r/Glasgow Tools

Listen man I don’t want to upset you or anything but that’s just my experience. I went to the place because I thought it would be worthwhile as you do a lot of practical work cause I had never done anything around creating a film before.

But I found in the industry it really doesn’t matter. It’s all about experience, a degree is just a bit of paper. When I graduated it was really tough, I worked as a runner here and there but the lack of job security, long hours etc put me off and I found out the industry wasn’t really for me.

I don’t think anyone who was on my course works in the industry either, that’s out of 15 people. I believe one of my classmates is now a lecturer there.

I don’t want to say cut your losses and don’t bother, it is a lot of money, but this is just my experience. I would advise though, work really hard at producing good quality work, I mean really hard. That way when you graduate you might be able to get funding for future shorts etc.

If you just want to work in camera or editing etc then be prepared to start from the very bottom. All of the gigs I got didn’t come from any contacts at SAE. I had a couple of mates who did film at university and it came through contacts they made.

Keep an eye out for creative Scotland entry posts. They would probably be much more valuable. You’d be working on a project for an extended period of time, earning money and most importantly making contacts.

Filmmaking is all about networking dude.

Good luck