Los Angeles Film School (LAFS)
Locations: Hollywood, CA
Degrees: Associate's
Programs: Recording Arts, Game Production, Computer Animation
Tuition Range: $27,000-$41,000
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Situated in the heart of Hollywood, CA, the Los Angeles Film School is a career-focused school offering associate’s degrees in four main areas of study: Film, Recording, Game Production and Computer Animation. (An additional intensive certificate program in recording is available through the affiliated Los Angeles Recording School). Besides engaging in a combination of classroom and lab training, students and graduates are also given information on openings for internships and job opportunities upon graduation.
Because of its career focus, the LA Film School currently offers only associate’s degree programs, which require between 18 months and two years to complete. Tuition varies by program, ranging loosely between $27,000 and $41,000 to complete a degree, not including fees and equipment.
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Student Reviews
Situated in the heart of Hollywood, CA, the Los Angeles Film School is a career-focused school offering associate’s degrees in four main areas of study: Film, Recording, Game Production and Computer Animation. (An additional intensive certificate program in recording is available through the affiliated Los Angeles Recording School). Besides engaging in a combination of classroom [...]
Review by Julian I.
June 6, 2012 1I attended the Los Angeles Film School, graduating in April 2009. It was a one-year program. In that year, I acquired $80,000 worth of debt that went towards paying for school and living expenses and equipment and whatnot. While I was going there, it definitely met my expectations. They had a great teaching staff. We had a really great class that really bonded well together and, we worked really well together and pushed each other towards excellence. We put everything we could into the school to get the most out of it we possibly could. We worked really hard, had a lot of great projects as a result. All our teachers always told us we were one of their most favorite classes they had ever had come through their program. And all had very high hopes when we graduated for being very successful.
Upon graduating, at first, the school definitely did follow through and what it had promised in terms of, helping us with career development and hooking us up with jobs. Unfortunately, most of the jobs that they got for us were unpaid internships that usually lasted a few weeks at most, but most of the time it was one or two days. On a commercial or music video shoot, something along those lines, and they were mostly all for free. The most I ever got paid was I think $150 a day through a school, but that was only for three days. And the support kind of tempered off after about six months of graduating. I started hearing less and less, and none of those previous internships or work positions ever led to anything. You do the math.
Six months after I graduated, my student loans kicked in as did everybody else’s, and the payments depending on the person were roughly around $1200 a month. You add that to rent and living expenses and you need a pretty well paying job to be able to support yourself and that’s basically when all my friends and classmates started dropping out of the industry, to return back to their homes. They left Los Angeles to go home to live with their parents because they could no longer afford to live out here. Which pretty much ended their dreams and careers and a lot of them went back to the same jobs they had left to come out here except now they have $80,000 worth of debt. I fortunately come from a wealthy family that is very supportive in my career choice and I would not be able to still be here if it wasn’t for them, helping me financially to sustain living out here. The school has basically stopped helping me out anymore, saying they need to concentrate on more recent graduates. And I have done the whole send your resume out to every single possible job that you can find, with no success at all. I spent about a year doing that. I found it a total waste of time. Now, I am trying to create my own career by making my own projects just on my own. In the hopes that I will be discovered by somebody mainly doing commercials and music videos and shorts, stuff like that.
Would I recommend film school for somebody else? Probably not. The knowledge you gain is definitely valuable, but I feel that you can gain the same knowledge for free, by teaching yourself through online courses and also just all the information is out there online through tutorials and whatnot on all the software, cameras, whatnot. There’s a lot of great DPs that put all their knowledge up online and every other position within the film world has the same support online.
The school itself is a great education, but I just feel that they don’t give you the job placement that they promised you. They kind of just leave you on your own once you’re done. They don’t find you work that is realistic, in terms of the amount of money that it will pay you and the amount of money that you have to pay back to the companies, the banks that you took the loans out from. No, I would not recommend it to people. I would say the better option is take the money that you’re going to spend on film school, use it to support yourself while you learn everything there is to know online for a year and in that same time just try to get PA gigs or entry level positions, which you will learn an immense amount on job training.
As for me, would I do it all over again? It’s really hard for me to answer that. Because I did make some really good friends that I wouldn’t have made otherwise. I would really like to do it again, but I wouldn’t. No, I would not have done it again, I guess is what I’m trying to say. I just feel that, the friends I made are awesome and great and I love them and they are probably the best part to come out of it. I did gain a lot of knowledge. That’s also a really good part, but the $80,000 I acquired in debt is definitely not worth it. The lack of jobs that I have gotten is definitely not worth it. And I feel like I would have done myself a better service, career wise if I would have just taken my advice I just gave you. Which was just take the time to teach myself online and get entry level positions as a PA and learn that way . And also just make products, which is what I’m doing now and I feel like that’s a lot more beneficial than going to film school.
Debt Accrued: Greater than $50,000
Found work after graduation? No
Review by SchoolReview
January 11, 2012 1I found the Los Angeles Film School met my expectations in few areas. Mainly I found it misleading. After graduation, I found (non-paid) jobs. After struggling to live, I moved back to Ohio. In Ohio, I found I was a huge fish in a small pond, so my schooling and experience got me TONS of work with traveling reality and documentary shows. However, I moved back to LA in June and have found ZERO work… so I’m working part-time at a vitamin store.
Debt Accrued: Greater than $50,000
Found work after graduation? No
Review by Rob S. (source)
November 8, 2011 1The owners of Full Sail bought LAFS and they are transforming it into what Full Sail is: a hack school, a diploma mill.
Most of the teachers at LAFS are graduates of LAFS and have absolutely no real world experience. The school is overcrowded because they accept every single person who applies. There are not studios for the students to use. The owners care not a bit about actual education, they just want to cash your check.
LAFS is the worst film school in California. If you want evidence about how bad Full Sail is, there’s plenty of it. It’s not a real film school at all. The vast majority of people who go there never get into the film industry at all — they end up working at channel 9 news in Memphis and things like that. Nothing wrong with that, those are good jobs, but it’s not movie making.
Review by Seph S.
September 30, 2011 1Since i was 10 years old I knew I wanted to make movies, thus I found a passion for writing.
I couldn’t do that 4 year college BS it was a waste of time for me so I went to the L.A. Film School.
It looked like a legit school and it top notch gear so I thought my 50,000 was put into good use. I was totally wrong. The only great thing that happened to me there were the great friends I met and we both agreed that we were getting ripped off but we still went till we graduated because we were all pretty close so when we do make it in the industry it wouldn’t be cause of that school it would be because of us.
i am currently looking for any job ill even do it for free but that’s not good enough either! I’m at home most of the time either writing all day or playing video games through the night. Currently looking for a job so that I can start a production company with a few friends, it’s going to be difficult but well worth the ride.
When i went to school i can only think of 2 good teachers out of their whole entire staff there!
Instead of teaching us they talked about themselves most of time, what films they worked, the famous people they met, that’s all fucking fine and dandy now teach me what’s going to help me in my career. Total BS!
Some teachers didn’t even show up for class, and during the month that we were suppose to be learning sound we had 7 different teachers, didn’t learn s**t from any of them. We probably didn’t even get to meet all of those teachers either.
One of them was suppose to lecture us on sound and give us 55 slide presentation he only did 5 slides before he began to talk about himself.
Literally I can go on forever with this rant but in the end it’s going to be up to me to make it in this industry. I learned my lesson.
Review by Brooke F
July 13, 2011 1About three years ago I was attending an a college up north that was not working out so I made the decision to move back to southern California and save up money to attend a film school. I shopped around for a few months until I found the LA Film School. Overly excited I took a trip up to LA from San Diego and went to their tour of the school that which they called the “get exposed” open house. There was delicious breakfast and snacks with informative mini lectures from various professors and full theater. The presentation was quite impressive and in all my wonderment, I signed up. About six months, forty thousand loaned dollars, and a co sign with the Devil, other wise known as my grandmother, later, I was in film school. The ever sought after dream, Hollywood. I was living it and the first two weeks were great. I was getting to know my classmates, we got to shoot three short projects…everything was going how I expected it, that is, until I began to see little things here and there. At the beginning I was promised that after the first few weeks, I would pick my focus and take specialized classes in that focus, so, if I wanted to direct, I would take eleven months of directing classes and projects. Well, it wasn’t long before I realized that they changed the program without informing me or my class. We were the first class of the the new program in which we took a month of each focus and now had to deal with general education classes. Now, I’m not a moron, but I didn’t go to film school to take a math class.
After I got over that and gave the school the benefit of the doubt I decided to forge on. After all, this is my one shot, my hail mary pass at a future, I can’t give up just because they changed everything about the program that I liked. So months passed, sound classes and editing classes were taken, even though I went there for production design and directing, and the month I was hoping for finally arrived. The, “how the hell do I get a job after film school month,” After all, the open house tour said that they would help us find work even after graduation. Well, we had two teachers come in and teach us how to pitch scripts and ideas and how to do a script breakdown…and that was it. I think its time to skip ahead to after film school. When I graduated I was excited, I felt I had learned so much…until I got my first paid gig through a friend…not the school. When I got on set I soon realized how little I knew about the art dept. Oh sure, I learned the basics, but they didn’t need basics, the needed a professional. They didn’t care that I knew a little about editing and sound design, they wanted me to handle my shit in the art department but I realized I lacked the tools.
By spending two days on a shitty tv show I learned more about film making than my year of film school. So where is my forty grand? Oh yes, those are the calls I started receiving from my loan banks calling repeatedly everyday. My interest rate is disgustingly high and I’m pretty sure my grandmother hates me now…that parts ok because I dont really like her that much anyway…long story. Amazingly enough though, I did get a consistently paying gig in the art department for about eight months and it only took me two years after graduating. Where do you ask, well, at the LA Film School teaching how to work in the art department. That’s my story in a nut shell…the details I learned about the school while working for them is a story best saved for a different time.
Review by Stephen M. (source)
May 17, 2011 1LA Film School is all flash. They spend all the money on sales and marketing and some fancy equipment that looks great when you take the tour. Fancy equipment is not what is important in a film school. The faculty is and LAFS faculty is mediocre at best. A few teachers have real industry experience but a lot of the teachers there have no real film industry experience at all.
One example, the head of the cinematography program is a 28 year old girl who has never shot anything as a DP except some really bad, ultra low-budget things that are hardly more than student films. She has no business being a film school teacher, let alone the head of the department.
Review by Dar
January 24, 2011 1.3Some of the classes are good at this school and some are bad because the teachers are not good. Mostly I got the feeling that some of the teachers have never really worked in the film business as profesionals they only just went to film school. Some of them all they ever did was go to LA Film School. Some of the teacher are even younger than some of the students! How did they ever get to be professors. In the end I wish I had chosen a different film school where the teachers were real pros and the other students were a lot more serious.
Review by DJ
January 16, 2011 1The teachers are average to poor, mostly poor. When I first looked at this school a couple of years ago they were big on advertising that all of their teachers were also working professionals in the film business. They no longer even claim that because none of them are working professionals because they are only full time teachers. Very few of them have much experience in the movie business either which is ridiculous. The quality of the teaching is very poor except there are a couple of really good teachers but most of them are bad to very bad.
There is not a single studio in the entire school that a student can reserve and use for a project. This is a giganitic ripoff because when you go the the open house they show you all these great studios and the admissions people tell you you can use the studios but it is a lie.
The worst part is the other students which is important because in film school everything is done in a group and the other students are losers with low IQs who can barely function and you know there is no way in the world they will ever work in the film industry. I worked in the movie business as a PA a little bit and everyone there told me that the most important thing about film school is making connections with people who are going to be successful in the industry and there is zero chance of that happening here. LA Film School is just not a place where the real people, the hard working and smart people go to film school because the only people who go to this school are the people who are dumb enough to fall for the fancy tours and all they toys they show you on the tour. They are GREAT at giving you a real sales job but thats all it is just a sales job. I regret going to this school, don’t make the same mistake.
Review by Tim D.
December 8, 2010 1I went there and now I’m $60000 + in debt thanks to them. The school helps who they want to they don’t really help everyone and they don’t help you get jobs that’s the biggest lie yet (Pardon the pun it’s your job to get work and it’s free work at that). I have requested numerous times to meet with my career counselor for any type of assistance and either he doesn’t return my calls or emails or I have to wait to get a open-sessions career counseling email and then come in. When he does finally contact me it’s not to help me but it’s to chastise me. So if you want to go there good luck but you better be an outstanding student/filmmaker for them to help you out. If you want to say I’m bitter then go ahead but you’re not the ones that have to pay a student loan back and everyone tells you that you have to work for free to pay your dues. Tell the bank that!
Review by Phillip G. (source)
December 1, 2010 1I have had to fire at least 3 Full Sail grads over the years because they were so badly clueless they did thousands of dollars damage to client masters and or other inexcusable mishaps.
Wow. Full Sail is a joke. So is LA Film School.
And I posted a review of LA Film School in another area, but for the record, here is part of it again:
I’ve been in this business for decades, and there is one thing I can tell your for certain:
L.A. Film School will NOT teach you how to be a filmmaker.
STAY AWAY. RUN. HIDE.
If you want to get into the film industry, and need some basic education, go to LACC (Los Angeles Community College) for next to nothing – and get a far better education than this place. If you can afford LA Film School, then you should be going to UCLA or USC. But even then: If you want to get a career going in Hollywood, mostly what you need is a car and a desire to work. Start out as a production assistant (aka a runner). That’s how Kathleen Kennedy started – and more than half this town, to be honest. On “Raiders of the Lost Ark” she was a production assistant. On Spielberg’s next film, “E.T.” she was a PRODUCER.
You cannot learn to make films in a school – you need – MUST – learn by doing, in the field, working with professionals. And one thing you will not find at LA Film School are any “professionals”….Uh, check that, there are “professionals” since they are run by professional CON ARTISTS who are good at TAKING YOUR MONEY.
For what they charge, you could buy a whole RedOne camera setup and FCP editing system.
Sadly, they will probably stay in business, as people with more money than brains drift into Hollywood, chasing a dream.
Review by Judd G. (source)
August 19, 2010 1The joke at LAFS (which I heard many times) is “if you can fog a mirror” you’re accepted. Meaning that if you are breathing you passed the test. This means that your fellow students you work with and do projects with and have to depend on are misfits, morons and dropouts. There are a few good students but not many. The faculty constantly talks about how the quality of students has gone down disastrously since Full Sail bought it.