My son aspires to be a filmmaker and luckily we are North Carolinians so it is a no brainer that he has aspirations to attend the best film schools in the country, UNCSA. Would anyone be willing to share their advice to help him before he applies? He is currently a high school sophomore at a public school. Thank you so much and I hope the best for current and future students.
Recently accepted film student here- The big thing will be building his portfolio. Although a film component of the portfolio is not required, I would definitely tell him to do film work of some kind. If he doesn’t have any buddies to shoot with, I would say perhaps some paper cut out stop motion, as elaborate as possible since it’s more simple. Definitely take his time to create at least 1 really solid project. Along with that, I would have him do some screenwriting and create stories of his own. Look up the format of how they write scripts on Google, and have him create a script or two. That will really strengthen his portfolio. Photography will be great as well, it took me a few years of very casual photography to get good porfolio-worthy shots. I also had some creative writing and personal statements. If possible in your situation, I would definitely look into some film camps over the summer. That really helped me immerse myself in the camera equipment and editing programs. Not to mention, you almost always create a film in these camps as a group, so that could be one for the portfolio. Please feel free to PM me and I can share my portfolio with you as well as answer any other questions you have! I’m glad he’s realizing this sophmore year though, it would be hard to start building a portfolio if it was really any later than that. I started actively creating films around freshman year.