At my school (Full Sail University) film and music award shows might as well be football. We’re all waiting with bated breaths, sending grads the best of luck, commenting like heck on social media, and cheer like crazy when our favorite/grads gets the win. I often say that my school’s grads give us newbies two reactions: 1. Staring up at them in adoration. 2. Get so self-conscious that you hide under a bridge. Considering this week is my last week as a student, I paid attention when school announced that there are 102 grads that have worked on the nominated films this year. (That’s spread out over 24 films this year.) So how does the soon to be grad/film student or even the film junkie learn from this?

The unsaid motto of students at school is “Read, watch, play – read what you want to write, watch what you want to film, and play what you want to produce.” The idea being that if you consume what you want to do, you’ll be inspired by it. Seeing what the seniors in the industry consider good quality sets a standard to aim for. I personally have yet to decide if that is a good, terrifying, or bad thing. (Probably all of the above.)

Award shows like the Oscars give us a cheat sheet on how to make good quality projects. It’ll also gives an idea of what is on demand right now when it comes to genres and themes. If you listen close enough you’ll learn how to create and how to get inspired. Watching and listening to the details gives hints on how to take your project from paper or a thought to the big screen. Tid bit to throw out there, the winner of the short animation a few years back was a Kickstarter project. That alone shows newbies in film that you don’t have to spend half of your life working to get your foot in the door or get to the position where you get to dictate what happens. Film and tv award shows spark ideas and educate the hopefuls in film on how to get to their end goal. Plus it gives ideas on where to apply for internships or where to submit a script.

 

What do you get out of watching award shows?