Film School

by Steve Boman

  My phone is kaput from the dip in the pool. My briefcase—a very cool and distinctive red bicycle messenger bag that I got as a gift from Julie—is stolen. After Julie flies home, I have to remain on campus several more days. I check the campus police department. Nothing. Luckily, I did not have my laptop in the briefcase … and whoever stole it got nothing more than a lot of personal notes and a version of CRAZYHOUSE ON SKIS. I keep my eyes peeled on campus, hoping to find someone carrying my bag.

  When it comes time to fly back to Minneapolis, I’m in a quandary. I can leave the Suburban at long-term parking at LAX for a month (for more than $200) or take a cab from La Cañada to LAX (more than $200 roundtrip). Then Manny tells me that USC has a shuttle program to the airport. I can leave my truck in a campus parking lot for free and catch a free student shuttle to the airport. Sweet! I look up the shuttle timetables and one matches my flight perfectly.

  A hard, cold December rain is pounding Los Angeles the day I’m flying out, and I realize my free shuttle trip means lots of hoofing it from the campus parking garage to the shuttle stop in the pouring rain. I’m soaked waiting for the airport bus, and surrounding me are thirty undergraduates. I feel so old, so out of place. The bus pulls up and the driver gets out holding a clipboard; she asks the students to check their names off the list as they get on the bus. A list? I didn’t know anything about any list! I thought space on the bus was on a first-come, first-served basis. The bus is huge, and the crowd isn’t going to fill it, but we’re supposed to have a reservation. It’s pouring. I wonder how long it would take to get a cab in the rain.

  I make my decision: students are having trouble getting their suitcases into the bus. I’m carrying a light carry-on bag. I see a young woman struggling to get her suitcase up the stairs, and I skirt around the bus driver and help her, Mr. Chivalrous. The driver never sees me. Then I take a seat at the rear of the bus. I keep my soaked head down.

  Now I feel really old, and a bit like one of those weird, smelly outcasts who sit all day at the free computers at the public library, gazing at who-knows-what for hours at a time. I’m surrounded by dozens of young bubbly undergrads who are going home to Mom and Dad for winter break. I’m sneaking my way aboard so I can go visit my wife and kids. They giggle and chat. When we get to LAX and stop at Terminal 2, I make my way for the door. As I pass the bus driver, she glances up at me with surprise on her face: Where did you come from? I give her a smile. “Thanks for the ride, ma’am,” I say as I exit.

  M

  y winter break is good but tempered by more mediocre medical news. Dr. Flaata tells me additional tests show my autoimmune disease seems to be worsening. The numbers are inching in the wrong direction. I’m also having problems keeping my blood thinner doses regulated. I’m getting my blood tested every other week, and sometimes my blood is too thin, other times it clots too quickly. I regulate my diet: limited greenery and no more grapefruits. Those foods interfere with the warfarin I take daily. Every time I get bad medical news, it’s a kick in the shins.

  I tell Dr. Flaata I’m also suffering from extremely sore feet and knees. I’m barely able to do my daily three-mile runs, and I keep several different kinds of shoes in the Suburban so I can switch them during the day. I read a great deal about my ailment—and it seems my body is attacking my joints. Despite my issues, everyone who sees me is relieved to find I’m healthy-looking and tan. My brain also seems to work just fine—no problems there, except for the nagging worry that my stupid little mistakes—submerging my phone, leaving my briefcase unattended, not noticing that the USC shuttle bus needed reservations—were due to some deficiency in my memory bank.

  The good news is the kids and Julie are doing well … and have survived four long months of my absence. They’ve all become swimmers and train at nights at the local YMCA pool. It feels so peaceful to be home. My feet and knees are so sore I begin swimming with them at the Y. The water feels good. Christmas comes and goes, and then New Year’s, and the days until my return to USC count down. Julie works a ton, and she’s saved lots of her on-call weekends for when I’m around, so she’s gone more than usual. There’s a long list of home repair projects; it’s hardly a leisurely vacation, but I take Julie and the girls out cross-country skiing as often as possible. Skating is out for me—I’m wary of whacking my head on the ice while my blood is slow to clot with warfarin. But skiing is gentle or so I tell myself.

  Leaving for L.A. is never easy. The kids hug me and cry. Julie hugs me and bites her lip. There’s always a strong pull to abort the trip, to spin on my heel at the airport security checkpoint and return home.

  This time, this semester, no one is depending on me. I’m not doing any major film projects. If I hadn’t done so well in 508, I don’t know what I would have done. Perhaps I would have listened to the voice that said, Enough, this is stupid. But I did do well. My reputation on campus has risen greatly, and I feel so much more connected with my classmates than I did after 507.

  So I walk through security and get on the airliner flying to L.A.

  When I land, it’s a copy of the day I left: hard, cold rain. I land near midnight, and I have a cab drive me to USC, and I feel like an adult as I pay the cabbie instead of like a sneaky freeloader on a campus bus. On the upper floor of a USC parking garage, I find my Suburban. The garage is almost completely empty, and my boots click on the cement. It’s a lonely place, and I cross my fingers that the Suburban will start after sitting for a month. It does, and I arrive at Carl and Irene’s house early in the morning of my first day of classes. In my carry-on is a fresh supply of blood thinners, a new cell phone, a new briefcase, and a new pair of swimming goggles.

  I

  ’m not making any major films this semester. I’m going to focus on course work and fulfilling required classes. Many of my 508 classmates are crewing on fiction films or documentaries, but a handful of us are spending the semester focusing on specialized areas of filmmaking. This semester, for me, is all about focusing on writing and cinematography.

  When I get back to USC, construction crews are digging a giant hole, the site of an upgraded film school building. We students had earlier seen a mock-up of the new facility, and none of us paid much attention to it. But the growing hole in the ground gives us an indication of how big the structure will be.

  The building is being funded by George Lucas, who donated a cool $175 million. The gift from Lucas is the biggest ever to any film school anywhere. It’s also the largest donation to USC in its history. Industry heavyweights such as 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., and The Walt Disney Company kicked in another $50 million.

  The interior of the new building will total a hundred and thirty seven thousand square feet, or more than twice the space of two football fields, end zones included. Judging by the scale model on display, it will have a Mediterranean vibe and a grand entryway.

  Lucas later tells The New York Times: “The only way you are going to get respect on a college campus, or a university campus, is to build something that is important … Schools and universities mainly understand money.”

  The new facility looks like it will be stunningly different from our current building, which is an ugly, cramped, and abysmally designed structure less than a third the size.

  Our space is woefully overcrowded. Counting all majors and specialties, graduate and undergraduate, there are more than fifteen hundred film students at USC. As a result, many of my classes are held at a distance from the film school proper. I have classes in the school’s education department building, in a general classroom building, in the Norris Theater, in the Zemeckis building. Before the new construction got under way, I’d never paid much attention to the fact that the USC School of Cinematic Arts spills over into the surrounding USC campus like a well-fed amoeba.

  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.