Ged In New York

Q: I'm thinking about double majoring in Literature or English. The gist of the advice I got was: It doesn't matter which school I go to (well, it matters SOME), it matters how much _living_ I do. Or something like that. Well, the time has come for me to pick among the colleges I got into. I've pretty much had my heart set on UCLA, since it's closeby, cheap, and no doubt a good film school (right?? right??

A:a) My understanding is that getting into UCLA film classes is really tough, even if you are already there as an undergrad. If so, you might be better off at a school where you know you can get into the film classes. b) Even if Berkeley gets fewer students into the film industry, it might be that the ones who break in form a Berkeley Hollywood mafia. If so, they might be a lot more helpful to five Berkeley grads who come by than UCLA alums would be to the 5 trillion UCLA grads who ask for informational interviews. If you want to keep a car, living expenses in Los Angeles would be much lower than in New York. If you could live without having a car and were willing to commute 20 minutes by subway every day, New York might be cheaper. It's pretty easy to find a room in a three or four bedroom apartment in Jersey City or Brooklyn for $400 a month. I think university classes, night school classes or any other classes that give students some hands-on experience with acting, lighting, operating a camera, etc. could be very useful to a writer. Filmmakers who write have a much easier time getting film people to take them seriously than writers who know nothing about filmmaking. job as a producer's assistant or a script reader, take the Truby and McKee courses, study movies, and write nights and weekends. This would give him a four year jump on everyone coming out of film school, plus real world experience in the market place. Also, if it turns out he doesn't like the business...he can still go to back to college without having wasted time and money on film school.

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