Should Actors Do Student Films To Get Experience?

A common question that I get asked is: should actors do student films to get experience? Or more particularly to get showreel material?

Student films can be extremely beneficial to your start in the industry. This is particularly the case if the director/writer attend a major film school. Those from major film schools will have the network, resources, equipment and skills to make a good film.

Graduate film courses are preferable to undergraduate courses, good schools preferable to any school. But these days any Tom, Dick or Jodie can get onto a film school and the massive proliferation of film/media type courses mean more and more actors are working unpaid on student films to get experience. But the more courses, the more diluted the quality – I’m sorry to say that although you may find good directors on poor courses, it is less likely.

Student films can have wonderful scripts, they can also be intolerably awful. Embarrassing. Badly written dialogue. Full of nudity for its own sake. And girls, it’s always you getting your kit off and not the guys. Student filmmakers seem obsessed with getting their rocks off on being able to request actresses to be naked. Cry on cue and take your top off, you’ll see those requests an awful lot.

Or it can be a tiny work of genius.

Working on a student film helps you gain and grow your on-camera skills. You also get used to the boredom – and there’s lots of it, the pain of waiting and the pain of working with people that do not have the same level of professional skills as you. Or people that just can’t be professional.

The worst will be if the director isn’t up to much, or doesn’t have the people management skills (or a decent producer on hand) to get people doing what needs to be done. The one-man-band will be lighting, directing and operating camera – and she may be better than the director with a full film crew who doesn’t know his arse from his elbow when it comes to actually helping actors to deliver a great performance.

Of course, most people do it for a decent piece of showreel material. Is it worth it? That depends on each individual experience of course, and you never know who the writer/director will turn out to be.  In the end, it’s a judgment call. But in the meantime, you have to decide:

Do I think this project adds value to my future?

And that question is the same whether it’s a student film, a short film project, or a feature.