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Directordom
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Recently I ran across a comicon interview with several prominent directors talking about what led to their success. Most of it was general and the same stuff we hear everywhere; make a film every weekend, try new things, get good at something, advertise to get recognized, etc... It got me thinking, what specifically HAD they done to get in to the big leagues? After some research I found some surprising results; Only 2 out of the 20 top directors I looked up had attended a film school (they were Michael Bay and Neill Blomkamp). And that's not all, atleast 4 of them never recieved any professional training, after somebody picked them up they were offered a directing spot. This isn't like an assistant spot or anything, this was like multimillion dollar production director. Most of the big directors of our age started out somewhere else enitrely, cameron was a physics major turned truck driver, jackson was a business major taking odd jobs, Tarantino was a Highschool drop out working the cash register at a movie store and the others had similar backgrounds. My search was starting to lead me to believe that there was no hope, it was all random luck. But I did find out that 8 of the 20 produced short films (or feature length in the case of jackson) that got them recognition. And atleast 5 others (Including Spielberg and Cameron) had movie related oddjobs like assistant gaffer or an editor before wild circumstances gave them their brake. It seems like if what you've got is good, all you've got to do is 1st get it out there (enter contests and network through sites) so everyone can see it, and 2nd get yourself out there on small jobs, internships and friends. There that's all I've got to say on that.