Hi there and welcome! We are current and former students of Film Connection, and we started this blog as a response to all the misleading information about so-called Film Connection scams scattered throughout the Internet. Why are people attacking the “Mentor Program” and in particular, Film Connection? The answer is simple. Over the years, Film Connection has had a great deal of success placing its students in often high profile studios, or film production houses. This is great, but herein lies the problem. You can’t expect to run a successful program without naysayers attempting to discredit you with stories of this or that Film Connection scam. Such is a fact of life.
But we cannot just sit back and allow these people to continue spreading what can only be described as utter garbage, so we started this blog to give you the real deal of what Film Connection is truly all about. Yes, Film Connection can arrange for you to meet studio execs and the like, as promised. BUT you still need to go through the experience a mentor program to benefit from and expertise that only an industry mentor can provide.
The problem is that many people have latched onto the fact that FC has a great many contacts and have joined up - or at least, attempted to join up - thinking that they will be fast tracked into a real Hollywood studio, often without doing any actual work. And when this doesn’t happen when and where they EXPECT it to happen, they attack the Film Connection’s mentor program by spreading lies about a perfectly legitimate company. But hey, we all know that we only get back what we put in. Do the work and reap the rewards.
Film Connection is a great system, but it is also just a tool to get into the industry. You must also be ambitious, conscientious, determined, and above all, hardworking. Also, it won’t do you good to fill your heads with false tales of an imagined Film Connection scam. If you really want to know the real deal about these so-called Film Connection scams and exactly what Film Connection can do for you, you’ve come to the right place.
Film Connection Scam: Know the True Story
Subscribe to the Film Connection Scam Podcast!
Film Connection Scam: Know the True Story
Subscribe to the Film Connection Scam Podcast!
Film Connection Scam: Know the True Story
Subscribe to the Film Connection Scam Podcast!
Film Connection Scam: Know the True Story
Subscribe to the Film Connection Scam Podcast!
The Film Connection Scam Rebuttal
Imagine if, as a student of filmmaking, you were scoping out film schools, observing the sometimes-astounding cost of tuition for those schools, and then you noticed another program claiming to give you a similar quality education (possibly even better) for a tiny fraction of the cost of the other film schools. Would you think it was a Film Connection scam—that it was too good to be true?
The Film Connection just happens to be in that predicament. Although they are a fully-accredited school, they offer a program that at first glance might seem too good to be true—leaving some people wondering if they are a scam.
However, there’s actually a very reasonable explanation as to why The Film Connection can charge this little and make these claims about their program. It has very little to do with the quality of the content, and almost everything to do with the method by which the student receives the education.
The Film Connection has recognized that filmmaking is part art form and part trade, and that both art and trade are essentially learned by doing. Through the centuries, both artists and artisans have learned their crafts not through formal education, but through mentorship and apprenticeship—by consistent hands-on experience under the tutelage of a professional who took the apprentice under his/her wing. The Film Connection has taken this ancient mentor-apprentice approach and built their entire educational program around it. Rather than remove the students into a separated school environment to learn the curriculum, they have taken their curriculum into the real-world environment, paying seasoned working professionals to mentor students through the curriculum. As you can imagine, this greatly reduces the cost of the education, all the while helping students learn filmmaking in the best way possible: by actually doing it.
It seems too good to be true, simply because it is a completely different approach than competing schools are using. However, it’s difficult to take a time-tested, ancient approach to learning, and label it a Film Connection scam.
If the proof of the pudding is in the eating, then the real test of whether The Film Connection works is in the many students who have come through the program. One film student says this: “A week after I joined the program, I was working on a famous music video which was a great experience. It was my first opportunity with the program and the week following that I was working on a Roger Corman movie which had a budget of about $200,000, and by the time that film was over, I was the second assistant director.”
The mentorship-apprentice approach has been used for centuries for this very reason: it works. If The Film Connection uses this approach so effectively for a fraction of the cost of other film schools, is it really too good to be true? Is it a Film Connection scam? That’s difficult to imagine.
