What impression do you get of this film school?

http://www.rais.ca/

I was thinking of going to this one, but what do you think of it? Think it will teach a lot what I need to know for serious motion picture making?

It is an audio engineering school, but they also seem to have other filmmaking courses on the side. It does not specify if the audio engineering is movie based or totally music based only, but since they have filmmaking as well, I am guessing so. I emailed them but have not gotten one back in a while, but what do you think?

Did you read the course outlines? They tell you exactly what you will be learning.


Looks like just another diploma mill to me.

Well the course outline wasn't very specific in each category. Sound, visual effects, but I mean how far in depth would they go, I wonder...

Not much information on the website compared to other film schools. Some pictures would help.

Pics of the actual school? I could try to get some on a day off.

They don't list any information about their facilities. I'd want to know more about that before signing up there..

I have an appointment to take a tour, but what should I be looking out for, to tell if they are good, if anything? It costs $9000 which is worth paying if it will teach me a lot of good stuff. If not, then I would rather put it towards future projects.

Do they have good teachers?
Is their gear something you will be using in the future? Is it better than what you have now?
Has anyone successful came out of the school?

It's a bran new school, only a few years old at most I think. I assume their gear would be better. My goal is to learn computer sides of things with post, such as using the editing, special effects, and sound programs.

Looking at the specifically audio engineering course, as the film course only lists "sound" and the audio engineering course lists both production sound and audio post production. Audio post production covers a variety of roles/jobs: Sound Designer, Dialogue Editor, SFX Designer, SFX Editor/Mixer, Foley Artist, Foley Recordist, Foley Editor/Mixer, ADR Supervisor, ADR Recordist and Re-recording Engineer/Mixer. Each of these roles requires at least a year or more to become proficient and some require many years. And, audio post production is one of 11 subject areas covered in 25 weeks so all these audio post roles are going to be dealt with in just over two weeks! In other words, you are going to get little more than a basic introduction to what the various roles entail, rather than any kind of real tuition/instruction in how to actually fulfil those roles. That's not all, look at the faculty list, all of them are from the music business side of audio; live sound, music production, music recording, music recording studio, not one of the faculty list any kind of knowledge or experience of sound for film/TV. In all likelihood, the most limiting factor of the audio post section is not the ridiculously tiny amount of time to cover so much knowledge/information but that no one on the faculty is likely to have more than a beginner's level of knowledge/information on audio post in the first place! Not to mention that the facility photos all show music based setups rather than audio post setups.

As Alcove said, this sort of scenario is extremely common, the vast majority of institutions offering courses which include audio post are entirely music business oriented and the faculty usually have little/no experience of professional audio post. You've been told all this before though, so none of it should come as a surprise!

G

No it's not a surprise. Every other school near me, is music based, and I was hoping this one may be my chance. There is another film school course 3 hours away, but it's only two years, and is probably not in depth enough either in those areas. I want to learn the computer programs, and the plug in to use, as that's what I am having the most trouble with in the areas of filmmaking. And other filmmakers in my area, know the least about those areas, compared to others.

I have already learned a lot in my own though from this site, and from my own experience with other people on equipment. I wonder if it's worth paying for this course, if I may not learn much more than I already know...

harmonica44 said:

I want to learn the computer programs, and the plug in to use, as that's what I am having the most trouble with in the areas of filmmaking.

Click to expand...

If you just want to learn the software, Avid have a Pro Tools certification program. Better still, once you get beyond the "basics" courses the certification program splits into two streams, music and audio post, obviously you would want to choose the audio post program. However, this Avid training only covers the understanding of how to use the software and it's functions, it does not cover the actual audio post roles, how to "do" audio post or audio post workflows. The program only covers the Avid plugins and again only the functionality of the plugins rather than how to use them to achieve an artistic goal.

Plugins are just specific tools, how and when you choose to use specific tools depends on the qualities of the material you are working on and what you want to achieve. So there is no fixed choice of the "right" plugin/s to use or how to use them, it's purely down to knowledge and experience. There are probably only a handful (if that many!) of educational institutions in the world which can teach this effectively as it applies to audio post. Beyond learning the functionality of Pro Tools and the fundamentals of audio theory and recording, the route to learning audio post is not through the education system but through starting at the bottom and working your way up at an actual commercial audio post facility.

G

Okay thanks. I have looked at online site tutorials, but their are so many variables upon variables that are not answered, when they teach.

Why is it that there is only a handful in the world? I have made connections over the past year and a half, and with people who have went to school for it. However, everyone seems to have not taken any schooling in this section. Is their just no interest and filmmakers want to avoid this part, which is why their is hardly any schools for it? Cause it seems every filmmaker wannabe where I live has only taken the cinematography and editing side of things, but no one has taken any audio mixing. Why so secret in that area?

harmonica44 said:

Why is it that there is only a handful in the world? I have made connections over the past year and a half, and with people who have went to school for it. However, everyone seems to have not taken any schooling in this section.

Click to expand...

As Alcove and I have said, audio courses are primarily aimed at the music biz, mostly studio recording but often also a bit of live (music) sound. Those courses which do include some audio post virtually always cover little more than an absolutely basic introduction to the subject area and rarely have anyone on the faculty with much audio post experience.

It's not just that the audio post industry is secretive (although in actual fact it is pretty secretive) but also because of the actual nature of audio post. To do audio post to a professional standard requires a lot of specialist (and therefore extremely expensive) equipment/facilities beyond what is required in the music biz and there really aren't that many with the knowledge of how to use this equipment/facilities and pretty much only large corporations or a tiny few film makers who effectively become large corporations even consider it. Also, there is no set audio post workflow, there are some general trends but the workflow is different and sometimes hugely so from show to show and even between audio post facilities, not to mention the huge differences between TV and film audio post. So, even with a masters or better in audio post (if such a qualification were even possible) you would still have to be very closely supervised for many months before you could do many of the audio post roles autonomously and the role of sound designer/supervising sound editor would come years after all that! Add all this together and it's simply impractical for virtually any education establishment to offer anything more than a very basic intro to audio post.

If you want to learn about the Pro Tools software and about basic audio principles, there are many places and courses which can offer excellent tuition and would be a very good start for you. When you get to the point of looking at the specific audio field of film/TV audio post production then the alternatives to learning from practising professionals in a commercial audio post facility are almost non-existent.

G

Okay thanks. I just mainly want to learn how to use Pro Tools and apply that to movies.

I talked to an audio engineer and he said that Pro Tools and Adobe Audition (what I have), are no good. He said that you need an actual DAW system with cause those systems come with circuitry to give the sounds you need for movies. Pro Tools and programs like that are no good he says, cause they don't have the circuitry so they always sound synthetic for movies.

It's like putting a program on the computer that knows how to cook. What good is it if the computer is not an oven, it can't cook. Same with audio programs. Regular computers do not have the circuitry for the sounds to work, so Pro Tools cannot be used for professional filmmaking. That's what he said anyway, and he's done sound for movies that have been distributed, so is he right?

Unless you misuderstood him, he is talking complete BS. There are, as far as I know, no Hollywood films made today which are not made with Pro Tools. You won't even find a commercial audio post facility in Hollywood which does not use Pro Tools. Pro Tools is a DAW, not only that but as far as I am aware Pro Tools was the first DAW.

By definition a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) manipulates digital data, also by definition a computer is specifically designed to manipulate digital data, so what could be better than a computer as the basis of a DAW? In fact, if there isn't a computer at the heart of a DAW, then it can't be a DAW! I've never heard anything so ridiculous, the only thing he said which isn't complete BS is that Adobe Audition isn't used in professional filmmaking but that's because of it's lack of functionality not because it's computer based. Either he is lying about having ever done sound for a movie or he hasn't done any movie sound for 20 years or more, before digital audio made analogue sound in film obsolete.

As I said, if you want to learn Pro Tools take the Avid training courses at any of the Avid authorised training facilities. If you want to learn how to do audio post then you are going to have to go to one of the handful of places which teaches it well or start at the bottom in a commercial audio post facility.

G

Well that's what he said, but he hasn't worked on a movie in 10 years and is retired, so I guess he is unaware of how good the new technology is.