I'm saying you should do both. Don't let a lack of education keep you from doing what you enjoy. If you can't get a job with an established production company, make your own. Start small and learn as you go along. I think education is very important...important enough to want to approach it seriously and maturely. I didn't do this, maybe you can. I can't talk to your personality or experience...only mine.
I personally would recommend producing a short. Find a DP and some actors and a writer or a script....try
http://www.gutenberg.org/ for script ideas...these are all free, they're past the mickey mouse laws. Figure out how to get enough money or resources to make a movie, you'd be surprised how much faster you will learn by having a project and people depending on you to finish it. It's very exciting. You will learn how to get by with less money as well.
As the Producer, you will be responsible for getting together the resources to make the movie. This will include locations, permissions, actors, crew, camera folk, grips, writers, money, equipment, props and costumes and money oh my. It sounds like alot, but I'm producing and directing my own no-budget feature right now. I own the camera and the computer, made the equipment for my production company (
http://www.yafiunderground.com ) so it wouldn't count toward the budget for that picture. It's an interesting challenge. Some of the stuff we've done looks like we're learning as we go along...that's an acurate assessment, we are.
Most of what we've done wasn't covered in the shorts I've done so far. It's different to schedule for a 2 day shoot than an 18 day shoot. This has been the most difficult part so far. Keep in mind I said no-budget, so all the actors and crew are volunteering for the experience, they have day jobs and families. This makes them quite difficult to schedule all at the same time.
The exciting part is figuring out the create solutions for problems. Learning to be able to sacrifice the artistic to budgetary and time constraints is a very valuable lesson that you won't fully understand until you try to get 2 actors togethers who have conflicting schedules. All of the planned over the shoulder shots were cut to singles based on this one fact alone. Start to hear your heart pounding in your head when you realize you have an action beat to film yet and you're down to half an hour of sunlight left ("Screw the tripod, we're going handheld"). These things will sound like trite considerations until you're on the set.
Now...the education will give you a great foundation to build on when you get to the set. The things you will pick up from reading works from experienced people will be invaluable. A degree will get you into and through interviews for jobs more quickly. You will learn the language of the industry. You will learn how to learn and apply yourself. You will meet people who will end up being in the industry you're trying to break into. Networking with these people is important, later on they will give you jobs...or you will give them jobs. You will learn more about the jobs on the set than if you tried to jump in and guess.
The moral:
Do both. Summer movie projects are lots of fun. Classes are fun cause you get to learn new things and benefit from the experience of others. You can bring your own learning to the classroom and discuss the benefits of each approach to a particular project. You can find the blending of ideas that most benefits any given situation rather than just hoping yours is the best.
I wish there were film schools in my area, but I'm SOL and have a job where I can't leave the area. I've got to muddle through on my own. To this end, I've done 2 years of research online and read dozens of books on every aspect of filmmaking. I understand the budgetting and the physics of light. The emotion of camera movement and Emotion of action. Psychology of color, framing and editing. I've learned that a little elbow grease will overcome many budgettary constraints. I made a crane at home depot for $30. It reaches 12 feet and fits in my passat. I have a lighting kit that will cover most situations for < $200. I am making my own stabilizer < $20. The only cost on this movie will be crates of bottled water and tape. Costumes were all provided by the actors or my closet. We're not doing makeup or continuity. We're muddling through, but at the end of it we'll have something we can all point at and say..."We made that whole thing ourselves".
Make a movie...and go to school.
