<p>*However, unlike most of the nation’s top film schools, its curriculum is firmly rooted in the practical business of filmmaking, which means dealing with issues such as budgets, schedules, bosses and union rules.</p>
<p>“We’re trying to train them not only as artists but also as craftsmen,” Braddock said. “Our fundamental philosophy is craft is the pathway to art. You don’t paint a Mona Lisa by not understanding how paints and pigments are mixed together and how you create light and how you prepare a canvas. So we start with the craft.”</p>
<p>Different from other film schools in many ways (for starters, it’s the only major U.S. school that is not in the Los Angeles area or New York), FSU’s film school has created a winning – quite literally – formula that gave it almost instant success. In its relatively brief history, the school has gained a worldwide reputation as its students consistently win major college filmmaking awards and quickly find jobs in the industry after graduation.</p>
<p>A particular draw is that all of the students’ equipment and filming expenses are funded by the college, a huge advantage when you consider that a thesis film can cost up to $50,000 to make.</p>
<p>Melissa Carter describes the dilemma of most student filmmakers: “Do I eat this month, or do I feed my crew and pay for film?” She was lured to graduate school at FSU in the mid-1990s, her thesis film earned a nomination for a student Academy Award, and she has become a successful Hollywood screenwriter, earning writing credits for the feature film “Little Black Book,” as well as several television episodes and films now in production.</p>
<p>**Another huge variation for The Film School is its selectivity and rigor. Of the estimated 2,000 students who apply, only 60 are admitted each year in the fall – 30 undergraduates and 30 graduate students. Each student will get the chance to write and direct about two films per year and collaborate on dozens of classmates’.</p>
<p>Other prestigious film schools have considerably more students (nearly 1,500 at the University of Southern California and about 1,100 at New York University), but only a small percentage of those will go on to find careers in the movie or television industry, said Frank Patterson, dean of The Film School at FSU.</p>
<p>“We couldn’t compete if we wanted to play the numbers game,” he said. “With those kinds of numbers, what you do is you give ’em a learning environment with some equipment and stuff and you sort of let the cream rise to the top, and you take that cream and you go promote it. We don’t do that.</p>
<p>“We pick the cream off the top, we put a lot of money behind them, and then we surround them with filmmakers – and they learn,” said Patterson, who taught at the school for nine years in its early days and returned in 2003 to take the position of dean.***</p>
<p>See: Tallahassee</a> Magazine - Behind the Lens</p>