There's so much to cover, I really don't want, (or mean), to spend so much time on my college years. The problem is, this is where so much happened for me. I've already skipped a few things, one regretably so. Now I will back track for a small second to discuss.
I was a grip on a professional shoot of a short film called "Two Soldiers". Small as the movie was, it was a new and real experience. (And it later went on to win an Academy Award!) I learned three things:
1. How film shoots in 'the real world' differed from film school movies...
2. How similar film shoots in 'the real world' and film school movies are...
3. and I hated being on set.
The third, I assume, is the most important. Despite the fact that all the movies I had a hand in were pretty small, I felt like I had a pretty good idea of what being on a crew meant. The negative being: long hours, tons of hurry up and wait, and no immediate gratification. The positive: being in the middle of the process is pretty exciting, bonding with the cast and crew, and being able to be outside; traveling to various, sometimes new and exciting, locations.
The positives are great. They are. But for me, the enjoyment of the actual work just wasn't there. I had decided to make a living in this field, or at least try, so I needed to earn it.
So, catching up to the previous post, I was going to try for the editing disipline. I'm not deluted...and I'll tell you the same thing I told my friends who were stressed and anxious about the outcome of Sophomore Slaughter. It does not say "Editing and Sound', "Directing", etc on our degrees. In fact, it says Bachelor of Fine Arts. Only once does it even mention "filmmaking" on the piece of paper, and that is under our Dean's signature: "School of Filmmaking Dean". While Sophomore Slaughter did determine how we would spend the next two years, beyond that, it was up to us. The three most important things you get from film school does not come from what major you are in. Those three things? Your first success, your first failure, and contacts!
Having said that, both to you and them, I was beyond anxious. I just had to get into the Editing discipline! If I could only get myself to listen to my own advice.
Well, as the envelopes started to be put into boxes, faces were solemn, respectful. Well for the most part anyway.
The time came to open my envelope. I waited. Maybe because I knew what was in the envelope. Maybe I knew; I didn't need to look. Or maybe it was because the second I unfolded that flap, I would know. Maybe I did it because I'm sort of a tame masochist. But I think I knew. For all that I've been talking about my self-confidence problems, I was pretty sure that I was in. A year of people telling you that you were "the best editor in the class" will really help. You begin to believe it. And maybe it was true, maybe it wasn't, but it made me more self-assured. On the outside, I would wave off the remarks. Inside, a small bubble of less-than-humble thoughts were a brewing.
The anti-climatic part of this is: I got in. I was accepted into the editing discipline. I opened the envelope and it was there, a letter inviting me into the future, if you will. I was doing something right. And things were going great.
I went into one of my editing professors office to thank him, and we ended up having an interesting discussion. The highlight? He told me that within ten years, I would win an Academy Award. My mom had a field day with that one. I think she sent out cards to all of our relatives boasting, "My daughter is going to win an Academy Award in ten years! P.S. She's taking me so don't even ask!"
This blog would be really boring if it was all smooth sailing. I assure you, it's not. But at this moment, I was on top of the world. I had been invited to being one of ten editors in our school, then the Academy Award comment, and I was about to spend the summer making my first feature length movie. Damn. Times were good!
Well, happy-happy ship coasts on. For the summer at least. We made this movie with a crew of four to five people. Doing it guerilla style, very few lights, flying by the seat of our pants. I lived out of my car. We spent two weeks in Florida. We worked six day weeks, shooting around 12 hours a day. As the sound team, I was both the mixer and boom operator. I was carrying around two HUGE tackle boxes filled with equipment and cables and batteries. The cord for the microphone weighed like twenty pounds, and as I had to move with the actors, it rested over my shoulder in the 90 degree heat. I was holding the boom over my head for the majority of the day. Exhausting. I remember being tired, I remember being hot, sore, and sometimes, in pain. But I don't remember being miserable. It was the most fun. I have never felt closer to a group of people. We saw it all. In Florida, we were all living together and stealing each other's sheets and griping about who drank the last of the milk. But we were all having a blast. It was "Tell Everyone" for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week all summer. On our day off, we'd talk about the next week. We'd sit around and drink beer and eat yummy food and talk about life and school and the future and the movie. We knew it wasn't going to be a phenomenon, but dammit, it was going to be good. We all put everything we had into making it the best we could. And we were doing it. That's what kept spirits up. We knew we weren't going to make any money, but we were putting ourselves in the game. At twenty, we were making a feature length movie. Definitely not unheard of, by any means, but to us, to me, it was something to be very proud of.
It ended and I jumped in the editing process with the same gusto. For all the things you can say about post-production, talking about the actual cut and splice process is rather boring. So I'll spare you the details of cutting, but Brett, (the director and producer and actor and everything else), and I, found a great rhythm and worked so well together. I knew what he was thinking before he told me. He knew what I was thinking before I told him. It was the smoothest edit I've ever been a part of. It went too well. When it was all over, I was left feeling like there wasn't anything I couldn't do.
That's how I remember my summer after Sophomore year.
Here's a little treat I cut together after the editing was all done. The most narcissistic thing I've ever done. We shot on video so we ran the camera when we were getting room tone or wild sound/lines. Needless to say, I made a lot of the shots so I could easily recognize where the sound was. Hence, I bring forth this video. It probably represents my, (albeit short-lived), "I love this and I'm awesome" attitude best. Enjoy...well...me.
Chapter Eight: Please Tell Me I Didn't Peak as a Sophomore in College!
If you could say that I've ever had "my year" in editing, it would definitley be my sophomore year in college. Freshman year was all about learning who you'd like to work with, who sleeps on sets and who would bust their ass to meet a deadline. It was all about learning to balance a social life with the hard work that comes along with making a movie. Well over the summer I landed an internship at a local news station. This will later come into play, but for now I'll just say that being part of live evening news was one of the most exhilarating things ever! I was seriously drawn to the concept of live television, the excitement during the broadcast, and when it was over, it was over. No first cuts, second cuts, fine cuts, final cuts, etc etc etc. Because it was a smaller station, I got a lot of responsibility pretty quickly. I was working the cameras during the broadcast, being directed on how to frame the reporters by a little headpiece I was wearing, and sometimes I'd even get to do the chyron, which is a fancy way to say, type up people's names and when they were on screen, put their name up. So I really liked live television but brushed it aside, and focused on the fact that I was in film school.
So back at school after the summer, there was a busy year in front of me. Sophomore year was when it started to get nitty gritty. This year was really hard. Our class had gotten really close freshman year. We all clicked. It was unusal, but almost all of us got along. And then came the pressure. Immediately sophomore year, we all had to announce our intended disciplines. It was like the Civil War. Brother against brother, sister against sister. Everyone's heads were filled with predictions of who would get what, who would have to leave, and sometimes, who was a shoe-in. Of course, the most intense competition was in the directing discipline, so needless to say, I was relieved about that. I've already discussed how much I hate competition. But the editing discipline was also very competitive. I think there was about 12 first choices, but nearly everyone had chosen editing as a second choice. It was scary, but for the first time in a long time, I almost felt confident in what I was doing.
This chapter is titled, "Please Tell Me I Didn't Peak as a Sophomore" for good reason. I actually need someone assure me I didn't peak as a sophomore! Sophomore year, I got really lucky. Well, it started out a little rough, the movie I "wrote and directed" was the Aimee Mann featured cafe heartbeat piece that I mentioned earlier. Oh, that one wasn't so great. The movie I edited fall term was banned from the screening due to not-paperwork-approved graphic titles done by a graphic extroadaire in our class. Yeah. But then winter term came around. We had been put into groups earlier in the year to do productions with in the fall and winter terms. I loved the group I had been put into. There was one editor, (me), one cinematographer, (a cameraman extroadiare), and then 3 director wannabes. The competition there, was enough entertainment for me. All three were very good directors, but sometimes they'd get into little arguements that had me reaching for the popcorn. Nonetheless, the point of all this is that I was the only editor. I think this was fantastic for me because not only did I get to edit the documentary, (which I'll explain in a second), I got to edit nearly everything we did as a group. This gave me the opportunity to work with three very promising, (aka shoe-ins to the directing department), directors. Well, all the groups had to do a documentary winter term. It was going to be the first thing we shot on film, it was going to be without sync sound, and our group's was going to be cut by me. It was called "Strike", and was appropriatelty a simple piece that followed the bowling ball and pins through a "stirke". Well the shoot went great, but we opted to use sound effects and music to fill the sound track. I think I recorded a little bit of stuff, (because being the editor of the group also meant I was the sound mixer/boom op of the group), but mainly it was going to have to be custom recorded. I tried with sound effects, but nothing really did justice to the piece. So I went out, humorously I might add, in this bowling alley, mixing the levels, holding the boom mic, and trying to bowl at the same time. I must have looked pathetic because someone that worked there came over to help me by rolling a few balls. I also got to go "behind the scenes" and record all these little gadgets and gears. It was pretty awesome actually.
When I went back and listened, a lot of the machanical sounds were really flat and uninteresting, so I took a couple of sounds that I had picked up from the machine and looped it as a gear head moving up and down. For the thing that set the pins down, the sound was excellent, but when it came back up, nothing, so I reversed it. I went through the entire 5 minute documentary doing this to every second of the film, putting in sounds for every pin, every footstep, and most importantly, every single machanical operation that we filmed. Well, needless to say, it ended up sounding great. And got me a lot of attention. It was the only documentary where sound played such a big role. And it was all custom designed. When I talked to one of the sound instructors on how I did it, he was just grinning so proudly and my own pride began to grow. I got so many complements on that movie, and it caused people to start rumblings of me being a "shoe-in"! I had never been a shoe-in for anything! And people I didn't know knew my name. That was one of the most unexpected things. People would come up to me and be like, "You're Betsy, right?" Well, that's when my confidence began to grow. To this day, that little documentary is one of my favorite things I've ever done. If it weren't for the unlicsenced DJ Shadow song we used, I'd have that puppy in festivals or something. I love it. (Obviously!)
Spring term. Coming off of the high that I had gotten from "Strike", I found that I was getting lots of requests to edit people's movies. I ended up going with a comedy piece that was going to be very dependent the editing. Lots of conversations, not a lot of action, most of the comedy being played on reactions, I was in! I knew the director was good, his reputation was floating around as well, and he was a friend of mine. I went into the project with a little pressure of expectations, but I faced it head on, using the confidence I had gotten over the months before. We spent a lot of discussing the editing in pre-production, and it was the first time I really felt like I was truely part of the development and pre-production process as an editor. When we finally got to the editing room, all of our preparation started to pay off. We had planned things like transitions, making my job in the editing room fairly easy. Interesting transitions, like movement on side A of a cut matches movement on side B, are small little touches that can really help. On top of this, there was also a three minute (or so) arguement scene between eight people. Each and every character was covered. Needless to say, with all the snappy dialogue, hilarious reactions, and the subtle rising tension throughtout the scene, it was a tough scene to cut. It was actually the first scene I cut on the movie. (That's what I try to do: approach what I believe is going to be the hardest scene to cut and cut that first. It helps me because I'm starting fresh on the piece and am not completely tired of the characters, can't recite all the lines, and don't want to "never see this movie again" yet. Perspective I guess.) Well, that scene went really good. I set a pace and kept reactions plentiful. Reactions make or break comedy and it ended up really working.
Once again, that dialogue scene got me attention and the "shoe-in" remarks came in full force. I couldn't stop grinning. I had actually found something that I was good at. After trying to play at least 8 musical instruments, attempting numerous sports, and even trying my hand at painting, I had found something that not only I enjoyed, but I was actually being recognized for my work.
But all my hard work came at a price. Second year is the most trying year for the students. We had so much going on, tons to juggle, and with the added pressure of trying to prove yourself to the faculty of your chosen discipline, it wasn't long before I had found myself at a breaking point. We lost one of out classmates that year. The emotional blow for all of us was hard. Ten of us, or so, made the car trip to Ohio to attend her services. There, we were greeted with more students, and even a few faculty members. It was a hard time. Our class seemed to unite in a completely new way, unfortunately, there's really nothing like a tragedy to bond people. A few weeks later, my grandmother, who I was very close to, also passed away. With the stress and the emotional turmoil, I nearly threw in the towel.
I remember one night just being exhausted and talking with someone from home, (and out of the little bubble that was film school), and just being completely tired and exhausted, wanting to quit and go home. Wanting to do something else, something that would allow me to have some free time, something that would allow me to sleep. Since I was usually working on "Aftermath...", (aka piece with transitions and conversation), until very early in the morning, I had picked up a bad habit. On the drive home, so I didn't fall asleep at the wheel (which would be bad), and to (incorectly) cope with all the stress, I had begun smoking. It started out, one or two on the drive home, but I quickly found some sort of solace in smoking, and picked up the habit. You know, I've made some mistakes in my life, but starting smoking was one of the biggest.
I've always believed life works on this scale. No matter how great you are feeling about one thing, there is something else to balance it out. While I was flying high with my new-found reputation, I was always exhausted and stressed, me and one of my best friends had a falling out of epic proportions, (that still, to this day, has yet to really be mended), and, to be quite frank, people just kept on dying.
I dealt. Once the movie was done, I collasped in exhaustion, but for all my hard work, had this wonderful movie to show. And I wanted to do it all, (well almost all), over again. That's the cycle, you know? A movie will push you to your breaking point, but you get it done, and it seems all worth it. I believe it's called passion. Well, I was ready to go again, which was a good thing as it turned out. Brett, one of the directors in my documentary group, was doing a feature length movie over the summer. He asked me to edit it. Not only was I completely thrilled to take part in an extracurricular movie, he had asked me, me(!), to edit it. I told him yes, and agreed also to do sound on the movie that would film around Winston-Salem, and Florida. To have a feature under my belt at twenty was an amazing opportunity.
But before the summer, I had one more hurdle to jump, the infamous Sophomore Slaughter. Technically, I wasn't coming back next year yet. And as confident as I felt about my reputation with the faculty, there was no way to really know what would happen in those portfolio reviews. Again, the nervousness rose.
My freshman year, I worked on my first student film set. It was for a fourth year thesis project. As most of the freshman, I was a "grip". In film school, a grip also seconds as a PA, a Gofer, and even an electrician. I was setting up lights and standing in the streets with an orange vest telling cars when they could go and when they had to stop. If someone needed something, they'd yell it out and I, (and ten other anxious freshman) would run to the trucks or staging area and retrieve said items. It was all pretty exciting but tiring nonetheless. The days were twelve hours and the shoots were Fridays through Monday. (Classes being held Tuesday-Thursday usually. An exhausting schedule that I never really got used to.) Working on set didn't leave much time for much of anything else. Including being fasinated. It all just started happening, me being in the middle of a film shoot. Me being involved. They were student movies, but movies nonetheless.
On one particular day, one of the members of the camera team yelled, (very distressed, I must add), that he needed a "C-stop" immediately. Now we had taken all these classes learning all the terminology of a film set, (for instance a clothes pin is called a C-47). One guy that I had befriend immediately made a mad dash to the truck. I, being overly anxious and somewhat scared by camera guy's tone of voice, went after him to help. There was no time to ask questions. It needed to be done; we were on a tight schedule! In the truck our conversion went something like this:
"What the hell is a C-stop?"
"I don't know. A light? A stand?"
"I think I've seen one before!"
(From the set) "Come on guys! We need a C-stop immediately!"
"Okay we're coming!"
"Does he mean F-stop?"
"An F-stop isn't tangible!"
"Okay so an F-stop deals with the camera and light entering the lens, so maybe a C-stop is a tangible F-stop!"
I think you get the idea. We had been joined by several other freshman, searching high and low in the truck for something that we had no idea what it looked like. I guess we thought when we saw a C-stop, we'd know. Finally defeated, we decided we'd have to swallow our pride and go ask someone with more experience just what a C-stop was.
When we left the truck, heads hung in shame, we heard uproarious laughter. Of course. An initiation prank. What could we do but laugh along?
We're told it's a tradition and who are we to argue with tradition? I had never felt more like a freshman before in my life. But it showed us to not be afraid to ask questions, and showed our wounded pride that no matter how well we did in "Film Production 101", there was still a lot to learn.
When that movie wrapped, I found I had made twenty-five new friends. The people that I had been scared of on set, ended up being pretty nice people. After that movie, I started being asked to work on sets and people would say hello to me in the halls. It was a great feeling, being accepted into this society of people. In such a small school, everyone was very close and how cool that I was starting to feel a part of that. It seems so cheesy now, but that first "acceptance" of sorts just felt really great.
Once I got through the initiation process: learning about sets, when to kick back and relax and when to stay out of people's way, when to joke, and the chain of command, I started to feel more comfortable on the sets. But I had something in the back of my mind that wouldn't go away. Post-production. I don't know why I was drawn to it. Maybe it was that computers interested me, or maybe it was the process itself, but that's where I decided I really wanted to be. I knew that at the end of our sophomore year, disciplines were decided. The process was basically you stating your top three choices of disciplines, (the choices being: editing, directing, screenwriting, producing, or cinematography), and then presenting your case in front of the faculty. After the reviews, on a given day, called "sophomore slaughter" by those who knew it well, you get an envelope in your school mailbox inviting you into one discipline. You either accepted the invitation or left the school. With this knowledge, I decided very early on to make it be known that I would like to be in editing. I went to the four editing instructors and introduced myself. I told them my intentions and asked what I could do in the next two years that would help my chances. They all pretty much said the same thing. Just get to know the older editors and try to help out on some of their projects. So that's what I did. I decided that if it was all or nothing, I was going to do everything in my power to try and get that "all". I helped some seniors out with their projects, doing little things like sound effects, or walking foley(!). I made a few friends and started helping out on set too. In our school, it was pretty common for future editors to work in the sound department. So that's where I found myself a lot of the time. I even started being typecast as an "editor". Hey, I like that title.
Film school. Yuck. Even I have a negative reaction when someone tells me they went to film school. Immediately you assume pretension and an ego that couldn't fit through a regulation doorway. And I'll be honest, sometimes film school does ingrain a slight "untouchable" quality in its victims. I'd like to believe I was pretty grounded while attending school, but the truth is, I probably was a snotty little ass, just like all those snotty little asses now that I hear boasting and bragging about their student film. You get held in such high regard for so long, friends brag about their friend who is in "the movie biz", uncles squeeze cheeks and inappropriately pat your ass saying things like, "I can't wait to see you up on the big screen," no matter how many times you try to tell them in your haughtiest tone, that you aren't an actor. As if! And you make a movie, and no one has the balls to say they don't get it or the acting is bad and the story is, well, not a story. Because when you're in the middle of it all, it's hard to step back and be like, "What would people who I've never met think? What would they enjoy?" But instead, you're in this bubble, and everything seems genius because you're doing it. It's a bunch of kids who idealize movies, making them. But let's be honest, most student films suck. Stories that are too big for their own good, dialogue that sounds so contrived you want to slit your wrists. Of course there are exceptions. One of the movies I made is not an exception though. I set myself firmly in this category of "most student films suck". Imagine a story where this girl sits in a cafe counting her pulse because she's sure she's going to die, and Aimee Mann's "Save Me" is playing in the background as her and the boy who came to her rescue sits having a conversation for ages about nothing, and now I wish I were dead. Jesus, who let me do that?
I hate film school. But I love it for all the same reasons. Because you are doing all these horrible movies and if anyone else sees them, they'll probably cry at the mere mention of an encore, but everyone that worked on it, holds this pride that is incomprehensible. You watched it form and it now is some sort of narrative, that may be horrendous in its own right, but you can't even see it because when the lights are turned off and that first credit comes on the screen, your stomach is doing all these things you've only read about. And you watch as this thing comes to life, and people laugh or pretend to be moved, and when its over people clap. And I swear, that first clap makes you thirsty. You want to film them clapping and cut it together with some music that you heard about from your friend who knows all this underground music that you think no one else is listening to, and put it on the screen just so you can maybe relive that moment. Everytime I did a movie in school, I swore that it was my last. You get to a point where the movie becomes your life and you hate it and dread ever having to watch it again, and then you hear that clap. It's all over and you want to do it again. That's why I love film school. Because you get that clap. You get to experience having an audience, and be assured, after that screening someone will come up to you and tell you how it touched them and you'll feel like you've done Ecstasy. And then you feel untouchable and when people ask you where you go to school, you'll say a little too proudly, "I'm a film student". Your head gets in the clouds and you forget your place. You may be the big fish in the small pond, but in the big pond? You are microscopic, no matter how amazing your thesis was. That's where some film students go astray. I've heard this called "dangerously deluded" as this attitude can cost you jobs, contacts, and money! This is where the line between pros and cons of film school gets blurry. Some graduates think, "Hey I've directed movies at film school! Why do I have to be a PA?!?!"
You know, there's so much more to say about film school. I fully intend to go more in depth in the next chapter, but I wanted to get that out. For now, I'll try and leave a little advice for anyone that is considering film school. Look at your life. Look at yourself. Are you ready to go out into the business? It's really easy to say yes here, but consider this: It's tough. It's harder than I ever expected. I have wanted to give up so much, but luckily for me, I had a lot of those first, "Holy shit, this is hard and I should be a banker" moments while I was in film school. Someone was always there to talk me down from the metaphorical ledge. Another important thing to think about, the key thing in this business is who you know. You can scoff and assure yourself that you are not in need of contacts, and you could be right. Hell you could take your money you would spend your tuition and make a movie, but in film school you are allowed to fail. You make all these horrible movies and bond with these people, (because there is nothing like a bond that comes from being on a film crew), and you are on top of the world. And then you graduate, and you hit rock bottom. It's almost perfect that way. (It's funny but you never really hear anyone bragging about being a film school graduate.) Because when you hit bottom, you have to go up. You have to get your shit together and do something with your life. But you aren't alone. You have all these wonderful people you've met experiencing the same thing. And when you start going up, you know what its like to fail, and you can still taste the success you felt in school, and you want that again. You start on a clean slate, and you do what you have to do. It's not the reel that you get, or the film school name on your resume that matters, its failing and then succeeding, and then failing again. It's about learning to deal with the ups and downs and possibly most important, learning about yourself and where you fit in the process. (You'd be surprised at how many people who came to film school positive that they wanted to be directors, only to find that they enjoyed cinematography, editing, or even producing a lot better.) The technical aspects, lingo, cinematic styles, all that can be learned by jumping in head first. You can learn all that by being a PA on the "indie" movie shooting in the mall. But while there's nothing like that first clap, there's also nothing like that first failure. Just ask yourself where you want to be when you fail? That's the question.
At this point in my life, I was moving away from home for the first time. All of my comfort-zones were four hours away and many of my friends were so busy starting their new lives that sometimes a phone call just had to be enough. None of this is necessarily new to a college freshman, but no matter how common it is, it doesn't retract from what a life-altering year that first year is. For me, for everyone. One of the hardest and scariest moments, is when you realize family and friends are just a support system. Your life, your decisions, your destiny, (for a lack of better word), is all your own. I remember being fascinated at not having to ask permission to go out late at night and fearing not waking up on time, as my mother was always around to wake me for school or whatever other activity I may have had going on. It was scary and new, but I was doing something different. It felt good to know what path I was going down, even if I was a little anxious. In high school, I had always been known as the "film kid". Now I was going to school with a hundred "film kids". It was actually very interesting to hear the same story come from every person. "I did the morning news." "Everyone asked my opinion on movies." "I played with a camera a lot." It was nice to have tons of people around that thought the same way as you. As cliche as it sounds, we were all weird. Art school has that reputation for a reason.
Walking down Main Street, the affectionate nickname for the main strip through the film school, I was excited to learn there was a Krispy Kreme and a Wachovia. ("A bank switch may be in order," was one of my first thoughts. "Danger! Danger! Where's the gym?" was my immediate second.) There were fancy street lights and everything just seemed, surreal. On the opposite side of the street was the backs of the sound stages, and what appeared to be a very shallow, and empty, swimming pool. Surely I was dreaming, but I was starting to feel the tiny surges of excitement in my stomach. It was really happening.
I soon found out that the sterile and plastic looking scenery on main street was an illusion. The Krispy Kreme, the Wachovia, the streetlights, and even the pool, that would later be known as the reflecting pool, was all in place for potential use for a movie. And I realized something that had been floating around my head since the job shadow, that I had signed into one of the most unreal worlds you could imagine. Where nothing is real and everything is just an illusion. The cardboard separating the Wachovia painted window and my professor's office made that painfully clear. And I started to wonder if it was the illusion I was after all along. Through the camera, you see what "they" want you to see. Once the street was stripped bare, would I still feel that excitement? This great package that I was getting, was it just as fake as the plastic street lamps? The excitement that I once felt, started slowly turning into dread, when in the first all-school meeting it was announced, "Many of you will leave before your first year is over. Statistically, your class of 85 will be 50 by the time you enter your third year." My dry mouth and racing mind pondered the water fountain, wondering if water would come out of it at all.
Of course, it was all metaphorical for me. In such an industry that I had always wanted to be accepted into, (always yearning to be on the other side of those barriers), I guess I was just scared that the reality would never live up to the dream. The possibility that my interest was only peaked due to the mysterious nature of the business was what I was most afraid of. It seems silly now, but my self-doubt ran deep. I am the type of person who likes to know what I will be doing tomorrow. I am a notorious "what-if"er. I just couldn't stop thinking that I had made a mistake by trying to enter this business.
I know, I know, "get a little self-confidence woman!" But it's scary. It's scary to "have it all figured out" or at least think you do. Because once you start down on that path, it's hard to turn around. There's no real room for, "Oops" and "Umm, I think I'm switching majors". As a person who loves to have choices, what the hell was I doing at film school?
College was a given for me. I had never even considered not attending. Blame my parents, but it was so deeply ingrained in me, I never really gave myself any other choice. I lived in a small town, riddled with stories of people who never made it out. I knew I had to leave, and I wasn't ready to go out on my own just yet. I utilized my guidance counselor to find what schools around North Carolina had majors in Film. I look back and wonder now why I chose to limit myself to NC. There are so many great schools out there, but for some reason I couldn't come to terms with leaving my home state. I was very prone to becoming homesick, and to my own discredit, really couldn't see beyond the borders. At that time, I knew that Los Angeles was in my future, but it seemed like a far-off place I would go after college. Me looking into the future resembled someone looking into another life really. But in NC, I got lucky.
I applied to four NC schools. Some with film studies programs, and one, an arts conservatory with a major in filmmaking called, North Carolina School of the Arts. I knew of this school for various reasons. My cousin had gone for dance, and I had spent a summer there doing one of their Summer Session programs. It was this school that would allow you to actually learn the technical aspects of filmmaking and give you a chance to actually make movies. It seemed like the place for me if I decided to go the filmmaking route. But I still wasn't sure. I secretly hoped that maybe my choices would be narrowed down by process of elimination.
I applied and waited. And waited. It was a stressful time as my friends started to be accepted to their schools of choice. And as fate would have it, my answers started rolling in as well. Letters of acceptance from all schools except NCSA. Cruel fate. I had almost completely lost hope, telling myself that it was for the best. And then I get a letter informing me of an interview at NCSA. An interview. I was a mess of nerves. How on earth could someone who knew next to nothing about movies convince a panel of professors that I belonged at their school. I pictured myself in a conference room of glaring men, (all closely resembling the man from my job shadow experience), rolling their eyes at my "ambition" and lack of knowledge of the field. How could I describe my excitement and feelings without sounding like a bumbling fool? And I didn't have dyed hair or tattoos or anything else that I have convinced myself was a necessity of someone who went to an art school. Today I find that irrational and very narrow minded, but to me then, it was legitimate fear I had. My lack of body art would make me stand out like a sore thumb, just screaming, "I don't belong here!"
The date rolled around and I found myself in the car with my mother driving to Winston-Salem, NC. I think I fidgeted the entire way, reading over copies of my application and essays I had sent in months earlier. Coming up with answers to questions that I could potentially be asked like, "Do you want to devote your life to this? How do you know?" or "What makes you stand out as an applicant to film school? What have you done to prepare for entering this world?" I tortured myself for four hours, too nervous to listen to music and too unsure of myself to ever be satisfied with my simulated answers.
But time doesn't stop for preparation. At a certain point, you are either ready or you're not. The fact that in my mind, so much was riding on this interview, that whether or not I was accepted to this school was going to determine my future, made things ten times harder for myself. It was that frame of mind made it impossible for me to ever feel prepared. It was a bed that I had made for myself. One that I was forced to lie in.
It is something that now I look back on and nearly laugh at my former self. I had basically been putting my entire future into one acceptance or denial. Theoretically, I was going to let one misstep discourage me from going after something that I really wanted. It's something I later learned was fatal in this industry, or any industry for that matter. You are going to fail from time to time. And you can't let failure discourage you. You use that experience to learn and grow and develop.
In the interview, I stuttered and was nervous and am pretty sure I called the man "ma'am". But they were very nice, and didn't seem completely astounded when I didn't start to recite all of Spielberg's films, alphabetically and by year. (Actually they seemed relieved.) I told them about my job shadow and watching film crews downtown. I think I even said something cheesy like, "I belong here". Of course the, "even though I don't have dyed hair or tattoos," was implied.
Nonetheless, I cried after the interview. I cried because of the relief I felt that it was over, and I cried because as nice as they were, I thought I had blew it in all my stuttering and movie unbuffness. I think I probably cried because I thought that I was never going to be a part of "it". That the dream was just that: a dream.
After all this talk of failure and discouragement, I think its important to note that I was later accepted. I can not express my relief enough. I had been in such a state of anxiety that I sincerely believe that if I had not been accepted, I would have thrown all my determination and hopes for the future away. Today, I probably would be a teacher or worse, an architect working at my dad's firm.
Now this is the part of the story where I made a choice that would forever change my life. As I was accepted, after all that, I'm sure you think it is clear what my choice would be. But it wasn't. I was beyond relieved that it was an option, and as strongly as I was leaning in that direction, I still needed that assurance that this is what I really wanted to do. Going to this college meant it was going to be real. I wouldn't be able to switch majors, I would graduate with an inflexible degree in filmmaking. I think this insecurity probably came from the adults around me being mystified that an eighteen year old already knew what they wanted to do for a living. None of my friends knew for sure. How could I?
Eventually, I made my decision. I got a hold of myself and remembered how I felt that day that I was "on the inside" at my job shadow. I realized that as old as I felt, at eighteen I was still very young and this opportunity probably wouldn't come around again. I gathered all my courage and self-esteem, and checked the box that said "Yes, I will be attending NCSA".
As I hope that this will one day be able to help someone who wants to get into film, I feel like it is important for me to point out once again that film school is not required. For me, I thought it was my ticket in. While it was one of the single greatest experiences of my life, when it comes down to it, film school is not a ticket in. It can certainly help, as I will later get into, but by no means is it the definitive way to get to the other side of those barriers.
