NSI?

Has anyone been to the NSI (National Screen Institute)? Thoughts / reactions / critiques?

(Extended discussion in the comments below.)

Piled Higher and Deeper

I'm a 30 year-old that has been thinking about breaking into the TV and movie screenwriting biz for 5 years. Finally, I'm ready to do something about it.

I'm about a year away from completing a PhD in environmental marketing (i know, i wonder what that means sometimes too). I've started wrting TV specs, original features, SNL sketches etc. on the side. I'm debating whether or not to finish my PhD and just move forward.

Q1: Would a PhD be helpful AT ALL as I attempt to break into the business? (in terms of differentiating myself from others)

No. No one cares if you have a degree or not. Having an interesting background is always good -- many of the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA writers have served in the military. But degrees? Nah.

Q2: I've been looking at the one year writing program at Vancouver Film School. Any comments about their program?

I don't know much about the program, though readers, feel free to comment blelow. But I don't think you need a writing program to write. As I've written repeatedly, you'll learn far, far, far more of what you need to know by getting an assistant job in an agency in LA than you ever will in film school. And you can write in your spare time, fired up by what you're living at work. The only film or TV program I think really jumps you ahead faster than getting an actual job in the biz is the CFC, and that's only relevant to Canadians who want to work in Canada.

Younglings

Q. I'm 19, living in England, studying English at University. The plan is to finish, then do a masters of some sort in screenwriting. From there, I'd LIKE to move to the lovely USA and start my screenwriting career. So, by that time I wouldn't be that young, but my question is basically - do agents and producers etc like the young folk? Do they see them as potential talent that they can shape to their liking? Or do they see them as inexperienced, with their heads in the clouds?

As I've mentioned a few times on this blog, I don't think anyone needs a masters in screenwriting, unless their goal is to teach screenwriting at a university. Working as an assistant at an agency for a year will teach you far, far more, and you'll actually get paid for it. (Underpaid, but that's better than paying for it!) I would urge anyone thinking about getting a degree to spend eighteen months in the biz. If you still think you need that degree (you won't), then you'll make much better use of your time in school, because you'll know exactly what you need to learn, instead of flailing around like the rest of the younglings.

I don't think Hollywood is that enamored of the young. There was that 30-year-old woman who pretended to be 19 and got a job on FELICITY. But she got hired because she had the skills of a 30-year-old writer, AND people thought she was nineteen. If people thought I was 22, they'd look at my writing and conclude I must be some kind of geeeenius. If you're nineteen with the skill set of your average nineteen-year-old, no one's going to cut you slack because you're appallingly young.

it's all about the writing. And the people skills. Both of which take time to craft and build.

Some people do start out young. Once you investigate their biography a bit, you discover that their parents are in the biz. They may be staffing their first show at 21. But they have been writing screenplays since they were 11.

There is also something to be said for going out and actually living. Some screenwriters have been lawyers. Some have been criminals. I knew a guy who'd been a cop. Do you think that gave him an edge writing LAW & ORDER? Having life experience enables you to write from real life, rather than stealing moments you saw on TV -- concocted stories which everyone else saw, too.

If my son were 19 and wanted to be a screenwriter, I would suggest he travel around the world for a year. I would suggest he get a job with the Peace Corps in Southeast Asia. I would suggest he start a company. I would suggest he join a political campaign.

I spent 3 years and change getting an MFA in filmmaking at UCLA, one of the top five film programs on the continent. (USC, AFI, NYU and the CFC if you're Canadian.) I learned more about lighting working as an apprentice electrician on two features. I learned more about screenwriting from being a producer's assistant, reading scripts. I got my first permanent showbiz job because of my French skills and my computer science degree. The first time my degree proved really, really useful was last year, when I made a short film.

To be a lawyer, you need to go to professional school. Going to school for screenwriting is a way to ease into the business. It is much less scary than trying to get a job in the biz, or outside of the biz, and just writing. But if you can't get yourself going without being assigned the work, you need to learn to self-motivate.

Come to LA by all means. But forget the degree. Get a job! You can cover up that crack in the wall with art.

Canadian N00b Questions

Q. I have been studying/writing screenplays on my own for close to ten years now, and I'm returning to Canada after a stint teaching English overseas. What I want to know is, do I need to live in Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver to be "in the industry?" How close-knit is the Canadian screenwriting community?

I'm considering taking a scriptwriting course at a college in Ottawa. Am I going to be removing myself from the industry and the jobs by living there? The main reason I'm thinking about going to school is to build relationships and network, but if I'm completely cut off from everyone else geographically, it won't do me a whole lot of good.

I know that if you're writing for the U.S. market you pretty much have to be in L.A., but is there a Canadian equivalent?

Toronto is far and away the center of anglo showbiz in Canada, as Montreal is the hub of francophone showbiz. The networks are guilds are all Toronto-based. At least a plurality of Canadian shows are staffed and cast out of Toronto. There is a good deal of production in Vancouver, and to a lesser extent Montreal, but many of those shows originate in Toronto. 18 TO LIFE, SOPHIE and DAD'S IN THE ATTIC are all Montreal productions with Toronto prodcos; BLOOD TIES, which shot in Vancouver, was largely a Toronto creation as well. (Weirdly, they shot Vancouver for Toronto, which seems a huge waste of production value.)

I live in Montreal, because it's the best city in the world to live in. But I make a point of visiting Toronto regularly. Maybe every 6-8 weeks. My pay cable series is set up with a Toronto production company. Montreal producers are, collectively, terrible at reading people's material.

I also have feature writing friends who live here, who work with producers in LA, New York, England, even Mongolia. But their agents are in Toronto or LA, or they have networks of producers who know and love and think of them.

In Canada there is support for regional production, which means that an Edmonton-based writer will occasionally get a gig because he's the best available Alberta writer. But I wouldn't advise anyone to stay in Edmonton and wait for that to happen. [UPDATE: Though, as DMc points out in the comments, I would recommend that person make friends with any production companies active in Edmonton, and maybe Calgary too, before ditching the Prairies for the Center.]

Anyone who's serious about working in the Canadian biz should make it a priority to go to the Canadian Film Centre. A shockingly high percentage of working screenwriters and development execs and network execs are alumni of the Prime Time Television Program or the Film Resident Program. They're both only six months long.

MFA Programs Are...

Kristen Havens posts MFA Programs Are Bull****, and asks, "If you've been rejected from an MFA program for writing, ask yourself, "What would that degree have bought me, really." She hastens to specify that this applies to poetry and fiction programs, not screenwriting programs.

I think it's a good question, though. In fiction and poetry, what an MFA gets you is the ability to teach professionally at institutions that require an MFA for their professors. Other than that, you get teachers' advice on your writing, and admission to the official Poetry Writing Mafia. You may need those if you plan a poetry "career" where you get published in small presses and occasionally win grants and (because poetry doesn't pay) teach.

If you actually plan to be a poet, you don't need a poetry program. You need to write poetry that people who are not themselves poets want to read.

If you actually plan to write fiction, then write fiction. If it's good, someone will publish it. I can't imagine that racking up $40,000 in tuition debt helps you find the time to write. If you need someone breathing down your neck to get anything finished, get married.

I'm not that big on screenwriting programs, either. I think you can learn far more by going to work at a literary agency; and they will pay you for it. They pay bupkis, but at least you don't have to pay them. You'll get a sense of how the industry works, and what it wants, and what it doesn't want. Then you can write at home, and you'll have people to show your work to. My biggest problem with most screenwriting professors is they teach how to write a "good" screenplay, when what you actually need to write is a screenplay that someone wants to pay money for. Those are not the same things, as you know from the first chapter of my first book.

I'm not even that big on MFA filmmaking programs. These do more for you than screenwriting programs, because to make films, you need equipment, and you need friends who are willing to work for free, who love movies, and who know what an f-stop is. Filmmaking is a collaborative medium. While you can shoot your own videos at home, and edit on a Mac, it is much easier to get a crew in film school, and to work on other people's crews, than it is in Fargo.

On the other hand I think most people go to film school too soon, before they know anything. So they make the wrong calling card film (I did) and don't have anyone to show it to once it's made. I think it's better to spend a few years in LA working, and then go to film school. (Also, you'll be more likely to get in, and you'll be eligible for in-state tuition rates at UCLA, rather than the huge out-of-state rates.) My years at film school qualified me to get an assistant job working for a producer; years later, they helped me shoot a pretty good comedy short film. I think I could probably have got an assistant job anyway, you know?

So before you fork out tens of thousands of bucks for an MFA program, ask yourself if you really need to. What are you getting the credential for? No one in the arts cares about your degrees, unless you want to teach. What are you going to learn that you can't learn on your own?

That way, you'll most likely save a whack of dough; and even if you do decide to go to an MFA program, you will know to spend your time in the program focusing on learning those things that you cannot learn outside of one.

Straight from the Horse's ... Mouth

Straight from Ken Levine's blog:

You can now sign up for my two day comedy writing workshop, the Sitcom Room.

It will be held in Los Angeles on July 21-22. For two days you’ll experience what it’s like to actually be in a writing room. I’ll have actors to perform your scene and drive you crazy. I’ll have studio and network notes. Instruction and guidance. Camaraderie and much laughter. When you’re not pulling your hair out by the roots you will be having a helluva time.

For details and sign up information please click on our website Sitcomroom.com

You could learn a lot from Ken Levine. He wrote on M*A*S*H and Cheers.

You know how I'm down on film schooll? This is different. This is a short seminar with a guy who does this for a living.

If I were in LA, I would probably go and take his class.

What are you waiting for?

CFC Deadline

Ivy Oldford at the CFC asks me to remind my Canadian viewers that the deadline for applying to the Prime Time Television Program is May 16.

While I'm not that big on film school in the States, it's different up North. The program is very focused on the real challenges of starting a career writing for television. It's close to an apprenticeship en mass in the industry. Participants get to meet with showbiz vets regularly; they even work developing a series with a showrunner. By the time they're done with the program, they've got specs and pilots and they know lots of people in the business. And, a shockingly high percentage of show people in Canada have gone to the CFC, so you've got a nice old boy network to rely on.

If you're in showbiz up North, you really, really want to go, or have gone, to the CFC.

So if you've got 6 months to spare in order to save yourself five years, send your application in before May 16!

UPDATE:

Q. I was looking into CFC as an alternative to the not-so-common television writing programs at film schools in the states. What do you feel about an American studying abroad and using what is learned back here in the states or getting a start in Canada?

I would feel very good about it, but the CFC doesn't take Yanks... Sorry.

School

Q. I am very interested in the film/tv industry. I do have a desire for writing scripts,producing and directing. Do you have any comment or have heard anything on this school's program; a community college in NC has a two year curriculum in Film &Video Technology, it's an associates degree program in Applied Science. Hands-on instruction taught be industry professionals.

It would be easier for me to comment if I knew the name of the community college. (Guys, please, spend at least as long writing the question as I'm likely to spend answering it, huh?)

Q. Sorry, the college is Cafe Fear Community College, in Wilmington,NC. A few of the major courses are; Intro to film & video,Camera and lighting I & II,grip and electrical I & II,production techniques I & II, 2D and 3D design & animations I and editing I.

Offhand, I don't think that a community college (even in Cafe Fear) is going to teach you anything in two years that you could not learn on your own. I'm not just being a snob; I'm not actually sure that major programs like UCLA or NYU teach you all that much that you couldn't learn on your own. Sure, you get access to equipment, but you can rent a prosumer video camera for a couple hundred bucks for a week, or buy one for a couple thousands; and you can edit on a Mac with Final Cut.

Don't go to a community college to study film, unless of course you just need an AA degree. Write a script. Rent a video camera. Buy a Mac and put Final Cut on it. And shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot.

Set yourself a goal of making one complete under-ten-minute short film every two months. This gives you six months from script to edited film if you edit one film while you're prepping and shooting the next film and you're writing the film after that. (Multitasking like that will help you absorb the lessons, as you sit in the edit bay cursing your idiot director -- you -- and moron writer -- you.)

Don't shoot anything longer than ten minutes; it's much easier to get people to watch a short short than a long one, and you'll take more risks with a short short.

Where do you get your crew? From the AA program at the community college, of course. But you don't have to actually go there. For my short I'm getting a lot of people from Concordia, but we're producing it ourselves.

In fact, if you get a film student in the AA program to "produce" your film, then you can lay your hands on the free equipment without paying for the classes.

After two years of this, you'll either to be ready to go to LA, with a kickass reel, or you'll know that the film business is not for you. After two years of community college, you'll have spent a lot of time in classes hearing people talk about how it's done, but a lesson learned by doing is worth ten times a lesson heard in class.

Of course you could also go to the AA program while shooting a film every two months. I'm just not sure what the benefit would be; except possibly to get your parents off your back about how you're spending your time.

Film is all about the doing, not the theory. And experience will be a much better instructor than anyone you'll get at a community college in North Carolina -- possibly better than anyone you'll get anywhere.

Comparing Screenwriting Classes

Q. Is there a site out there which evaluates all the screenwriting courses, seminars, workshops that are offered. Do you know anything about the hands-on screenwriting workshops offered at www.theworkshops.com in Maine, or the 1 yr online professional screenwriting program at UCLA which they started few years ago. Gotham workshops also keeps coming up now and then, but how to find out how good all these are?

I don't keep track of screenwriting courses, but maybe you readers would like to comment on screenwriting programs and classes that you've taken?

NYFA

Q. Do you have any feedback on the 1 year screenwriting course offered at NYFA (new york film academy)?

I think I asked people about this on this blog a while ago and people were not impressed with NYFA.

I don't know what people need film school for. Sure, if your parents are willing to support you for three years while you get a "terminal degree" (i.e. you can teach with an MFA), why not? But otherwise, why not put yourself through Robert Rodriguez Film Academy: get a camera and shoot a bunch of movies. The MFA credential does not open doors for you in show business. Cool looking if roughly produced short films do. And these days with very respectable "prosumer" cameras going for under a thousand bucks, and very fine editing software available for your Mac, why go to film school?

It used to be that film school would hook you up with people who'd work on your student films. But with the Internet, you can find those people yourself, if you have a little bit of initiative. (And if you don't, don't go into showbiz.)

Personally, I went to UCLA film school. I learned a few things there. I had a few truly great professors -- Richard Marks comes to mind. Okay, I had one truly great professor, in editing. But I learned infinitely more in my first full time job than I did in school.

As I've said before, if you're in Canada, it's a different story. The CFC turns out a disproportionate percentage of successful show people. It is really THE national film and TV school. But in the US, the business is too big for one school to dominate, and a degree will get you no respect at all.

MORE ON THE CANADIAN FILM CENTRE

Another friend writes

The CFC can certainly open doors for its students as it makes a point of creating industry contacts for its filmmakers. People I've known who were especially successful at the CFC (ie: worked on short films that were really well received) often were able to get introductions to talents agents, producers, etc... sometimes even launching their careers.

It seems like every year the Toronto gatekeepers are watching to see who the new wonder kids are at the CFC. You can actually get a buzz behind yourself on the basis of a short (tough to do on your own) because the CFC is so good at marketing their graduates.

On the other hand... others I've known had less enthusiastic experiences. If the politics or preferences of the school don't happen to select you as their new darling, it can be an expensive way to spend a year or two, only to watch your co-students flourish.

So, what can I say? If you have the kind of talent that draws attention, it can jump-start a career. Otherwise, it's a very expensive film school. Especially if you don't already live in Toronto.

And, if you go to the States, people may make snide cracks about "CFC's polluting the atmosphere"...

SHOULD I GO TO THE CFC

A reader asks if it's worth going to the Canadian Film Centre, and a friend of mine I asked responds:

Does he want to go to the Canadian Film Centre because he wants to go back to the USA or because he wants to stay here?

If he wants to go back to the USA, having gone to a Canadian film school will do him no good whatsoever... If on the other hand he's thinking of staying, the CFC is kind of like the mafia. You don't go there to learn necessarily - although you probably will -- you go there to "join the club" and meet contacts.

The moment I went to the CFC, the people at [network] who routinely dismissed me were forced to see me as "one of the elite."

It's the price of living in a parochial country that has a "toy" TV industry that's really a club. You gotta learn the handshake.

The same is also partly true for film schools in the States. You may not learn that much there -- you learn more actually working in the biz, even for free -- but you can get to know people at USC or NYU or UCLA who will prove useful later. On the other hand in the States, no one gives a damn about a film school degree, or any kind of degree at all.

THE BEST SCREENWRITING SCHOOL IN THE WORLD

A young reader interested in TV [who, it later turns out, wrote the exact same letter to every other blogger in the biz] writes in to ask which screenwriting program is better, USC or NYU. He's on the East Coast but plans to move to the West Coast later.

And I tell myself that a solid spec and good people skills are what really matter. But then I read those oh-so-persuasive articles about the SoCal-educated Josh Schwartz wunderkinds of TV. The ones who sell scripts right out of college, and are helming their own shows before they can get rental cars. And it seems they always throw in a "thanks to those Trojans!" shout out.

Now, I don't know what a screenwriting program actually teaches you. Most of what I've learned about screenwriting has been from writing, and from reading screenplays, and from working for producers. What a screenwriting program does is give you time to learn something about screenwriting (people won't get on your case about not having a job if you're in a program) and introduce you to other wanna-be screenwriters who might be your friends later (unless they just become rivals whose every success is a knife twisted in your guts).

When you choose your film school, you're choosing which coast you want to work on, I think. If you make friends in school in New York, they won't be able to help you in LA, by and large, and vice versa. The longer you work in New York, the harder the move to LA will be when you make it, because you'll leave your contacts behind.

So if you plan to work in LA, and you're planning to go to film school, go to film school in LA.

The only reason not to start in LA is if you are in fact a New Yorker. In that case, while LA has most of the creative industry, New York has free meals at your parents' apartment and hugs from mum. I'm a New Yorker and I still went to LA, because I didn't know anyone in NY in showbiz.

More usefully, go to LA and get a job as an assistant for a literary agent, i.e. one who reps screenplays. If you can't, then get a job as an unpaid intern until you're worth paying money to. Do this at more than one agency.

Read all the scripts that come in -- most of them trash -- and read all the scripts that the agent is representing --most of them trash, too, but figure out what the difference is between represented trash and unrepresented trash. Grab all the hot scripts that are making the rounds in Hollywood that haven't got produced yet. I think you'll learn a good deal more about professional screenwriting at an agency than you will at film school. And it won't cost you a dime in tuition. And, you'll know a literary agent for when your scripts are good enough to represent.

You can also do this as an unpaid intern to a development exec, if you can't get a job at an agency, but really, the agency is better. Agents know more people. And if you get put on the phone, you'll wind up talking to thirty development people a week, if you're at an agency.

You will make far more useful contacts at an agency than in a film school. Most people who are going to film school won't stay in the biz. The ones that do are not necessarily going to help you. It's hard for a feature writer to help another screenwriter -- any job I give you is a job I don't get myself, so I'm only going to do it when I've got so many projects I can't take another one, or when it doesn't pay enough, or I don't trust the producer, or it's not Guild. In other words, it sucks. (In the world of TV it's different -- I can give you a free lance script on my show, when I have one, and vice versa.)

THE BEST WAY TO LEARN THE BIZ IS TO BE IN THE BIZ. I don't think my movie education really began until I started working. I learned a few things in film school, but I'm not sure they were worth the three and a half years that school kept me from having a full time job in the biz.

Oh, and all the Josh Schwarzes of the world -- they all have relatives in the biz. USC is where the showbiz kids go. So I guess getting to know them isn't a bad idea, because their parents can give you jobs. While you're in film school, you can become their friends, which you can't in the real world, because they won't talk to you in the real world. If you're willing to cleverly and evilly curry favor with the spawn of the rich and powerful, USC might be worth the tuition. But it's a long shot, because they already have friends. UCLA (where I went) and NYU, not so much.

Now: an important caveat. I have never taken a TV writing class. I have NO IDEA if you can learn TV writing in a class, or if you will make any useful contacts. Maybe you can. Certainly TV writers can help each other out in ways feature writers really can't. The real question is: have your professors staffed TV shows? If so, they probably know stuff. If not, then maybe not.

But I do know that what gets you on TV shows is kickass spec scripts, and a friendly agent. So that gets back to the idea of working for an agent, and reading all the spec scripts that come in the door.

The best time to go to film school is after you need to go to film school. If I had gone to film school after 5, 6 years in the biz, it would have done me a lot more good. I learned a lot about filmmaking from making my student film, but as a calling card, it was useless. Had I known about screenwriting what I knew after five or six years -- hell, if I'd known about screenwriting what I know now -- when I went to film school, I would have come out with a kick ass film, and got hired all over the place.

Don't waste your shot at film school going when all you need is a foot in the door. Save it for when you know some stuff, but nothing seems to be clicking, and you need to step away from the day-to-day of the biz to get a leg up. Then you'll really maximize what you learn there, and maximize the opportunity it provides you to work with people, get free equipment, and so on. Also, if you go in knowing something, your professors will concentrate on you and not the other people.