Is Film School Still Worth It? With a Top Dean.

The Town with Matthew Belloni

The Ringer

Society & Culture

4.3 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 5 December 2025

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Matt is joined by Stephen Galloway, the dean of Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, to discuss the state of film school education in 2025, how it has evolved, and the increasingly high tuition costs (02:22) Matt finishes the show by predicting whether 'Rush Hour 4' will actually get made (27:09). For a 20 percent discount on Matt’s Hollywood insider newsletter, ‘What I’m Hearing ...,’ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Email us your thoughts! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thetown@spotify.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Host: Matt Belloni Guest: Stephen Galloway Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Jessie Lopez Theme Song: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	It is Thursday, December 4th. The town has a surprisingly large audience among film students.
0:06.1	I guess not that surprising. I've had many come up to me at events and say their film professor
0:10.6	actually assigned episodes of this show to listen to. Hopefully not ones where Lucas and I are
0:15.1	droning on about the Dodgers. This show is not a substitute for a formal education, of course.
0:20.6	Or is it? Not the town formal education, of course, or is it?
0:22.3	Not the town in particular, but is the real world experience of trying to break into Hollywood on your own better than a formal education at a film school?
0:31.1	It's the age-old question, and it's even more relevant in this day and age when the traditional film and TV industry is shrinking.
0:37.1	Anyone can make content on their phone and distribute it worldwide on YouTube and have a career
0:41.0	that way. And information about the inner workings of the entertainment business is available
0:45.8	online or even on a podcast. I think ever since the invention of film schools alongside
0:50.8	Hollywood back in the 1920s, there's been that debate among students.
0:54.9	Is it worth it? Is spending a few years and tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars
0:59.9	learning how to be a filmmaker or a creative executive or a visual effects supervisor or whatever
1:05.6	specialty? Is that the correct path? Or is it better to sling coffee on a movie set or work in the UTA
1:12.1	mailroom or just use those tens of thousands of dollars to make stuff? Develop your own talent
1:18.2	that way to the extent you have any. Quentin Tarantino once said, I didn't go to film school.
1:22.8	I went to films. But others, everyone from Spielberg to Spike Lee to Ryan Cougler, they speak pretty
1:28.7	highly of their experience. Connections they made there. There are dozens of accredited film
1:33.5	schools offering Masters of Fine Arts in this country, more overseas. When I was at the
1:37.6	Hollywood Reporter, we started ranking them every year. One of the editors there, who was an early
1:41.8	mentor to me and helped put together that list,
1:44.5	he did a bunch of stuff there, including inventing the popular roundtable series that you've
	...

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