No but don't flunk out and don't waste opportunities to stand out in a good light to your professors. Ofttimes the professors are the ones who will have the essential network to land a good starting job or to help find alumni to hire you as a freelancer.

Basically, get the best grades you can, but if you get a C and someone gets an A it's not the end of the world.

Generally I recommend avoiding SAG until you're more established with significant experience under your belt.

The amount of paperwork required to use SAG actors is substantial and for most projects not worth the difference in professionalism.

There are a litany of eager actors out there who aren't union and who will be professional and deliver great performances. I recommend trying castingnetworks.com or actorsaccess.com if you want to post online.

Free? Celtx.

As someone who just recently received my BMPCC, I'm excited to use it on our next mini-short, shooting in December.

Are there any workflow issues or other camera nuances for which I should prepare work-arounds?

mostly work***

For me the answer lies in lighting. Often I want to light one shot one way and we'll need to repo camera and lights for the second shot.

IF you can light both cameras simultaneously and are happy with each, while hiding the lights and accounting for sound and any movement/blocking, then 2 cameras is fine.

It's been mentioned before but if you're not a stickler for the script and enjoy working with some improvisation then 2 cameras help to give options in the edit for how to cut that scene.

I work mostly with mostly narrative drama and prefer to use a one camera setup as it's also the least intrusive for the actors. When an actor has heavy material to cover, the fewer distractions, the better.