A famous director once said he wishes he had used all the money he'd spent on film school and used it to make his first movies instead. I agree with that for the most part. A diploma from there isn't worth the paper it's printed on. Unlike a trade school, there is no job placement program after graduation and if there was, you'd likely end up a PA anyways (PA being a nice term for "gofer"). PAs generally get the jobs that no-one else wants or has time to do. It is a less than glamorous job, but is arguably the best way to get a foot in the door. I'd recommend finding some local productions going on and sign on for them. No one in their right mind will turn away general help and you'll learn a lot more on the set than in some classroom (plus it's a great way to make some contacts for other projects).
Read these books: 'Make Your Own Damn Movie !' by Lloyd Kauffman (considered by many to be the Holy Bible of indie fimmaking) and 'Rebel Without A Crew' by Robert Rodriguez. Both are insightful as hell into getting a movie done without big budgets, tons of crew members, etc.
Don't go into debt to make that first movie ! The story of Robert Townsend maxing out all his credit cards to get 'Hollywood Shuffle' made seems like a great rags-to-riches story. Unfortunately you rarely hear about everyone else who made nothing back on their investments and are still paying (myself included). If I could do it over again, I wouldn't waste all of it on parties and such for people who didn't finish my movie, locations, etc. The one sound investment would've been buying a decent camera (like a DVX-100A). Not only would I have it for future movies, I could rent it out to other people (thus paying for itself in the long run). Hindsight is 20/20.
Stay home, work on your scripts, make contacts, learn some editing and read everything you can. If you still feel the need to spend all your money, you can use Paypal to send it to
[email protected] :D Of course you can always hit me up there just to BS as well.
CK