Film School (33 page)

When we move into the new building, our current digs will be demolished. Already film students are grumbling and waxing nostalgic about our classrooms. I think:
Are they smoking crack?
I know it's a common human tendency to think the Golden Age is the one that's just passing, but I scratch my head when I hear the complaints about the new project. The reality is our current building stinks; the classrooms are small, badly ventilated, and mostly windowless. The elevator is miserably slow. Many students, myself included, just hoof it up the stairs, one set of which is an exterior fire escape and a favorite place for students to smoke. The building's few classrooms always seem to be occupied—so holding auditions in them is all but impossible. And I always study somewhere else—there's simply no room to plug in a laptop and work.

In addition to being cramped, our current film complex, built in the early 1980s, must have been designed by rabbits on acid because it's a surreal warren. Getting from classroom A to classroom B can mean following a zigzag of walkways and stairways and even a mini-bridge. There are sidewalks that go nowhere if doors are locked. Mysterious corridors. Everyone gets lost when they first visit. Everyone gets wet when it rains. There's hardly any space to study. I had been in school nearly a year when I was invited one day into the animation department, which was hidden in a corner of the warren where we production students rarely venture. There, like Santa's elves, dozens of animation students toiled on fantastic projects.

Our complex features a sunken garden that I suppose looked good on paper, a place where the architect apparently thought students would congregate and share in Socratic dialogue with their instructors. In reality, hardly anyone uses the garden. It's damp and chilly most of the year. And because elevated walkways surround the sunken garden, being there is like being an animal on display at a zoo. The few times I'm been down there, I expected students on the walkways to throw me peanuts. I avoid the garden, as do most others.

The favorite student gathering place is an old picnic table that sits on the film school's concrete loading dock. The table looks as if was hauled to the dock and just left there by accident. Accident or not, it's our home. Here, film students gather and gossip and eat and smoke and ignore the passing tourists and other USC students.

When I come back for this new semester and pass the picnic table, I see my friends. They smile, I smile, and I come over to talk. There's Manny the Romanian and Rene the World's Tallest Mexican and Justin the weightlifter. We do bro hugs (a soul-shake handshake with right hand, half-embrace/hug with left arm). The bro-hug is just a trendy version of the Back Slap Hug, a favorite of Midwestern men who don't want to get
too
close.

It's good to see them all. We talk about what classes we're taking. Several of them are sidestepping major filming for the semester—I'm not the only one. I share a couple of classes with Rene, one with Manny, one with Dan, but none with the others. A handful of us agree to grab some lunch at the Jocketeria, the dining hall that serves student-athletes. The Jocketeria is notable for serving huge portions of meat. It attracts those of us film students who want to gorge on protein at least once a day. When we visit the Jocketeria, we stand in line with various future NFL prospects such as Clay Matthews, Mark Sanchez, and others. We eat and compare notes and laugh. It feels good.

A
t USC, our first year is mostly predetermined. But in year two, we students get to pick and choose which classes we'll take. And USC, bless its heart, requires us to register for classes in the time-honored system of standing in line. It's first-come, first-served. And it works perfectly. Those who really want classes are rewarded for their efforts. Those who snooze, lose.

When I registered for my third semester, I knew about this system, but I hadn't experienced it. Registration day for us came on a day in December. A rainy, cold day. The registration office is located in the sunken garden courtyard. The door wouldn't open until 10
A.M.

To make sure I would get the classes I wanted, I got up earlier than normal that morning and drove to USC at 6
A.M.
I figured I'd get one of the first few spots in line.

When I got to the courtyard, I found a crowd of students already waiting. In the rain. Most had been there all night, some having come straight here when the bars closed. There was a pile of blankets and sleeping bags in a small alcove that provided the only shelter from a steady forty-eight-degree rain. My classmates were tired and giddy and hung over and cold and hungry. A few were still drunk. I was seventeenth in line. For the next three-plus hours, we stomped and paced to keep warm and cowered like a herd of cattle. We laughed and talked and compared notes on what classes we were signing up for. Because I was in the first twenty students, I was all but guaranteed any course I wanted.

As the morning went on, we watched as other students, their eyes big, would come down the stairs and see our huddled mass. A list went around posting our order so there would be no disputes. Those who had been there all night were in no mood to let latecomers crash the party. When the registration office doors finally opened, we went in one by one and picked our classes. When I walked out, I saw more than twenty students still waiting to register. I raised my arms. “They closed directing!” I yelled. “You can all go home now.” A big groan went through the crowd. Many of those waiting wanted to get into the directing track. Quickly, I added: “Kidding, kidding. Plenty of space left.” A wave of relieved laughter went through the crowd.

I had registered for directing, for a cinematography course, for a screenwriting class (the next step in getting a major in screenwriting), for another Drew Casper critical studies course on the musical (the only palatable critical studies offering), and at the last minute, a class called Preparing for the Documentary. One of my classmates assured me that by taking the Doc class we could potentially direct one without crewing on a film first. I thought: awesome. So I had my semester set. Although it's an overloaded twelve-credit schedule, it's one that put me a step closer to my goal of a double major in writing and directing.

T
he motto of USC's School of Cinematic Arts is
Limes Regiones Rerum
or, loosely translated, “Reality Ends Here.” It's all true. We learn the black arts behind filmmaking: how to manipulate sound and image and story to affect other people. In my second year, I'm no longer watching film or television for entertainment. I'm constantly watching and listening to see how they're made. It takes some of the escapism out of it, but there's still plenty of fun left—it's just a different sort of fun.

I take the motto to heart. My time at USC is in so many ways a departure from my reality that I vow to throw myself into the program with as much openness and energy as I can muster. How it will treat me, I don't know. In my first semester, I never fully embraced the whole notion of film school. Now, after two semesters, I'm willing to play the game at USC. Reality is outside the gates, where my student loans are growing and my kids are growing up without their dad for long weeks at a time. Inside, it's a make-believe world of films and screenwriting, and I'm throwing caution to the wind and trusting that the path I'm on will be a good one.

One morning after registering, I'm sitting on one of my favorite study places, a USC computer lab located near the gym. Most of the students using the dozens of computer workstations are foreign engineering students, and the lab affords me a quiet place to write on my laptop and check emails on the faster campus computers. On this day, I've got two computers open and I notice an email pop onto a screen.

The message announces that a course offered by the film school's writing division has a couple of openings for any interested production students. The special projects course is called Pitching 101: How to Sell Your Story and Yourself, taught by one Trey Callaway. The email explains that he's a writer/producer on CSI: NY and will be teaching how to pitch projects to Hollywood. The email says interested students will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.

I blink twice, then shove my laptop and papers into my briefcase as fast as I can and run for the exit. I take steps two at a time down to the sidewalk and start running for the film school. It's a long block away, and I gallop down the sidewalk in my cowboy boots, my heavy briefcase thumping against my side. People step aside when they seem me coming. I'm running either away from something very bad or toward something very good. When I get to the film school building, I dispense with the elevator and power my way up the stairs to the third floor, where the writing division offices are.

I enter the writing offices breathing too hard to talk. I collect my breath. “Is there space in the pitch class?” I ask. “You just sent an email about it.”

The secretary pulls out a folder, scans down the list. “Yes, there are two spots open.” The class is an elective and won't count toward my majors. It will cost $3,000, money that will come from student loans, a reality that gives me deep heartburn. My children are less than a decade from college themselves.

Before I came back to USC the second time, lots of people asked me why I didn't go to film school in Minnesota. My answer was always the same: “USC has instructors you just can't find elsewhere.” Here in the writing division office, I take a deep breath and sign up for the class. I can't help but smile. I'm gonna take a class from a guy who writes one of the top dramas on television.

A few minutes after I sign up, Chris Caraballo, the free-market loving, Castro-hating Cubano-Americano runs into the writing offices. He gets the final spot. The class is full.

W
ith the semester starting, I'm feeling comfortable my schedule is going to be predictable. I'll do my class work and projects during the day and evening and work out over the lunch hour. It feels like I've got a job to do. The manic ups and downs of the first year are history.

On the second day back, I grab my swim goggles and head for USC's outdoor pool complex. I leap into the water. It's warm. It's January, and I'm swimming outside. My achy knees and feet appreciate the water and I begin swimming laps, slowly.

Cinematography class begins, and it's clear it's going to be a fun course. The instructor is an upbeat, energetic soul with a Hollywood résumé that goes back decades. We meet in one of the school's soundstages and for three hours set up lights and a camera and discuss how to shoot a variety of scenes. Rene is in my class and we sit next to each other. “Hey, old man,” he says as a greeting. He looks at me and says, “You growing your hair out?” Rene has a huge mushroom cloud of hair. “I'm just trying to keep up with you,” I say.

I am. My shaved head is in the past. I'd cut my hair just once in months. I'm going to grow it out. It's graying, but at least I have a lot of it left. My blood thinners cause my hair to fall out more easily and make my fingernails crack. I can't do anything about my nails, but I might as well add to the volume of my hairdo if I'm going to be shedding like a dog. I'm even drizzling some cheap hair color into my locks. When Julie sees it she frowns. “I'm going Hollywood, baby,” I say, as I run my fingers through my increasingly long, suspiciously dark mane.

The screenwriting class takes up where the last ended: I'm putting the finishing touches on CRAZYHOUSE ON SKIS. The instructor is new. She's another woman, this time one who wrote some made-for-TV movie scripts. The number of us pursuing screenwriting continues to dwindle: just me and Dan and four other students in the class. Over the semester, we're supposed to put our polishing touches on our scripts.

On my first day in Preparing for the Documentary, the instructor sets me right about what I heard in the soggy mess of registration. The class is not a golden ticket to allow us to pass straight to directing, she tells me. I'd still have to crew first if I wanted to direct. I debate dropping the class. I'm woefully overscheduled for the semester—I'm taking fourteen credits instead of the usual eight to ten. My directing class is next, the one dozens of us stood in the cold rain for. Shortly before the class begins, I learn a different instructor will be teaching the class. In the dark gloom of a Zemeckis soundstage, the new instructor tells us we'll be working on our relationship with actors all semester. He's got a heavy Russian accent. He sounds just like the repairman, Mr. Bullsheet. I don't want to spend my semester talking about Uta Hagen again, so I decide to drop this class and keep the Doc class. The USC documentary division has several Academy Award winners on staff and I want to sample their wares. I'd done lots of documentary-like projects in my radio days, so it feels like I'm returning to familiar ground.

Now the mystery class: Pitching.

This class takes place once a week, Thursday evenings. We meet in one of the overflow classrooms not far from the film school, in a nondescript building that looks like a suburban high school. When I walk in, I wonder if I'm going to hear the echo of cheerleader practice coming from down the hall.

We take our seats—I sit next to Caraballo. Other than him, I don't know any of the dozen other students in class. They're all writing students, and because this is a 400-level class, there are undergraduate writing students here, too. Caraballo and I are the only two from the production division. In a way, we're crashing this writing party. But that's the least of it. Once again, I'm the old guy. Being fortyish with some of my production pals who are in their late twenties is one thing. But being with
barely
twenty-year-olds makes me feel protective, almost like a father figure.

We're sitting down when Trey Callaway starts the class with a bang. He enters and with almost no introduction launches into a story about growing up in Oklahoma and being caught in a terrible storm. The story and the storm gather in intensity as Callaway is telling us how he's running for the storm shelter and hoping a coming tornado doesn't sweep him away. He's got a lot of energy, and he's a big, fleshy guy with almost no hair. And he seems to be exactly my age. I see him playing linebacker for an Oklahoma high school a few decades earlier. I hear a slight Oklahoma twang in his voice—my uncle and aunt moved to that state when I was a kid and my cousin picked up that red-clay drawl in about three seconds flat. But Callaway also has the
I'm so stoked, Dude!
thing in his speech that so many white Angelenos have. No matter what Callaway sounds like, he's compelling.