NY Times Articles Exposes Truth About Film School

The NY Times recently published an article titled “For Film Graduates, an Altered Picture”. The article represents the first mainstream exposure of the truth you’ve been reading about on this website. Or, it could also be called “Film School Secrets Very Very Light.”

The article features some of the most truthful and shocking information about the film school industry in recent history. It specifically discusses the sad plight of grads from USC, UCLA, and NYU. He discloses quotes from people within the business including “It’s become an increasingly flooded marketplace”, as quoted from a recent USC Grad. And this quote, which pretty much sums it up:

“‘The “majority of students majoring in film and television will not be having careers in those professions”

– Stephen Ujaki, Dean of Film & TV at Loyola Merrimount

It’s pretty crazy to hear a high ranking film school official fessin up to the truth like that. Kind of makes you wonder how he even sleeps at night, going to work as the Dean of a TV Program that is charging young people $40,000 a year to become unemployed.

But at least he has the balls to admit to the truth. And this article represents something we’ve never seen before in the mainstream media: some real information from people running film schools, graduates, and people in the industry. The general message of the article says, in very delicate language, that the marketplace is flooded with young people who have film degrees… and no jobs waiting for them.

Those jobs have usually been taken by people like the ones enrolled in “Film School Secrets“; self starters who just get on film sets and start working rather than wasting their time on a degree.

I wrote to the author, Michael Cieply, and found him to be very responsive and cool. He told me that out of all the film school grads he interviews, and there were a lot who didn’t make the article, nearly everyone had the same point of view: film school was not nearly as valuable as getting on real film sets and getting your hands dirty.

This site has been sharing that message for a long time; it’s nice to see the NY Times is backing us up.

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