Full Sail Film School

I've recieved quite a few things from Full Sail, i've requested for more info, and I got more. I've really been looking into them, I really like what they have to offer. Check out www.fullsail.com for more information.

My question is simple, and straight to the point. Has anyone ever attended, know anyone who has, or is anyone thinking about attending Full Sail?

Alright, I lied, I have more quetions.

How does one go about getting financial help on something so expensive? I certainly cant afford it, it costs more than what my mom makes in a single year for one year of film-school there. I'd like to attend, but how can I make this a possibility?

I live in Indiana, what are some decent film schools around me? Do film schools look at things like, GPA, SAT scores and such when deciding who to let in, or not?
 
I just finished a three week shoot. One of the grips was a Full Sail graduate. He told me he learned more in the first week on set than he learned the entire two years at Full Sail. He also got four more jobs form the contacts he met on set.

Isn't full Sail 65,000? I'm thinking of charging $2,000 per week to work on my next movie....
 
I just finished a three week shoot. One of the grips was a Full Sail graduate. He told me he learned more in the first week on set than he learned the entire two years at Full Sail. He also got four more jobs form the contacts he met on set.

Isn't full Sail 65,000? I'm thinking of charging $2,000 per week to work on my next movie....


Really though, same can be said about just anything. Actually doing something and being around professionals will always win over being in a class of 30 watching a teacher do it once, or reading a book.



That said, Full Sail is a great way to start out if you don't know anyone in the industry, and don't know other people who are interested in film making. Such was my case, and I'm doing quite well I think. That said, a lot of my classmates aren't, and we took all the same classes. So, who knows.
 
film school = access to equipment, knowledge and networking. If you can find/create these elsewhere, go for it, but it's reinventing the wheel...and a degree does look good on a resumé. I'm currently still out of work due to the fact that my past 10 years of experience and promotions means nothing to employers looking to hire someone at my wage/experience level without the degree to back it up...I am having problems even getting an interview as they weed out the deluge of applicants down to a handful of interviewees.

The degree matters, not for knowledge or ability, but for hirability. Every specialized industry is going this way. 10 years ago, I had no problems getting an IT job based on experience, as the worker pool grows, the employers need to have metrics against which they can eliminate applicants without having to interview them. Schooling becomes one of those metrics to save themselves time.
 
I agree with what knightly is saying about the importance of a degree.. I had a rather difficult time finding my current job too as I never finished college.

I will say though that it is probably in your best interest to get a business degree, or something more general than a film school degree. Film school really is only useful for making contacts and learning some basics. But there's no guarantee that you'll get employment, and most people learn best actually doing hands on work in this kind of field but the actual hands on access most film programs offer isn't what you'd think it should be (especially when you look at the cost involved).
Someone in a different forum said:
Ain't that the truth. In my year at Full Sail (what a waste of time) I worked one ONE 16mm film and ONE 35mm film.

I was very interested in Full Sail when I was finishing high school, but the cost was prohibitive for something that wouldn't offer me much of a real world chance of employment. I went to a very well respected trade school for Radio and TV Broadcasting. Several years later I was able to get an overnight position at a small town radio station, but I did this on my own, with help of contacts I made outside of the school -- their placement department really wasn't much help. I'd imagine it's similar at Full Sail.

The ONLY good thing I've ever really heard about Full Sail is that after you've completed your training, you can go back for training on newer technology when it's offered -- at no additional cost as far as I understand it..

When I was looking into Full Sail 12 years ago, and I'd be surprised if it's changed, they offered no on-site housing, so you'll have to cover the cost of apartment living/food/transportation while paying for school as well.

As for financial aid, I'd imagine you would fill out the fafsa application just like for any other school -- their financial aid office can give you all the details though.

I really can't stress this point enough though.. Your/your moms/goverment money would be MUCH better spent on a standard 4 year college degree. Business is always a good focus because it can be applied to ANY career path.

Most schools offer some film related courses, so if you're interested in film you could take a few film classes as electives, which generally will apply toward the humanities requirements for most degrees. A great course of study for a general degree that would mesh well with film would be a major in Business management, with a minor in History or Anthropology.

Film school has never, and will never offer you a guaranteed real world job.

It would certainly be a shame to wind up with student loan debts of $70,000 or more and then have to struggle to find a job to be able to pay them back. I know their promotional material makes it sound more cost effective to attend full sail than a standard university, but they didn't include the housing costs in their figure, which since you likely won't have time for a job means it'll have to be added to your student loan totals. That brings the figures closer together. The other glaring problem with their cost effectiveness logic is that you're more likely to be employable after completing a 4 year degree -- no matter WHAT the area of study was, than completing a 21 month "degree" program. Also there are ways of significantly reducing the cost of a four year degree.. Like completing all of your generals at a local community college and then transferring to a larger institution.

Look at it this way... Imagine that you can't get a film related job right out of school -- which honestly isn't a very unlikely outcome -- you need to work to live, so you need a job. It's tough to survive on the wage of a fast food worker, retail sales person, or the like.. So you'll probably want to try to find something more corporate/office based. As knightly has already said it's tough to even get an INTERVIEW without a four year degree, despite being qualified or not. So, lets say you get a line on a manger training type position with a starting pay in the low to middle $30,000 range. You feel qualified, because it's a restaurant management position, and you did some work at McDonalds in high school, so you think maybe you've got a good edge on other potential applicants.

Now, lets say you walk in with your 21 month "degree" and interview for the job. Having no real experience other than what you may have picked up on the job during high school, you MIGHT get lucky, but the odds are against you. If you walk in with a 4 year business degree, have a basic understanding of running a profitable business (learned in school) and the experience you gained on the job in high school, you're a LOT more likely to get the job.

Ok, but it's not the job you want, right? Well.. I can tell you this much. Most of us here do not work full time in the film industry. Most of the people on any online film related forum don't. For the majority of us, it is relegated to being a hobby, or a "maybe someday I'll get my break" situation.

I can only speak for myself when I say that I'm able to make a comfortable living and pursue the film interest on my time with hope that it can someday become more that just how I spend my spare time. I know that I would be making a much better living had I earned a 4 year degree, because I would be much more employable, and as such could have had a more professional career a bit earlier in life -- I was very lucky to find my current ($45k/yr) position doing web and software development, and the only reason I got it at all is because my boss, like me, didn't get the traditional college training and was able to see beyond the resume. More often than not that doesn't happen.

I already touched on the outcome of my trade school education, and I wholly feel that Full Sail would have been an even bigger waste of time and money than the Radio & TV Broadcasting school was.

I believe that all the technical training taught in film school can be learned more quickly working on a film production, reading some of the MANY books on the subject(s), etc.. thus leaving the only useful part of film school being the contacts made there, but in that case online forums such as this can and do offer the same kind of opportunities.

The bottom line... if you're going to go to school, get a real degree so you have a much better chance of getting a job, whether that's in the film industry as you'd obviously prefer -- or more likely in another industry (at least for a while). Otherwise, take a small fraction of the money you'd spend on film school, and use it to provide financing for a film and work on the set of that production as a PA. You'll learn more, make plenty of contacts, and save a lot of money -- and at the end be just as employable as you would with a "degree" from Full Sail.

Same someone as above in a different forum said:
I went to Full Sail, a private media school in Orlando for an Associate of Science degree in Film and Video Production, and honestly, it was 30 grand a year for stuff I feel I could have learned watching the special features on DVDs. (And 30 grand I could have put towards making a movie.)

I'm not sure when this guy attended, but I assume it was a few years ago..

Someone else in a different forum said:
I have had a few friends who went there and came out not realy knowing much about audio engineering etc. Sure you will learn more of the fundamentals...but it's forums like these where you can learn so much more.

When I was looking into Full Sail they offered a 4 year program for $10k/yr. The costs have certainly gone up significantly since then.
 
Last edited:
Isn't full Sail 65,000? I'm thinking of charging $2,000 per week to work on my next movie....

Even more, based on their tuition page it looks like it would run $75k for a bachelors & $31k for a masters:

http://www.fullsail.edu/admissions/campus-tuition

And that doesn't include any living costs, so over 2 years you're looking at $100k+.

I've got to say that seems absolutely insane to me. I spent less than that on 7 years of college, in which time I completed two bachelors (one in film production) and a masters. It's been 12 years since I finished grad school, but that's way, way ahead of inflation for costs to be that high now. The education world seems to have gone insane over the last decade.

And honestly my degrees have had little bearing on my career except in a single case - I got paid more when I did some teaching because of the masters. Now I may certainly be an exception as my career probably isn't typical - I haven't had a 'real' job since 1994 - but every client & gig I've picked up over the past 20 years has been due either to networking/word of mouth, or my portfolio.

Personally, if I were starting now and facing that kind of expense for school, I'd go straight to working as an intern/PA/whatever I could get in the industry I wanted to work in.

Or, if you want to have a degree for résumé purposes later I'd look for public universities, etc, with lower tuition so you don't end up with as much debt. While schools like Full Sail make it seem like it's a good thing to complete their program in 2 years rather than 4, the truth is they just do that by cramming the same number of credit hours into a shorter period. This means it's going to be a lot harder to work at the same time, which means more debt to cover your living expenses.
 
Even more, based on their tuition page it looks like it would run $75k for a bachelors & $31k for a masters:

http://www.fullsail.edu/admissions/campus-tuition

And that doesn't include any living costs, so over 2 years you're looking at $100k+.

I've got to say that seems absolutely insane to me. I spent less than that on 7 years of college, in which time I completed two bachelors (one in film production) and a masters. It's been 12 years since I finished grad school, but that's way, way ahead of inflation for costs to be that high now. The education world seems to have gone insane over the last decade.

And honestly my degrees have had little bearing on my career except in a single case - I got paid more when I did some teaching because of the masters. Now I may certainly be an exception as my career probably isn't typical - I haven't had a 'real' job since 1994 - but every client & gig I've picked up over the past 20 years has been due either to networking/word of mouth, or my portfolio.

Personally, if I were starting now and facing that kind of expense for school, I'd go straight to working as an intern/PA/whatever I could get in the industry I wanted to work in.

Or, if you want to have a degree for résumé purposes later I'd look for public universities, etc, with lower tuition so you don't end up with as much debt. While schools like Full Sail make it seem like it's a good thing to complete their program in 2 years rather than 4, the truth is they just do that by cramming the same number of credit hours into a shorter period. This means it's going to be a lot harder to work at the same time, which means more debt to cover your living expenses.

Actually it comes out to around 81k to 86k. (Source? I paid it.) Plus around 20k-ish depending on where you'd like to live. However the nearby Student Housing is only 515$ a month with free utilities, cable+, and wifi. That's not bad.

This thread is really old. That 65k was most likely correct during 2007. 2015 will have a higher price even more than now as we upgrade to all the new Arri camera equipment.

Also "the truth"? There is no lie about the Accelerated program. You are WARNED that it's the same amount of credit hours. They recommend taking Extended (3 year) program to reduce the high stress of this school.

Lastly, if you're on the Accelerated program (and even most on Extended), you are unable to get a job. You have class 6 days a week (sometimes even Sunday) for 8 hours a day and they aren't always back to back and the times will change every month. It's even possible to get 8 hours at night one day and have the next class 8 hours in the morning of the next and end up at school for 16 hours. No one will hire you.
 
Totally missed that this was such an old thread. Doesn't really change my reaction though - the higher tuition makes even less sense now with the current economy. If job opportunities and salaries aren't increasing to match the cost of education it seems hard to justify taking on that kind of debt.

And I wasn't suggesting they're lying in some way about the accelerated program - just that if you're looking at it from the outside it seems like a selling point that you can get through the program in less time than the traditional 4-year university. You just have to balance that against the additional financial burden of not being able to work for 2-3 years.
 
Totally missed that this was such an old thread. Doesn't really change my reaction though - the higher tuition makes even less sense now with the current economy. If job opportunities and salaries aren't increasing to match the cost of education it seems hard to justify taking on that kind of debt.

And I wasn't suggesting they're lying in some way about the accelerated program - just that if you're looking at it from the outside it seems like a selling point that you can get through the program in less time than the traditional 4-year university. You just have to balance that against the additional financial burden of not being able to work for 2-3 years.

Well the actual selling point is that it gets you in the industry faster and that your training is still fresh and up to date.

And yea it doesn't make sense... but just so happens I've been writing my second blog post the past few days that goes over what it really costs to attend Full Sail and not the tuition they tell you. Will I tell you it's as cheap as community college overall? No... but you'd be surprised how it's about the same as attending a traditional 4 year university.
 
Full Sail exists because there are suckers that are willing to pay for it.

Go into debt with these people and you're guaranteed a life of misery, and quite likely, a life outside of the film business.

Don't be a fool. There are other ways to get into the business.

Good luck.
 
Full Sail exists because there are suckers that are willing to pay for it.

Go into debt with these people and you're guaranteed a life of misery, and quite likely, a life outside of the film business.

Don't be a fool. There are other ways to get into the business.

Good luck.

I don't understand what you're saying? I have less debt than most of my friends that decided to attend normal universities. Don't speak without knowing how it actually works. You give people the wrong idea of Full Sail.
 
I don't understand what you're saying? I have less debt than most of my friends that decided to attend normal universities. Don't speak without knowing how it actually works. You give people the wrong idea of Full Sail.

With a degree from an accredited academic university, you've a FAR better shot at getting a job in the field you've majored in, even if you don't, your BA or MA will open the door for hundreds of other fields for you. Chances of paying off the debt is quite high.

With a bogus Full Sail degree, the chances of landing a "full time" job (ie, career as a director, DOP, editor) in the movie business is next to zip. Chances of directing your own feature film even once is next to zip. You'll find it hard to take a job as a grip or a PA because the debt looms. Maybe with luck you'll get on as a Teamster and be at least able to afford the debt with money left to live on.

I know EXACTLY how these schemers work -- they prey on people like you. Full Sail and the ilk have only one purpose -- taking the money in your pocket and putting to theirs. The chances of a living wage job in the film business is near zip.

But don't let me stop you.

Good luck.
 
Back
Top