How do I go about studying film on my own?

I want to study film without having to do it through a school. Can it be done? If so, can somebody help me out on getting started? Thanks.

Oh that’s doesn’t sound easy. I mean, I think the best way to study film without having to take a class is to make you own movies and watch the classic movies that revolutionized the film industry. But I would reccomend taking a class though. My professor helped me so much to understand the history, concepts, technical terms, and much more.

Read, read, read, read. And watch, watch, watch, watch.

It doesn’t get any simpler than that. Read a wide variety of film reviews from Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB. Look out for movie reviews on Wednesday and Thursday newspapers. Watch entertainment and film review TV shows. Read scholarly articles and books from Roger Ebert or Roeper, etc.

Watch as many film genres as you can, especially the ones released before you were born. Watch Westerns, sci-fi, action, comedy, romantic chick-flicks, etc. Watch documentaries, short films, foreign-language films, preferably with subtitles instead of English dubs. Watch the latest trailers, mash-ups, and parodies. Keep up-to-date with film developments.

And most important of all, have a passion about it. It’s what will drive you.

Something cool to do would be to get the top 50/100/250 movies from the list on IMDB (depending on how ambitious you feel!) and aim to watch all of them, so you get whats considered “the best” films and you’ll get a mixture of genres and age and whatever. Then you could identify what makes a good film.
And then it’d be fun to try and watch films that are considered awful, and compare them.
Just a thought
[url]http://www.imdb.com/chart/top[/url]
Not to mention that two of Pixar’s best are in the top 50

Do you want to work in the film industry?

Well, what I do is watch as many movies as I can get my hands on(that my mom approves ) and like TDIT says, read lots of film books and synopses. This is something I do as well. I’ve watched about 3,000 films in the past year and I’m still working on it. And write scripts NOW so you’ll be prepared. These things do help. That’s all I can say. And I would also recommend watching anything that got best picture, best score, best director, best actor/actress, etc. And watct any movies you can, good or bad. Yes, I watched Goodburger, and it did help me.

And make sure you learn about the film history and also whn you watch movies, not only watch them with a keen and observant eye. But also understand the choices of the director, cinematographer, music, etc.

Thank you everybody for your advice. I thought about going to school to learn about film history. But between going to work, working on improving my drawing skills, wanting to become a self taught animator, watching movies and other things I’m into, my plate is pretty full. So I was hoping that there were some good books out there that would help me study film and I already watch a lot of movies, so I thought some good books would help me learn what I want to learn. I plan on trying to watch all films that have own best picture at the Oscars and films on other top 100 of all time list. I’ve started paying attention to what people consider the best films of all time. I read a lot of reviews to know what to look for. I pay attention to the Criterion Collection. I got to websites about the movie industry daily. I’m very passionate about this. I posted my top 10 films of all time in that thread on this site. I have way more old films on my top 10 list than I would have a couple of years ago. I’ve seen a lot of good movies since I made that list. And although my top 3 are set and will never move, I may have to make another list.

Criterion Collection is a wonderful source for finding quality films, save for Armageddon. Have you read any of the essays on their website or watched special features on their wonderful DVDs/blu-rays? I’m a film studies minor (analyzing, not producing films—it’s in the English department), and I find that another useful resource is Netflix, especially their massive selection of films available to watch instantly. I’m not actually sure about any books I would recommend, because most of what I’ve learned is from lectures and sites like Wikipedia. I’m sure you could find some good books at your local library. There are many, many people who are interested in studying film who do not attend film school. It’s definitely doable!

But I agree that, overall, the best things to do are:

• Watch as many movies as possible. Research notable directors and film movements. Don’t be intimidated by a movie’s release date or original language. Also, if you can find some documentary series about the history of film, that would be awesome! An example is “A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese through American Movies.”
• Read as much as possible. Read movie reviews, old and new, but also read books on film in general if possible. Even Wikipedia is a helpful resource, unless you’re writing an in-depth paper or something. Also check out http://www.sensesofcinema.com.
• Try listening to/watching some commentaries and special features to understand a film from the filmmakers’ perspectives.

OMG! I didn’t know Armageddon was a part of the Criterion Collection! I have become aware of the Criterion Collection over the past six months or so. I have one of their films (Shock Corridor and I’ve seen the extras) so far in my collection. Which is now in my top five of favorite films ever. I’ve been a memeber of Netflix istant streaming for the past three months now. With trying to be a self taught artist, and the 70 plus movies I have in my queue, and the movies I have at home that arent’ even open yet, I don’t know how I’m gonna do it all! I read a lot of movie reviews. Even for movies that I’ve been watching for years. Just learn to see things that the average movie watcher wouldn’t see. A movie release date or original language has never bothered me. I just have to be in the right kind of mode to watch a movie with subtitles. But I love old movies! Thanks for the advice and telling me about the Martin Scorsese documentary. I’ve seen Goodfellas, Aviator, Shutter Island and Raging Bull. And I LOVED those films. Well, I really liked Shutter Island and loved the other three. I think he may end up being my favorite director. I can’t wait to see Taxi Driver and Hugo Cabret. I also need to watch more Sidney Lumet films. I saw Dog Day Afternoon a few months ago, and it’s blew me away. It’s so sad that he’s gone.

Taxi Driver is my favorite Scorsese film! :3

Is Armageddon on the Criterion Collection. Oh, my, what were they thinking?

Yes, it’s a very interesting film!

Yes, it was one of the first films in the collection.

criterion.com/films/578-armageddon

Incredible. Probably Michael Bay paid for that