film production and drawing is actually applicable to game dev?
Film Production is a yes and no; the film production that I learned was specifically things for film (the film process, history of film, not much on cinematic techniques). I worded it wrong, since production design is helpful, but most of what we learnt was irrelevant to game
design and implementation.
I'm not trying to be an artist. I want to be a programmer/writer/designer (still not yet decided), and the art skills required for these people are comparatively low since they only need to use simple sketching to express basic visual concepts to the actual artists and other team-members. The description of the course and the answers to the questions I had during the college's Open Day implied we would be focusing heavily on implementation (programming and level design), but that's not what happened at all.
especially drawing. ever heard of concept art?
Concept Artist is a very specific position, and most study to be artists, not game designers. They only represent a small part of the game design process, and in many games they're not required (such as puzzle games or many indie games).
and on film production, ever heard of game trailers? it's entirely possible you could be making that as well.
We didn't learn composition techniques or shot design at all, so I still have to rely on my knowledge from High School. We only studied the film industry itself.
remember: you're learning, if you don't understand WHY they're teaching you some of the things you're being taught then maybe you should go look into why.
Every game teach I've had (5 in total) has left that college, and many tried to rewrite the entire game design course (its structure and the required classes/elective classes) during their time because they were unhappy (to say the least) about the way it was designed and felt like game design students were missing out. I saw one poor student get to major project and he got absolutely destroyed by the teacher because she wasn't aware he hadn't taken a programming class during his time, and therefore didn't know anything about MAKING games.
The college I went to just took the film production course and replaced a few classes with some new ones, but failed to compare to the competitor courses. I was kind of locked into this college because my scholarship program (money I needed) would only kick in if I did a 3 year course, and this was the only one.
