All schools can offer many different things. That’s the reason why schools have varied identities and characteristics. You must have heard from different people how the school is blamed for a certain image that an individual projects to the public. For example the statement: “Well, he acts that way since he is from the Blank Wall University. All students who come from that school act the same way”. And this inference is not devoid of logic. That particular culture and characteristic in a certain school is often caused by peer pressure.
So, determining the best film school is easy. The answer is: it actually depends on what you hope to become in your film school experience. Each film school has its specific attributes and features that the best thing to do is to figure them out first. The country where this school is found plays an important role in finding out the character of a specific film school.
There are a lot of aspects to consider: the type of courses offered, the length of time each subject is covered, the number of written modules versus the number of actual practice, the incorporators of the college and the course itself, guests appearing in certain key lectures, and the reputation the school exudes and whether that would really matter in the end of the course. I always believe that it does. It supports you in your movement in the world, whether it is up or down. But, in the real film world, degrees don’t hold much weight as that of track record and experience. No amount of argument can win against track record and innate talent. A few examples of schools of impeccable status and reputation are:
American Film Institute
New York University
California State of the Arts
University of Southern California
University of California – Los Angeles
Outside of the United States, there are two notable film schools that anyone who’s interested can choose and these are: Australian Film, Television, and Radio School and the United Kingdom’s National Film and Television School. Not too belittle the capacity of other international schools to teach ably the art of filmmaking but rest assured that there are those that can come at par with these schools mentioned. What one needs to do is run a deep research on his aspirations in the film industry, the culture that he wants to inculcate on himself, and where he would be most comfortable in.