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00:00I did not come out of film school a great filmmaker.
00:04I don't even know if I would consider myself a great filmmaker now, but I did come out
00:09of film school with a much clearer picture about what the film industry is.
00:13I had more contacts than I knew what to do with, and I had a job.
00:18Let's talk about film school.
00:19Camera rolls, scene one, Apple take one, marker.
00:22I didn't get into NYU.
00:24I wanted to get into NYU, I did not.
00:26I got recruited by their track team to pole vault for them, because I was a pole vaulter
00:30at the time, and I thought pole vaulting would be my in to Tisch.
00:34It was not, I did not get in there.
00:35Literally Christmas 2011, on my doorstep, an SVA book arrived, which is School of Visual
00:41Arts.
00:42I had never heard about SVA, but I was like, it is a school in New York City, and my thought
00:47process was, okay, if I got into SVA, I could go to school there for one or two years, and
00:51then I could transfer to NYU.
00:52Genius.
00:53That's what I was going to do, right?
00:55So in August of 2012, this little suburban chick moved to New York City to go to school
01:03at SVA and study film.
01:06Scene one, cut, take two.
01:07I didn't end up leaving SVA, and something that I learned that I loved about SVA was
01:14that it was a trade school.
01:15You were given cameras, you were given lights, you were given edit bays, and you choose what
01:22you want to do with all of those things.
01:23I can't imagine a screenwriter would love SVA.
01:26It's just not set up for less tactile positions in the film industry.
01:31State your name.
01:33Becca Farsachi.
01:34AKA?
01:35Also known as...
01:36Oh, she's turning red.
01:37This isn't you at all.
01:38I'm really hot.
01:39Yeah, sure.
01:40So when I got to film school, I took advantage of every opportunity that was given to me.
01:48I said yes way more than I said no, and within my first year, I was even PA-ing on like,
01:53actual sets.
01:54Like, I PA-ed for the reality TV show X Factor, which was quite interesting.
01:59That's why this video is not really about film school.
02:02No, no.
02:03It's about taking advantage of four years of your life where you don't really have loads
02:08of responsibilities yet.
02:12It was four years of being able to make mistakes.
02:15It was four years of being able to try to be a director, try to be a grip, try to edit.
02:20It's about four years where you slowly sink into debt that you will be paying back for
02:26years and years and years and years to come.
02:33But also four years where you just get to learn and grow on your own.
02:39And what you do with those low stakes is up to you.
02:43At SVA, if you didn't want to do anything, you didn't have to do anything.
02:48Nobody's going to care.
02:50You have to care.
02:51Scene one, act two, take three.
02:54It's so true.
02:55In 2016, I made a resume and I haven't touched it since.
02:58The best piece of advice I have for anyone going to film school is to meet as many people
03:04as you possibly can.
03:06Because all of those people are presumably also working on sets and meeting people.
03:11And they're all forming paths and you can start to go down their path.
03:14And every job I've gotten post-college has been through someone I know.
03:17Camera rolls.
03:18Scene one, act two, take four.
03:20Marker.
03:21There is an element of having some level of skill.
03:24You can get a job, but if you're not very good at that job, you probably won't keep
03:28that job.
03:29I'm going to be honest with you guys.
03:30I wasn't always great at photography.
03:34I was actually really always bad at editing.
03:37God, I made loads of terrible films in film school.
03:44Loads and loads.
03:45It takes time.
03:47It takes time to get good at something and it takes a lot of practice.
03:51And SVA allowed me time and allowed me ample opportunity to practice.
03:56To Canada, take five.
03:58There's one more large advantage to going to school in New York City and then staying
04:05in New York City.
04:06It's really hard to meet people when you don't come into an environment where everyone else
04:14is trying to meet people.
04:15And I've known plenty of people that have moved to New York and have really struggled
04:19to find friends and find community.
04:22And I am incredibly grateful for the family that SVA gave me.
04:28They're really hardworking, wonderful people.
04:31And so when I graduated college and I stayed in New York, there was a select few of us
04:35that stayed in New York and I just had this like built-in group of wonderful buds.
04:40It doesn't have so much to do with film school, but it does have a lot to do with life.
04:44So I highly recommend film school, but I only highly recommend it, number one, if you have
04:50the luxury of being able to sink yourself into debt or you're extremely smart and talented
04:56and you get a full ride or, I don't know, you come from a family who's well off enough
05:00to pay for it.
05:01Even if all of that is true, you have to work really damn hard and you have to meet a lot
05:06of people and then film school is worth it.
05:10Okay, I definitely got enough here.
05:12This is going to be a b****** edit.
05:14Good luck, edit Becca!