn't register the first line is to enter a nickname and then use the big window

then click on "ajouter ma réponse" : submit
or "prévisualistion" : preview.

Hope this will help.
 
if they speak english

if they speak english

you should invite them to join our furums here and meet our members here if they seak english...

Kim
 
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