Central Film School

> BA Practical Filmmaking (Hons) Student 2014-2016

I moved here from spending one year and a half at Columbia College Chicago and find myself pleasantly impressed by Central Film School's facilities, faculties and student base.

A great school to start from.

It's difficult to know where to start with this review..

My background

I'm a 41 year old recently ex IT professional with no prior film making experience but a keen interest in photography.

I found the school via a google search and was apprehensive about committing a reasonable amount of money on a one month course.

By day 3, my fears had gone. If the course had ended at that point, I wouldn't have felt short changed at all. From that point on, things just got better and better. Despite the timetabled hours (1000-1700 daily) this course IS intense and we spent many hours outside of these working towards making our short film.

The quality of the other students on your "team" also helps, and in this respect, I think I got very lucky indeed. We became like a family very quickly, you have to. There is no time for ego and emotion, you have to get along and get on with it else you will fail.

The school staff were very supportive and encouraged us to learn (and to fail) in a controlled and supported environment. It really felt as though I was working on a film as a job for a month rather than being trained.

In summary, for the money and experience gained there is no better course that I am aware of.
I came along with the intention of learning how to use a camera and how to edit, but ended up getting totally sucked in by the entire film making process and will now go on to work with fellow students to make some more shorts.

I took part in the intensive one month certificate course in August and everything that I have learnt and taken away from my experience is invaluable. Great lecturers who really know their craft and a highly practical style of teaching. All in all a brilliant school!

I took the intensive course for one month and it was great. We did many different things throughout the weeks and learnt a lot about filmmaking. It is definitely a good way to start something in the film industry: in only two weeks we managed to produce, shoot, and edit a short film! I strongly recommend to have made some things before (videos, short films...), but if you're new at this field you will also have a wonderful time here

If you have absolutely no experience in film making and wish to learn about the industry as well as gaining practical skills, this is the course for you. It certainly is intensive but it is well worth it as the staff are helpful and the course itself is wonderful. I would highly recommend this course to everyone with an interest in film.