Austin School of Film

I almost never write reviews online, but since my experience with the School of Film was so disastrous and unprofessional, I thought I should post and give other potential students fair warning. I tried for over a year to enroll in an Introduction to Photoshop class after my first class was cancelled because of low enrollment. The School of Film was entirely unhelpful and couldn’t provide any information about when future classes would be available other than to «check the website». Months later when the website listed an introduction class the link to sign up for the class wasn’t functional so when I emailed to request to be signed up, I was told that I couldn’t sign up until the link was functioning. I checked regularly until one day the class disappeared from the website. The other day I checked the website again (as I have done intermittently for over a year) and there was a new introduction class (!) with one spot open. I immediately emailed and asked to be signed up for the class with my existing credit with the School of Film. Four days later I got a reply that the cost of the class had increased by approximately $ 100 and I would have to pay the difference even though the class looked like the same exact class I had initially enrolled in over a year ago for $ 100 less. Less than 24 hours after I received the initial email (and before I even had a chance to read it), I received a second email informing me that I couldn’t sign up for the class because they «had to close the class» three days before the scheduled start date. The only good thing I can say about this entire process is that the School of Film agreed to give me a refund to my credit (which they had previously told me they would not give and always pushed their private lessons as an alternative) without too much of a struggle on my part.
The instructors might be great, I wouldn’t know, but the administration is disorganized, unhelpful and act like they don’t want to be bothered by potential students. Thanks, but no thanks, School of Film.

What an amazing resource ASoF is…
Our kids have absolutely loved being involved over the years:)
They are SO looking forward to being involved again this summer with amazing programs that’ll stretch their creative output. Appreciate getting to be involved:)

Having never taken a filmmaking class and thinking I knew it all, I was hesitant to take a class, however, I thought why not give it a shot. So I signed up for the Digital Filmmaking class and boy was I wrong about never needing to take a class.
I learned so much from this course. The film I produced from concept to completion for the class (Lessons in Life #3) has now received it’s 7^th Official Selection to a film festival and it continues to gain success. By going to film festivals with my little film, I’ve made networking connections and have now hired to direct and produce 2 more short films through these connections — -all because of this wonderful class I almost didn’t take at the Austin School of Film.
The class will teach you everything you need to take your story and put it to film, and be successful with it. Don’t get me wrong, after you finish the class, it takes a lot of work to market your film and get it seen, but with the help of everything I learned in this class, I had a wonderful little gem of a film that I’m so happy with and never would have had for it not with the help of the Austin School of Film.
I recommend this class for all levels of filmmakers. Get refreshed! Get schooled! Get signed up! Email me if you have any questions about the course or school. I’ll be happy to help.

I love film (directing), and had been «out of the scene» for a few years, so I wanted to get some fresh perspective and knowledge and signed up for the Digital Filmmaking class taught by Nathan Smith.
The instructor was the biggest benefit. The structure was a little more loose than I would have preferred, but the instructor was SO good at answering questions honestly. He was incredibly encouraging but VERY honest and helpful with his feedback on your work. It was nice knowing you could present your work and not have any doubts that the feedback you’ll get would be anything less than incredibly beneficial. He’s super knowledgeable in the field and the current trends/​market since he’s personally heavily involved. If he didn’t have an answer for some reason, he knew exactly where you could get it.
The course is fast paced and you will only get as much as you give. If you don’t go with the pace, and welcome the pressure that comes with this industry, you won’t learn much. I highly recommend that when you have a project due, that you try your hardest to get your work completed when you need to. I also highly recommend you attend every single class. Having your work means you get constructive criticism needed to grow.
I wish their TV/​Projector didn’t have so many problems while I was in the course (hard to enjoy scenes when you can barely see them), but I can still appreciate that this is a school.
It was easy to rent equipment from Guerilla (located in the same building).
This is more of a beginners class, but if you’ve been «out of it» for a while, I still recommend this particular class.

My review is based solely on our summer camp experience. They’re overpriced and disorganized, wouldn’t recommend them to anyone. Essentially daycare with cameras and computers. Campers didn’t do anything that my son wasn’t already doing at home with our own camera and Mac setup. Videos were never put online for viewing, as promised. Viewing at Alamo Drafthouse that was part of the camp and a big selling point was twice rescheduled and then never happened… I got zero response to my three inquiries about it. We’ll be sending our budding filmmaker (and our money) elsewhere this summer.

I first experienced the ASoF when I attended some video training for work. We had to opportunity to work with Sikander Khan and he is wonderful. He patiently worked with us for weeks and was very kind about our crazy work schedules. He taught us how to use our cameras and spent countless hours helping us learn Final Cut.
Anne worked with us to create a special curriculum that fit out needs and the school was very flexible and allowed us access to all their equipment and plenty of space.
I highly reccomend ASoF and Sikander is a wonderful freelance editor!

This place is great for young film makers. Lots happening in all areas of film making. I’ve been working with some young film makers there on a feature that’ll be hitting the festivals this year, no doubt.
Classes in all aspects of film making, from directing to editing, screenwriting and producing. Other than UT’s media department, this is perhaps the main place in Austin that’ll be churning out Texas film makers over the coming years.
Highly recommended.

I can’t believe that a review about this place isn’t on Unilocal!Guess the ‘digital divide’ between Unilocalers and filmmakers in Austin STILL exists. So let’s tear down those walls a bit — Austin School of Film is a non-​profit just east of downtown (and west of Progress Coffee) that offers all sorts of film classes for adults and kids as well as Apple Certified classes in Final Cut Pro, Motion and Soundtrack Pro.
I took local filmmaker/​director Kat Candler’s «Script to Screen» class here last year and learned a lot. Our advanced class had to put together a short film which we produced and later screened at the Dobie. It was a good experience. Not having been to film school, learning the lexicon of filmmaking was very helpful. If you are into film, get on their email list to get info on upcoming events and classes.