On Film Schools - I

In an over-mediated society, films schools should offer equal parts practice and therapy. Not just fill in the gaps of ignorance, but open the gaps that allow for creative discovery (dis-cover-me). This highlights the essential difference between two distinct notions of what defines an “education”. Is it a process or is it a thing in itself? Value-hordes will say that practical knowledge, as a trade, and a commodity, will itself be “the education”. However those who seek an understanding will say that education never ends, it is a mode of operation. Never has there been a time so in need of academies to offer this mode that seeks an understanding of people’s desires to tell stories through cinematic techniques than these dark days of over-mediation. This is even more true for commercially viable filmmaking than for avant-garde filmmaking traditions. As has been the case throughout history, it is the experimental that grows into popular culture, not the reverse.