8. You Get On-Set Experience Without Consequences
One of the toughest parts about the film industry is "breaking in": getting that first job and leaving such a lasting impression that you are asked back for more. The unfortunate truth is that the film industry is an extremely small and in-bred world - they don't like letting outsiders in, and you have to work really hard and truly excel if you want to leave a good enough impression to get more work on film sets. And one of the easiest ways to leave a
bad impression is making an insignificant, amateur mistake that remains the only thing anyone ever remembers of your time spent on their film set. Luckily, film school is a place of learning, and students are offered an opportunity to make those amateur mistakes on smaller-scale student shoots where the stakes aren't as high as in the "real world". Students are encouraged to get as much on-set experience they can on student film shoots as early as freshman year, and there are literally hundreds of film shoots going on every semester that offer students these opportunities. Since we have all been there before, upperclassmen film shoots that take on more inexperienced students don't expect them to know everything, and in the best case, go out of their way to actively teach the inexperienced students. This way, students can learn proper set etiquette and be prepared for when they finally get the opportunity to prove themselves on a real film set farther down the line.