What do I have to take after finishing High School if I want to be a movie director?

I'm thinking of taking English Literature and photography, but what exactly should I take if I want to study film?

Study Film. No question. Becoming a director isn't a simple task. For most people, it takes years of dedication to the craft and tons of practice before they're even ready to take on the job.

But first, you should ask yourself, why do you want to be a director? When I was 18, graduating high school, I wanted to be a director. Badly. I went about the same route as you're thinking, I went into English, thinking I should get a "real" degree and work on breaking into the business after I graduated college. It was the wrong way to go. I didn't want to study English at all, I wanted to be a filmmaker.

At some point between graduating high school and hitting absolute rock bottom in college, I realized that when I was 18, I didn't want to be a director, I wanted to be Kevin Smith. I wanted to be a huge success with millions of fans. After thinking about it a bit more, it occurred to me that I had grown to a point where that wasn't what I wanted to be any more. I just wanted to be involved. I just wanted to make movies.

So you have to put your finger on the reason. Most people get distracted by the fame and fortune and forget the reasons they fell in love with movies in the first place. If you think about it hard enough, I'm sure you'll realize that film is all you really want to do, that it doesn't matter if you're directing, or writing, or shooting, or producing, or editing, just as long as you're a creative part of a film team. Once you realize this, you'll realize that there is nothing in the world you could study other than film.

NCSA is my personal favorite. UCLA is a good school as well, SCAD is another. Look around in places like California and New York for film schools, but don't rule out the rest of the country.

You should go someplace where you can major in film. There are small film schools, as well as large universities that offer programs in film-making.