Student review [#99388] for Film Production
at Catalyst – Institute for Creative Arts and Technology

I was a student at Catalyst enrolled in the 3-year Bachelor Film Production program. Overall it was very much worth the experience for me. The principle behind the school is to learn by doing, and although it might depend on the person, for me it was the perfect way to learn everything I needed to learn. You pretty much learn mostly from just making films right away. The first year we made films every other week, the second year a film each semester, and the third year, one last big project, and this is besides all the film sets you might help on in other capacities or make on your own free time or weekends.
I loved that you were given a lot of freedom in your learning, as long as you are sticking to your deadlines, I was working on and learning how to make the films I wanted to make, the school projects and my own projects on the side, and working on so many other people’s films and film sets in every role one can think of. I don’t think I could have gotten the amount of experience in film I did elsewhere or in any other school or format in such a short time. It was really just being in that film and creative environment that is the biggest advantage.
It is also really nice that the teachers are all people who actually work in the industry too. The best classes also were when they invited people to do masterclasses. It helps a lot to be near people who are actively working in the industry you want to join. Teachers and staff are also all very open to feedback and interested in improving things, so I imagine the school will be even much different for students in the coming years then it was for me, they are always changing and evolving.
Overall it was a really good experience, I made countless friends and connections (one of the best parts of the experience), I have a varied portfolio of work now which I didn’t before, and know what it takes to put a film together now and what it will require. If you go you’d have to be prepared to put as much into it as it gives you. Be prepared to bring your own initiative in making films for example, networking, and collaborating with others. If you do you can get an enormous amount out of your time at the school. If you go just to attend classes you won’t really get much. It all just depends on how much you’re willing to put in or how passionate about it you are. But that is what I was personally looking for anyways, somewhere I can learn and work practically and develop for the next 3 years. Anything else you can learn online anyways and is sort of becoming obsolete I think for an institution. Film is an art form after all and you will only really learn it by practicing it, and here they give you all the equipment and resources to do that. One complaint I have actually is that the program should be 4 years instead of 3, just because of how fast it will go by, I could have used one more year probably.