WE’VE LAUNCHED A NEW SCREENWRITING PROGRAM | VIEW PROGRAM
The mentor/apprentice method of education is a return to the way people used to learn their crafts and trades during the Renaissance period of the 16th century. Learning one-on-one also played a vital role in the growth of the American economy directly after the country’s founding. Before overcrowded colleges, universities, and trade schools became big business, the world knew the best way to get educated was one-on-one, master to extern. It is no surprise, then, that professional filmmakers look to the Film Connection to provide them with the most educated film student graduates available.
The Film Connection has adopted and upgraded the filmmaking mentor/apprentice method of film education because our research has shown that the fastest, most thorough, and progressive way to learn filmmaking is one-on-one under a professional film mentor. Our concept is both ancient and modern, radically new but rooted in 1000 years of history. If you ask any artisan, working filmmaker, recording engineer, radio broadcaster, or any other type of media technician, 10 out of 10 will tell you that the best way to learn filmmaking is under a professional.
If you are interested in pursuing a career as a Film Director, or a career as a Film Producer or a career as a film technician, or as it is sometimes called, as a member of the “film crew,” then you have come to the right page. The Film Connection Film School offers private, one-on-one, on-the-job training for all of the following careers in the film and television industries:
FILM DIRECTOR – FILM PRODUCER – FILM EDITOR – SCREENWRITER – CAMERAMAN, CAMERA ASSISTANT – CAMERA OPERATOR – PRODUCTION AUDIO OR SOUND – FIRST AND SECOND ASSISTANT DIRECTOR – LINE PRODUCER – POST PRODUCTION SUPERVISOR – SCRIPT SUPERVISOR – ART DEPARTMENT – ART DIRECTOR – SET DRESSER – LOCATION MANAGER – GRIP – GAFFER – BEST BOY – PRODUCTION SECRETARY – PRODUCTION ASSISTANT – ART DEPARTMENT COORDINATOR – PRODUCTION COORDINATOR – MAKE UP ARTIST – SPECIAL FX MAKEUP ARTIST – DIGITAL ANIMATION
With the Film Connection, your teacher is a real life working film professional who has agreed to either train you or bring you on to real film sets to extern and shadow them (and sometimes it’s both!) as they do their job working in film in one of the exciting careers mentioned above. You will meet with your mentor in private sessions, and your mentor will also take you to real film, film video and commercial sets, or he/she will help to get you on other film projects so you can learn the ropes on-the-job. As you do this, you will be studying film directing, film producing, screenwriting, and more from our structured course curriculum.
The goal of our 8-month, one-on-one training course is not only to get you trained by a professional but to also get you connected by throwing you into the mix of a real film environment where you will be given the opportunity to, well,…sink or swim. The film business is a 100% “contact driven” business, which means that the best way (if not the only way) to get hired is to know the people doing the hiring. You could learn all about “cameras” at a traditional film school, for example, but when you graduate, how are you going to get yourself hired if no one knows you? You’ll have to start over, working for free as an unpaid film intern to prove yourself. The Film Connection cuts the expensive and totally unnecessary step of going to a $35,000 – $50,000 film school out of the equation, and from day one puts you with a film mentor who will help to get you trained and connected in a real film production company.
If accepted into our one-on-one, filmmaking mentor/apprentice program, the Film Connection will place you with one of the following film crew professionals: a film director, film producer, film editor, screenwriter, cameraman, set decorator, script supervisor, assistant director, soundman or woman, post production supervisor, color correctionist, grip, gaffer, make up artist, special FX makeup artist, digital animator, line producer, production coordinator, unit production manager, post sound mixer, etc.
If accepted into one of our film programs, you will learn the janitorial arts…(just kidding). You will learn how to be a competent filmmaker in one of the chosen fields mentioned above! The Film Connection program is as an intensive 8-month film program designed to connect you into the film industry by placing you directly in front of the people doing the hiring.
The benefits of learning from a real film professonal as opposed to a college teacher should be clear, but in case it’s not, let us explain:
First, studying under a filmmaker who is faced daily with meeting the demands of the film business as opposed to a “teacher” who is daily faced with “just teaching” can help prepare you more effectively for your career in film.
Second, learning from a real filmmaker on a real set or in a real film production company helps get you that much closer to the “action,” so to speak. Where would you rather learn, in an isolated, pretend college environment where NO ONE gets hired, or in a real-world studio or on a real set, alongside a real film pro who might have an opportunity to hire you or place you on a real project?
Third, the fastest way to get hired in the business is to have connections. At the Film Connection Film School, your teacher is a working professional and a mentor (to you!) who makes his/her living in the film business. What that means is that your mentor has hundreds of connections (or else he or she wouldn’t be working), and if he or she has trained you and believes in you, guess who your mentor might recommend for the next job that comes along?
Please note–professionals employed all over the world as filmmakers are most often freelance contractors. What that means is that, while there are exceptions, most of them do not go to a 9-5 job in the same office every day. One day they may be on a film shoot in Bangkok, Thailand, the next day they may filming on the streets in Los Angeles, and then wrapping up their week, on set, in New York. It also means that their salaries fluctuate from year to year. This is why it is so important to understand the importance of connections. It’s very simple. The more people you know, the better your chances are of succeeding as a filmmaker.
FILM DIRECTOR – 60,000 – 1,000,000
FILM PRODUCER – 40,000 – 1,000,000
FILM EDITOR – 50,000 – 150,000
SCREENWRITER – 60,000 – 250,000
CAMERAMAN – 50,000 – 100,000
CAMERA ASSISTANT – 35,000 – 60,000
PRODUCTION AUDIO OR SOUND – 40,000 – 75,000
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR – 60,000 – 120,000
LINE PRODUCER – 70,000 – 120,000
POST PRODUCTION SUPERVISOR – 50,000 – 90,000
SCRIPT SUPERVISOR – 40,000 – 60,000
ART DEPARTMENT SET DRESSER – 50,000 – 85,000
GRIP – 50,000 – 85,000
GAFFER – 80,000 – 140,000
MAKE UP ARTIST — 50,000 – 140,000
SPECIAL FX MAKEUP ARTIST – 60,000 – 135,000
DIGITAL ANIMATION – 50,000 – 140,000
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY – 60,000 – 200,000
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