All schools can offer many different things. And that’s how different schools have their own identity and characteristics. It’s not surprising to hear the school being blamed by people for the certain image that an individual portrays to the public. For instance the statement: “Well, he is like that since he came from the So and So University. All students who graduated from that school behave in that way.” And this type of interference is not illogical at all. A certain culture and personality is generic in a specific school due to peer pressure.

So, to determine which is the best film school is not that difficult. The answer remains to be: It all depends on what you want to achieve in your film school experience. Every particular film school has its certain attributes and features that the best thing you have to do is to find it out first. The country where this school is found plays an important role in finding out the character of a specific film school.

There are a lot of aspects to consider: the type of courses offered, the length of time each subject is covered, the number of written modules versus the number of actual practice, the incorporators of the college and the course itself, guests appearing in certain key lectures, and the reputation the school exudes and whether that would really matter in the end of the course. I always believe that it does. It helps how you move in the world, whether up or down. However, in the real film industry, degrees are not that valuable and what weighs more is track record and past experience. No amount of argument can topple track record and innate talent. A few examples of schools of impeccable status and reputation are:

American Film Institute

New York University

California State of the Arts

University of Southern California

University of California – Los Angeles

Far off from the United States, there are two film schools that a person who’s interested can opt for: the Australian Film, Television, and Radio school and the United Kingdom’s National Film and Television School. This isn’t to belittle the capacity of the other international film schools to teach ably the art of filmmaking but rest assured there are those that can be at par with the previously mentioned ones. What one has to do is run an in-depth research about what he aspires to achieve in the film industry, the culture that he wants to be part of, and where he can be most comfortable with.