PLEASE HELP ME.

Alright, ive landed myself in kinda a debacle. i got my acceptances back and got into syracuse and savannah college or art/design. since im waitlisted by emerson, i gotta choose where to go in the meantime. the way i figure it, im not a big fan of syracuse, the area. ive never been there, but i hear its cold and dreary. also im not into the whole party scene, and the bad weather will lend itself toward depression, which im prone to. and i hear the town is kinda crappy. the reason i applied is because i know alot of other people who did, and i thought why not. the movies that come out are good, and people show interest. now the only reason i would go here is to tuff it out for a year and get some solid gen eds under my belt, then transfer to emerson, or nyu if im lucky.

now savannah is a different story. i know some of u guys know about it/go there, but i havent seen a flooding of people apply. ive been there and i love the town and the facilities are really nice and the people are cool. plus id get some money for my portfolio and my sports. and i hear people love it, so i would probably stay there for 4 years if i went at all, and get my degree there. the only thing is i have no idea what kind of job security ill have. plus, i worked so hard in high school and on my films, and they would have accepted me with a fraction of that work, so it seems like wasted energy.

basically what im getting down to is does anyone know things about these schools? pros, cons, etc? now, its gonna be do i go to syracuse and be somewhere kinda poopy, and get good grades and possibly go somewhere great. the draw back of that is i might not get accepted in transfering, thus being stuck there, or do i go for something pretty darn good, but loose the dream i had of going to school in a city like boston or nyc? plus, there aint alot of internships in savannah. the only reason i would go to scad and not transfer is because i wont have quality gen eds, and not alot of schools would want me. and it also becomes a problem if i wanna go to grad school.

please, if u know anything. if u visited or go to these schools, anything. i need advice. im so torn over this, i cant make up my mind. im leaning toward scad, but a small part of me will die if my emerson or nyu dream goes away. ive been really depressed, like hardcore depression, since april 1st, and u guys are the only people i know i can turn to.
PLEASE HELP AND THANK YOU.

I can see why its a tuff decision. I agree with you about the city of Syracuse. I drove through there last summer and I thought I was in a ghost town. Anyways, I'm in my second quarter at SCAD in the Grad program and I really like it. My first choice was actually Emerson too but when I looked at the facilities even though they seemed new with that new building they didn't seem to have much geared towards filmmaking. They seemed more Journalism and Television orientated. I guess it depends on which direction you want to go. But anyways Scad has a really good program. They have actually had a huge influx of new incoming students. The film and tv program is now the biggest program at scad so they were having a little trouble keeping up with equipment last quarter, but I think they've caught up. I believe the most important thing to think about what school you want to go to is the professors and the equipment. So far my professors have been amazing. Mostly all of them have had alot of experience in Hollywood so they always have insight for you, and they're not always teaching stragight out of a book. The equipment is amazing but keep in mind you only get access to the equipment as you take more classes. So you won't be working with 16mm, 35mm or HD right off the bat. You have to work your way up. But by the time you finish your undergrad you have the opportunity to work with anything you can think of. Steadicams, panther dollies, HD, Avid Symphony, 35mm. Its all what you make of it. The city of Savannah is cool for filmmaking, very picturesque, and easy to film in. The cons of Savannah is its hot as crap in the summer, the bugs are annoying as hell and the city has got bad traffice. But thats like any other city especially Boston. I hope that helped you a little bit. If you have any other questions feel free to email me.

Rywitt20@student.scad.edu

yes, all of those things u said were what i saw when i went down there this past summer. just making sure because first impressions can be decieving, but i guess nothing much to worry about. Ryan, do u ever worry about what kinda carrier or how good the job market is for a scad alumni? im just worried im gonna apply for a job and someones gonna be like, "art school? what the hell, get outa my office." or something along those lines.


in the mean time, does anyone know anything about Syracuse?

Trust me, I think about jobs all of the time. Especially since I'm a grad student and I had a job gripping for a production company before I went back to school. SCAD claims they have a 90 some percent rate of employement for their graduates but who knows how accurate that is. For me the chances of getting a job depends on where you want to work in the industry. Obviously television is easier to break through in than the film industry. I always tell people that if they plan on working in hollywood production than film school is pointless. No matter how much secondary eduaction you have if you go to hollywood and want to get into the production side your going to probably start out gripping. And then you slowly work your way up to for example AD, AC , CamOp and then DP. They could care less what kind of degree you have, And for grippig it does not take eduction, it just takes experience. You might as well save your money from school and head to NY or LA. But for me I wanted to expand my options and possibly go into producting so I thought grad school would be a good step, and as a fall back I could go into teaching. So it just depends on what you want to do. Also, when getting a job its your reel that people look at, they're not going to care if you went to an art school or not. If you plan on going into T.V than you would probably be better off at a communications school like Emerson. But if you were more interested in film, than you would probably want to go to a film school.