The year-round coaching is on zoom, so you can participate from anywhere in the world.

Our weekly roundtables usually meet on a weeknight, and the private office hours can be scheduled around yours and your coach’s availability.

Support in our private Slack channel is available throughout the week.

Being online gives us the flexibility to work around you: both in terms of location and schedule.

That said: we include a 3-day intensive in-person because nothing can substitute meeting in real life. These intensives take place in New York City.

The Fellowship is a year-long commitment, though some of our students stay on for several years. Filmmaking is about the long game.

The 3-day intensive, led by Ela Thier and IFS coaches, will be held some time in the spring, in NYC.

We don’t have exact dates, but you’ll receive notice several months in advance so you can plan for it.

If you absolutely can’t make the scheduled time, we’ll credit you towards participating next year.

Because we’re mostly online, we can pull off charging a small fraction of what film schools cost, while offering an unparalleled amount of individualized attention.

We also guide our students through crowdfunding for help in funding projects.

That said, if joining would be a financial hardship, you should not apply – here or to film schools.

Film schools focus on mechanics, which is often the least important aspect of filmmaking.

While we deliver skill building in spades, we also focus on building confidence and community. We hold out high expectations, but also meet each artist where they’re at.

In film school everyone learns the same thing. This program tailor-fits your needs, goals, strengths – and schedule!

We cost a lot less – and deliver way more.

And for what it’s worth: scores of film school graduates have told us that our programs have done a lot more for their understanding of the mechanics than what they got from film school.

Ever go to a film festival? How many (gulp…) unmemorable films, or ones that are painful to watch, have you sat through?

Last time I went to a festival, an audience member said about the film created by my student: “Well, that one was different. You felt like you were watching a real movie.”

All those meh films that flood festival programmers aren’t coming from people without talent. They come from artists who haven’t received the training and support that they need to reach their potential.

Even the pretty looking ones that were well shot don’t leave a mark, because the quality of a film is not about mechanics.

We don’t want you to make a film. We guide you in making your best possible film – the one that audiences will go home thinking about. Those are the films that lead to creating more films.

Most of our students show up feeling this way. I felt that way for years while writing scripts and shopping them around, hoping for that magic “sale.” (Plot spoiler: that sale doesn’t come until you’ve produced your own films.)

That said, you can absolutely focus  your year on building a serious body of written work.

Just be forewarned that most of our students who show up not wanting to produce their work end up getting inspired by their colleagues and deciding to take the plunge so they can see their work come to life.

Don’t say we didn’t warn you!

Yes and no.

Yes, because if you’re an actor, training with us will make you the best possible actor that you can be, and you’ll be equipped to nail auditions.

But no, because the focus is on writing and creating your own projects.

If you’re an actor ready to develop and create projects for you to act in – then you won’t find a more productive space.

Absolutely. Every artist needs coaching, no matter their level of experience. I turn to coaching myself, regularly. We’ve had professional writers and filmmakers join our program to up-level their skills, and build their body of work in both quality and quantity.

About fifty percent of our students believe that they’re the least experienced person in the group. How is half the group the “least experienced?” Lol.

It would be a mistake to “wait until you’re ready.” This program is exactly how you get yourself ready. We’ll take you from zero to sky’s-the-limit.

Never written a single word of a single script? Join us and we’ll launch you. Enough with the waiting.

Just heads up that if you’re really, truly a complete beginner, half the group will still be convinced that they have less experience than you 😉