Sarah Mitchell - Indianapolis, Indiana

Sarah Mitchell

Indianapolis, Indiana Film Connection Student

It's been over a couple of months since my first class in film editing, and I've recently been able to sit in a real editing session with my mentor. I couldn't really do much since I'm still a student, but it was a fascinating lesson to observe and take not of just how working as a film editor would really look like. This is definitely a kind of studying I like, and it just inspires and motivates me to study and work harder to be better at this.

One great thing about this is that I am actually learning from a film editor, someone who's got experience in this field and who is more than willing to share these experiences and insights with me. And since I'm the only one this class, so to speak, I get to have his full attention and ask him all my questions.

There's always more to film making than the writers, directors, actors. After everything's been shot, the film goes through the editing room so that it can be arranged so that it makes the best impact on its audience. And I'm glad that I've now got the film connection to be a part of this amazing process.

Dexter Fabian - Kirby, Vermont

Dexter Fabian

Kirby, Vermont - Film Connection Student

Gladiator, Aliens, Body of Lies - these are just some of my favorite Ridley Scott movies. Naturally, like my hero, I want to be a director. I've been making my own movies since I was 10 years old, and I believed it was time to take it to the next level, if I was ever going to be like Ridley. To me, this meant I should stop dressing up my younger cousins in cardboard alien costumes while I pointed a video camera at them, and start getting proper film training.

I had a problem, though. I absolutely HATED school. I detested the idea of sitting through class after class, even classes that would help me become a better filmmaker. And then I found The Film Connection. How cool is it that they don't even have a campus? So how do their students get training then? By working on REAL film sets all over the country!

I was sold. It didn't take me long to enroll. Getting my first apprenticeship was even quicker. Not only that, I also found some new heroes: the very mentors who are teaching me the ropes.

Really, at the rate I'm learning, Ridley Scott ought to watch his back! (Just kidding. Well, not really.)

Jane Mitchell - Long Island, New York

Jane Mitchell

Film Connection Student Long Island, New York

What's a movie without a good story, right? It's like building a house. You can't just put up a piece of plywood up and hammer nails into it, make a few rooms together, and then call it a house. You need to have a blueprint that puts into paper the makings of a good home. Well, I think of screenwriting as the blueprint to an amazing movie. And of course, you've got to have talent to come up with a good story, but you'll need a lot of training to know just what story makes a good movie. Just like a blueprint is not a bunch of lines on a piece of paper, screenwriting is not string a bunch of words together.

Screenwriting, I've come to learn now, has both a creative and business side; and both sides are just fascinating me right now. Of course, the creative side is having a story that deserves to be told, the developing of plot points, making it tight and effective, so that possible viewers won't think that you're just taking them around in circles. But there's a business side to it too. Who do we approach so we can get out screenplay into a movie. How do we market it to make the right people get interested? And if we're already working on a movie, how are we able to trim our screenplay in case budget constraint calls for it, without sacrificing the integrity of the story?

These, and so many more, are things that I am learning under my mentor, an actual screenwriter who's got experience in both television and film. Under this tutelage, I've got the film connection I need to learn just how a story is made into a movie.

Darryl Jones - San Jose, California

Darryl Jones

San Jose, California - Film Connection Student

I've always been fascinated by the way lighting is done in movies. True, the story and the direction are what movies are all about, and yet it is interesting to note that the perfect or wrong lighting could easily either make or break a film. One wrong lighting in one scene and it could distract the viewers from the movie, and the whole story would now be lost under that technical mistake.

To do this perfectly is a mixture of technical know-how and creative genius, and I am enjoying my mentorship right now. I'm working with a lighting director who's teaching me so many things every day. There's the technical aspect of the different equipment needed for a particular scene. How to perfectly light a night scene, making it bright enough but still believable as night. I mean come on, doesn't it frustrate you when the lighting is just so unrealistic, but you don't really want to see dark scenes, right?

It's only been my first few weeks into this mentorship program, and already I'm learning so much. Pretty soon, I can't wait to actually get my hands on lighting equipment for a hands-on experience. This is such an exciting program. I'm getting that film connection to be a part of the little details that make a movie so magical.