I graduated from Columbia University School of the Arts in February with an MFA in Filmmaking. Admittedly, you don't need film school to make movies. There were reasons I chose to attend film school and spend five years and a lot of money there. My original plan was to work on movies, and thus learn about the filmmaking process, then spend my money on making a movie instead of school.

As part of my plan, I worked on about two dozen shorts as a location sound recordist or boom operator. These were all low budget shoots, generally financed out-of-pocket by the film's director. Some were quite good and quite interesting, and included early shorts by filmmakers like Michael Kang, who just finished his first feature film, The Motel - in festivals now and will soon be released.

Some, however, were quite dreadful. Why did these turn out to be so bad? Some were technically made well -- very pretty pictures, skilled crew involved, etc. These shorts were made by smart, talented people rather than misguided idiots. In most cases, the filmmaker had worked on films before, but this was their first attempt at writing or directing. The answer I came up with in observing this happen repeatedly was that they lacked experience. Not the kind of experience I was getting as a sound recordist, but experience telling stories.

Film school doesn't guarantee you a good job, or any job. Your fate is in the hands of your best work, and fate, same as if you didn't go to school. The top five film schools in the US are all hideously expensive, and excruciatingly difficult to gain admission to. What they do offer, however, is the chance to have writers, directors, and producers with vast experience critique your work at every stage, from spinning ideas, to writing a script, through production and post production. I could teach myself, keep making short films until I made a good one (and spend my life savings), but I reasoned I would gain experience faster in school. If you've ever tried learning yoga from a book, and compared it to taking a really good class, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Was it worth it? Time will tell. You make your choices, you take your chances. I may never have a real answer to that. One surprisingly rewarding aspect of film school, though, was my peers. I hadn't thought of this, but they were as valuable a resource as my teachers, sometimes more so.