David Fincher has such a singular career, there is always something new to learn from the man.

Just like Alfonso Cuaron or Paul Thomas Anderson, Fincher didn’t go to Film School. Well, besides for that one summer, right after high school where he went to a Summer School Film Program, and here is what he says about it:

“Those who can’t teach, teach gym, and those who can’t teach gym, teach film. And those who can’t teach film were teaching at this summer program.”

Ouch. That one bites, Fincher style.

Sarcasm aside, if it shows where Fincher places film school on the filmmaking learning spectrum, it’s also a reminder that things have changed greatly.

You don’t need to go to Film School. You need to meet and connect with minds that stimulate you, with peers that want to collaborate with you, and with sensitivities that appreciate your work and want to see more of it outside in the world.

In other words, you need to do just like Fincher, Cuaron and Paul Thomas Anderson, and design your own film school. The good news, there are just many more tools and ways to be a filmmaker today than there were back then.

(It’s likely that those three men would have been dealing with moving images the exact same way if they were 15 today, but would have they been striving to make feature films? Not so sure…)

Watch Fincher “say it out loud” at the beginning of the video below, and if you keep on watching, you’ll get to learn what he did instead, to become a filmmaker, and what he considered his real film school (he picked the alternative road available at the time).

Enjoy:

[thanks to No Film School