Life at USC

HALLLOOOOOOO!!!

I’ve been meaning to do a blog post for a while now. I had delusions of writing a weekly post throughout film school to chronicle the work and particulars of what happens on a day-to-day basis. Yeah, not going to happen. So, I’ll write up huge posts like this one (probably without proofreading, so don’t judge) or little blurbs as I find the time. Which will probably be steadily decreasing with each passing day. So here we go — I’ll include links to the professors’ IMDB pages, for those of you interested. UPDATE: I will probably not do this again, because it was tedious as hell. So enjoy it this time.

Suffice it to say, I am busier than I have ever been in my entire life. And I love every single bit of it.

Los Angeles is an odd beast, but is actually really similar to Seattle in a lot of ways. There’s traffic. It’s THE SAME TRAFFIC. The main difference is that there are more freeways in LA to clog up, and the span of time that traffic jams take up is a lot bigger. Still, if you’ve sat on the 520 bridge or I-5 in Seattle for any length of time, clenching your fist and grinding your teeth and trying to un-numb your ass, you won’t be shocked by the state of Los Angeles traffic. There are also bad neighborhoods in Los Angeles. As there are in Seattle. Or New Haven, CT. Or even Boise, ID. I think the main danger in Los Angeles is that I don’t know exactly where these neighborhoods are, whereas in Seattle I would never even THINK of setting foot in White Center or Rainier Beach by myself. To that end, I’m a little more aware of my surroundings, and a little more cautious, but I don’t feel unsafe or threatened. Oh, and as a general rule, I don’t venture south or east of campus. Ever. Also, it’s hot here. Not unbearably hot, but much hotter on a consistent basis than I’m used to. And the sun! It’s ALWAYS out! Every morning my roommate or I opens the door and says “look, another beautiful day.” I’m definitely okay with that. I think my vitamin D deficiency back home was a bit more severe than I realized.

But this post is about USC Film School! So without further blabber, here’s the basic breakdown:

CTPR (Cinema-Television Production) 507: Production I. This is the monster of a class that is actually three classes in one. That’s right, on paper it’s one class, and we’re paying tuition for one class. However, we meet three times per week in different capacities, and are going to end up working with around a dozen different professors. I definitely feel like I’m getting my money’s worth. Having 3 professors working with around 13 students during a single session is pretty unheard of. We have two core professors, Miles Watkins and Linda Brown. Miles is our go-to project approval guy, and Linda is our cinematography guru. We also have an Student Assistant, Lucy, who is downright phenomenal. She is all over the place with us, and she is always available if we need help or have questions. I’ve emailed her with questions a couple times, and she’s ALWAYS emailed me back within 2 hours. Keep in mind she’s a student assistant AND  a grad student, so it’s pretty amazing how accessible she is. We love her We also learn editing, sound, producing, and directing from other professors. We meet with Linda on Tuesdays for 3 hours to learn cameras, lighting, etc. This week we learned basic lighting and how to set up Fresnel lights and C-stands. We also learned what a C-47 is (it’s a clothespin. I shit you not) is and how to use flags, nets, and scrims to control our lights.

We also meet with Peter Robinson on Thursday nights for 3 hours to learn directing — right now we’re preparing to discuss scripts we got last week and had to break down individual scenes to get at the meat behind the words. Pretty soon, we’ll be assigned a scene from an existing movie, and we will have to cast, shoot, and edit that scene with real actors and locations. I think this is designed to be our practice shoot before our first project, which is kind of a practice before our second, which is a practice before second semester. But we get graded on all of it, of course.

Our sound, producing, and editing time is Thursday mornings for 4 hours with several different professors. For example, last week and this week our Thursday morning time was/is spent with Brenda Goodman and Pablo Frasconi, and we’re learning producing. Next week we’ll be working with Tony Porter on editing, and we’ve also had a tutorial workshop on editing with Avid (and have another one in a few weeks) with Reine-Claire (edited Space Jam and, to my horror, It). We’re doing sound sessions with Midge Costin, and will be having others that I can’t think of off the top of my head.

507 is centered around learning the most basic aspects of filmmaking, and applying those to two short projects. Project one (P1) is a 5 minute film with no dialogue (but mandatory sound design, i.e. using environmental sound or effects to achieve a certain mood). We are each responsible for all aspects of the film: producing, directing, cinematography, sound, and editing. Our 507 sections are divided into 3 groups for the projects, and I am in the last group to make P1. I will shoot during the second weekend of October, and edit the following week (by the way, there is no cell service in the editing labs, so expect to pretty much not hear from me that week). P2 comes directly after that, and is a little more involved. For P2 we will be divided into small crews — one will direct, one will shoot, one will edit. P2 is allowed dialogue, and is done on a slightly larger scale all around since we have crews. Our crews will do this three times, and each of us will direct, edit, and shoot a P2.

CTPR 510: Concepts of Cinematic Production. This is a lecture class run by Pablo Frasconi (same guy involved in some of our 507 stuff) for the first half of the semester and Art Baum for the second half. In it we learn and discuss, well, concepts of cinematic production, while the second half with Baum is devoted to sound. We will have several guest speakers, just about one every week, to help gel what we learn and to give us different perspectives. This week, Alex McDowell came and spoke to us about world building. He did  the production design for Fight Club, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and several other badass films. He took us through his process of creating fictional worlds. I particularly enjoyed the world he created for a film that’s still in post-production, Upside Down. Next class, we’ll be hearing from Norm Hollyn on editing.

CTWR (Cinema-Television Writing) 505: Creating the Short Film, Professor Rachel Feldman. Meets on Tuesdays for 3 hours. This is definitely a writing course. We have a number of daily and weekly assignments that are ongoing: An artist’s sketchbook to be kept with us at all times so we can record anything that interests us, a dream journal, and a weekly email journal. We also have a number of assignments given each week. This week, we have to observe two different people in real life and then create backstories for them. We have to create characters out of them. One is written in the first person, one in the third person. We have to think of a couple of inciting incidents that are set in opposition to their desires, and then come up with story spines that are in the form of a three act dramatic structure (3-7 words for each act).

In 505 we are always thinking in the context of a five minute film, because this class is spent building our skills and teaching us the art of storytelling with a visual medium in mind the first half of the semester — and then the second half we are actually going to be building our scripts for our second semester (CTPR 508 – Production II) projects. The idea is that we will finish our semester and head into the holiday break with an actual working script so we can jump right into 508 projects when spring semester begins. I think it’s a brilliant concept, and a great way to illustrate the time and detail it takes to produce a script suitable for even a 5 minute student film. And I’m REALLY happy that I can feel like part of 508 is already ready and taken care of, and I can spend the break thinking about that script and different ways of shooting it instead of wondering what the hell I’m going to do.

On top of all of that, I work in the Writing Center at USC 12 hours a week. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT. I didn’t realize how much I missed my Writing Center work at EvCC until I got it back at USC. Today I met one of the 095 (stepping stone writing class) students I’ll be working with every week. He’s a football player — an offensive guard and also one of the biggest human beings I have ever seen in person at 6’5″ and over 350 lbs — and an absolute sweetheart. He seemed a little apprehensive at first, but once he realized I actually know what an offensive guard does and that I love football, he eased right up. He also seems genuinely excited to improve his writing, and was really enthusiastic about our brainstorming session once we got going. We had a lot of fun, and I got that Writing Center ego perk at the end of our session: I told him he could make an appointment even on days I’m not working because we have tons of consultants, and he immediately said “oh, I only want to work with you.” Awwww! Overall, I had a really good week at the center so far. I’m amazed at the level of writing I see even from international students. I was so used to fighting students who only wanted to focus on rudimentary grammar and punctuation when their papers were completely nonsensical, so this was a really different environment. These kids actually wanted to work on theses and organization, without any prodding from me!

Most importantly, I have met dozens of people — students, professors, student assistants, staff, etc — who are amazing. A bunch of us film students are getting together weekly for Sunday night dinner. We’ve gone to see John Williams in concert together. We’ve gone to movies together. We’ve eaten 80% of our meals together. We’re a pack, and I feel completely comfortable with the fact that I am going to be working with these people not only for the next three years, but probably the rest of my career. Actually, I’m overjoyed. The School of Cinematic Arts told us that they looked at our applications as if they were casting a feature film, and I think they did absolutely brilliantly. I feel a connection with my 57 fellow students that I’ve very rarely felt throughout my life, maybe 4 or 5 times. The admissions committee really knew what they were doing. Bravo.

So that’s that. I hope this monster post has made up for my absence lately. I have been extraordinarily busy, but it really doesn’t feel like work because I get lost in it, I love it all so much. I’ve finally found what I’m supposed to be doing.

Until next time,

Limes Regiones Rerum

Roo