Jonas Mekas: "Don't go to film school; get a camera"

From Jonas Mekas: Advice to the Young — Vimeo:

I met friends there [at film school]… It helped me to form my own thinking. So when you go to a film school, you meet others, otherwise, I say don’t go to film school. Get a camera, because you don’t know what you really are all about, what you really want to make. You say “I want to make films”, but what kind of films? When you go and begin to do what you think you want to do, and you discover, “Ah, for what I’m doing, I have to know more about lighting.“ Then you go and study lighting. Or, “I have to know more about lenses.” Then you go and study lenses. But not everything. Why do you need everything? Maybe you will never need [it] for what you want to do.