Film School Read Free

used to answering. Are you faculty? Are you on staff? Are you a coach?
    â€œNo. I’m here as a student,” I answer. He forces a smile but has nothing else to say. He looks at his phone and finds something important on it.
    Then, in the back of the room, two women see each other and let out a yelp. I hear snippets of their excited conversation.
    No way! I didn’t know you were even applying here! That’s sooo cool! I thought you had another year at Stanford!
    The women, both with sunglasses perched on their heads, cell phones clutched in their hands, hug. The other students around me also watch the two women with slight envy. It must be nice to know someone.
    The vibe in the auditorium is all first-day nervousness. It’s like the first day of fifth-grade summer camp. Even though this is graduate school, and we are supposedly older, wiser, more mature, and much better at new social interactions, we are still nervous. At least I am.
    I have a tremendous amount riding on my journey through film school. I’m spending far too much money on tuition and spending long weeks away from my wife and kids in order to attend USC. I wonder how I’ll fit in. What little I know of film school is that it is apparently very collaborative. I’ll be spending hundreds of hours working with people who could be my own children.
    Just before coming to USC, I read a book called The Lucifer Principle , by Howard Bloom. The book discusses how scientists have discovered that the way in which animals find their pecking order can differ from group to group. Scientists found that group dynamics are so complicated there is almost no way to predict those dynamics beforehand. The bottom line—as a chimp, sometimes you’d be the chump, sometimes you’d be the champ. Scientists discovered the same was true for humans.
    I wonder how I will fit in. I’ve spent years working since I finished college. I’ve worked as a reporter for two newspapers, reported for a radio network, spent time as a transplant coordinator at the University of Chicago hospitals. I’ve been married since before some of my classmates were in grade school, and I have three daughters. I’ve always loved the buzz and excitement of the newsroom and the operating room. I like talking with people. I get along with nearly everyone. A friend of mine once said I “would have fun at the bottom of a cesspool.” How could my time at film school be any different?
    We’re about to start the orientation when a small man with a mop of wild hair bursts through the doors, the last one in. He’s electric with energy and all smiles. He works his way around the auditorium and plops into a chair next to me. We grin at each other. He’s sure happy!
    A faculty member takes the podium. The orientation is starting.
    In the weeks leading up to orientation, I had practiced a speech I would give if we introduced ourselves. I honed my speech while jogging, while in the shower, while driving. I felt it had all the elements of why I was coming to grad school, where I had been, where I wanted to go.
    Hey there. I’m a guy a decade and a half out of college with three beautiful daughters, a lovely wife, and a journalism career that was sidetracked as I supported my wife’s dream of attending medical school and becoming a doctor. But my wife, not long ago, discovered she had cancer, and during her recovery, I applied to this institution so I could jump-start my career and take some of the load off her shoulders.
    It went on. And on. As I huffed and puffed on my jogs, I went over and over my speech. It constantly changed. One thing was certain—in my imagination, my fellow students dabbed tears from their eyes and laughed uproariously as I told my life’s tale.
    I’m jolted back to reality inside the screening room when a short, smartly dressed woman is introduced. She’s the dean of the film school. She tells us what an