Graduating with an Arts Degree

"Is an arts degree useless?"

              

Pretty much. 

I seem to see this question asked a lot, either to me personally or online and I always see a magnitude of answers, some who say its very useful and informative, but mostly I see 'lol of course its useless.' I kind of stand in the middle, I cant talk for all arts, but I have a Bachelors Degree in Film Production, and personally, I really enjoyed it. Would I opt into it again if I got to turn back time 4 years knowing what I know now? Probably not, but do I regret going? Not one bit. 

I believe all art degrees are useless, the piece of paper does not mean anything to a fellow creative, if two people went to the owner of 'insert art related company here', one having a degree in that field, and one who had worked the last 3 years in the field, they would pick the person with 3 years experience, they do not care, for that piece of paper, without experience behind you. I took this in mind when deciding whether to go to University or not, and I noticed a few things. Again I can't speak for everyone and their position, but I grew up in a small city, with less than zero opportunities within arts other than 'teacher'. Within my city there were three video production companies, I contacted all three before applying to University, showing them, what I called my 'creative CV' that I made on Illustrator and my show reel which was a combination of college work and personal work I had shot with friends, two companies never responded and the one that did respond, although really nice people, wanted "2 years experience for a production company" or "a degree in film". Obviously I had neither at this point, just coming out of college and without a visible option to get work in the industry as I had no contacts, I decided going to University, in a brand new, larger city would be my best option. 

I began looking for sandwich courses, which in the UK is a 3/4 course, where you spend 1 year in an actual job within that industry and the rest in University studying, however after looking at pretty much every film school I could find, not one offered a course like that, very few even boasted about being 'practical courses' so with that I ended up going with a University in a large city, close to TV sites like ITV and BBC. In my mind, this would allow me to study while pursuing work within these companies, however nothing like that panned out, you still need to have a direct contact with a job within the industry to get no matter how close you live. The course itself was also pretty lacklustre also, while researching courses I had seen Universities like The National Television & Film School who for their Masters courses have guest lecturers like David Fincher, Edgar Wright and so many more, so over optimistically hoped my course may have some guests like this, however in my 3 years studying, we had zero prominent guests who could give us that boost of motivation or belief that 'we could succeed in the industry'. We also had no help to attempt to break into the industry, on my own, in my second year I managed to contact someone who kindly got me onto the feature film Funny Cow as a cine runner, but that wasn't through the course or through my tutor, that was through me contacting other students and anyone I could find who had worked on a film or show. This experience didn't exactly motivate me to join the industry though, although I really enjoyed being on a set and keeping busy helping the cine crew, it was very demoralising, the first two things I got told when I arrived for my first day was "I hope you don't enjoy being creative, cause this industry is the opposite of that unless you are HOD" and "I hope you don't have a partner, cause after all the hours you'll spend on set you'll be divorced like all of us". At first I took this as a joke, but as my week experience went on, the crew were consistently pessimistic, really nice and kind but real downers. From that point on I focused my the rest of my second year and all my third year on meeting people and shooting personal projects, with the idea that I would go freelance, be able to keep my creativity while working as a team with friends like I enjoyed on set. 

The reasons above are why part of me would say University is not worth it for an arts degree, however now I will go over why I don't regret my choice, and why it can be worth it, for certain people. As I said before, I picked a 'practical course' this means that the course wasn't film studies based, wasn't essay focused, although we did deconstruct films and scenes and were made to write some essays the majority of our work was practical. Being one of few Universities with ARRI Alexa's we were able to use industry equipment to create short films, to replicate scenes from famous films, to just mess around with and learn the ins and outs of the equipment. This all ended with me working on four 20 minute short films, using all the professional standard equipment and roles to create the films. I also got to work with, learn with and brainstorm ideas with like-minded creatives, many of which I went on to shoot videos with and gain paid work with after graduating as freelancers. I also was fortunate enough to work with a great friend that I met a Uni on a Short Film Competition, we were lucky enough to be flown out and Thailand and shot a film within Ranong which was shown and won an award at the International Film Festival. This was a life changing experience that wouldn't have been possible without me going to University and meeting and working with fellow creatives. I have learned way more than I knew before I went to Uni, I have created way more films than before Uni, I received and got paid for way more freelance jobs than before I went Uni, and these are the reasons I would personally say that for some people, people that want to get out of the tiny town they may live in, or just move closer to where the TV and Film industry is based, then yes, a degree in film is worth it, as long as you pick the correct University.

However, the question becomes, would I have done all these things if I had spent those 3 years in my home town, exploring and pushing my craft of film making, could I have got out their and met new creatives, could I have somehow got a job for a video production company, could I have made professional standard short films by hiring equipment without needing to go to Uni, that's something I will never know, however I personally do not think that would have been the case in the city I am from. 

So no, I don't regret it, and although an Art Degree may be useless, I do not believe the University experience is useless, everyone has their own path. 

                                 

Links about aspects I mentioned:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5797trkchPI&feature=youtu.be - Thailand Short Film

https://nfts.co.uk/ - National Film School

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3814808/