Alright I'm considering the LA Film school. My other choice is UCLA Film School.. for those of you who go to either of these can you list some pros and cons to help me decide?

You should read my post on Chapman University in Orange, CA, and think about attending there.

One reason to avoid UCLA is that you don't own your own films, assuming you get chosen to make one and not just crew on someone else's after the two years of GEs you're forced to take before even touching a camera or seeing a film set.

Hmm alright.

Also, I want to focus on directing, special effects and the stuff that ILM does. Is that taught at film school or somewhere else?

I know directing is taught at most schools, and any film school worth its salt should have a VFX department with computer animation classes and such. After you get your general degree, you can always attend an art institute and get a specialized degree in graphic design or computer modeling or whatever you want to do. Those are more art-oriented, so they probably won't have directing and editing.

And just to let you know, ILM isn't the only visual effects company in the world. There are hundreds.

It's not necessarily a good idea to have your heart set on one company. Unless you don't actually care about filmmaking and just want to work at ILM, because in that case it's a fine idea.

I know, but the computer generated things that ILM does is the kind of job I would be looking for.

I think Art school for CG graphics, etc would be the route to take for it, but the thing is, I can't draw worth crap so having to take all the drawing classes just to get intoa studio with 3DS Max or Maya would be tedious and turn me off.

If you can't draw at least moderately well you won't be a very successful VFX artist.

Not necessarily. There are many kinds of visual effects. CG designers need to draw, but shaders, lighters, riggers, animators, and programmers don't. Compositors don't. Set extension doesn't (they just need to kick ass in PS).. .etc.

You need a sense of visual composition for any visual work... I thought that was immediately evident. Generally if you have a reasonable sense of spatial relationships you can draw.

I can draw, or compare something on a computer to another peice of art but I cant draw to well freehand.

I have 3 more questions:

1. At the LA film school do you take ALL of their courses in the 1-year immersion project?

2. Is there any website that tells the average salary of various film industry jobs? Salary.com doesnt have any.

3. After 1-year is there anymore schooling after that or is it just one year and you ron your own for a job?

I can't draw to save my life (I'm planning to learn, eventually) but I'm an extremely proficient PS artist (if I don't say so myself) and I've got a very good grasp of 3D graphics and compositing (along with all the necessary spatial understanding), so drawing ability is not correlated to digital art skill.

That said, drawing certainly helps, and is probably somewhat required to get the job.