Paths to the Pantheon: Using the Education of Successful Filmmakers to Shape Film Education

Fox, Neil ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2959-2877 (2015) Paths to the Pantheon: Using the Education of Successful Filmmakers to Shape Film Education. In: MECCSA 2016, 6-8 January, 2016, Canterbury Christchurch University, Kent, UK.

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Abstract / Summary

This paper analyses the education of filmmakers throughout film history to ascertain the impact of film education on the development of filmmakers and to highlight the diverse educational backgrounds of successful filmmakers. The focus is on practitioners who have found success in both critical and commercial arenas. This collation of existing yet disparate data and its subsequent analysis has been undertaken to introduce different areas into consideration in the film education debate. Data analysis was undertaken to ascertain if any trends could be found regarding the idea that higher education has a role to play in filmmaker development and whether this idea is worthy of further analysis. It is clear that film education has had an impact on the development of filmmakers over the period that film studio and television broadcast training has decreased and suggests that current disconnections between academia and film industry can be addressed. Also, the sheer diversity of educational backgrounds points to the potential development of a more diverse film education. This paper projects what such a film education might look like based on analysis of data that includes a wealth of international filmmakers from all periods of film history to date alongside a deeper discussion of the validity and possibility of constructing a film education that reflects historical industrial trends and takes the experiences and voices of successful filmmakers as the starting point for the debate.

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