UBC or RIT for film production

College Majors Visual Arts and Film Majors
1

<p>I have been accepted into both RIT and UBC. I am unsure which one to take. This is because although RIT's program is well known, I am not sure if it is as good as the UBC's program. Also I feel UBC is more well known worldwide and this will help for graduate programs and also job opportunities. RIT's program is ranked 10th in the world for film, whereas directors in Canada come to UBC to give internships. I have already been accepted in the FILM/TV program in RIT, but I will have to apply for Film production in my second year at UBC. I am really stuck, if you could advise me it would be great!</p>

2

<p>If it were me, this is how my logic would go:

  1. RIT has an excellent program and you can jump right in and start doing what you are passionate about.
  2. I wouldn’t want to wait for 2 years just to find out if they’ll let me study film production or not.
  3. Your future may not be as dependent on the place you go as you might think. It will more depend on what you leave the school with: technical knowledge of pre-, production, and post- techniques, equipment, and software and also whether you can have a key production role on a capstone film that can garner some attention for you and your team (By key role, I mean director, AD, DP,Editor, writer, etc).</p>

<p>Many jobs in the film industry are not salaried-type W-2 jobs. Unless you are into 3D/VFX/Modeling, etc, you’d probably be working on a project-by-project basis. Your hope is to (a) get the first gig and (b) do well enough to get future gigs. You want to collect enough 1099’s from various temporary LLCs to make a decent living. I’m no expert, but it seems to me that word-of-mouth is EVERYTHING. So contacts are extremely important. Internships are one way to start that process, but RIT has opportunities for these as well.</p>

<p>Personally, for production, I would go with RIT. BUT… films are no good without great stories, and if you want to write screenplays, 2 years of a liberal arts education is certainly not time wasted. However, screenwriting is not exactly a surefire way to make a living. That REALLY takes luck/break/skills/whatever to get that first assignment… and contacts.</p>