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Art doesn’t pay
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Just a few years ago American Express had a huge push to hire English Majors as well as other Liberal Arts applicants. They realized they had a company full of really bright business folks who didn’t know how to talk to each other. There’s a good blog from them about it out there if you can still find it. It was all about “soft” skills for them. Their people didn’t have them. One of the big ones was empathy.
Then I saw this research about how people rated high in empathy were also those that read a lot of fiction. People that could insert themselves into a story. Well, if you draw that line up to fiction (of all kinds) being created by artists, it makes even more sense and it really does take all kinds to make a business work.
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[Paul Neumann] “Just a few years ago American Express had a huge push to hire English Majors as well as other Liberal Arts applicants.”
Historically English majors have done well in many fields. Not because of their specific knowledge. Rather, that an English Lit degree requires a ton of reading, research, and critical analysis to succeed and graduate in those programs. Probably far more than many other majors. Those skills and that discipline is what makes them attractive to employers.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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[Herb Sevush] “I think you’d have to ask them what they got out of the experience beyond networking with others, which is something that can happen while apprenticing in the business just as well.”
Oh, of course. And that whole “Opie” thing clearly wasn’t enough for Mr. Howard. Plus I’m sure his “network” in Hollywood just needed a few more doors open before he could succeed…
OTOH, I suppose it’s just barely possible that he felt that an organized curriculum put together by people who had actually studied how to efficiently sequence learning and had a pedagogy, developed over time, that had been tuned for effectiveness might be a smarter play.
Oh heck no. That’s crazy talk. Learning is unlike ANYTHING else. Putting it in a structure totally KILLS it.
How silly of me to think otherwise.
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Paul Neumann] “Then I saw this research about how people rated high in empathy were also those that read a lot of fiction. People that could insert themselves into a story. “
To take this even further off topic:
There’s a great book called “Sapiens” by Yuval Noah Harari that supposes fiction, or imagined realities/collective myths, is the very foundation of modern humans and therefore society. The ability to believe in something that is not biologically coded in to our nature (the notion of rights as humans, money, freedom, equality, gods and religions), allows us to organize and activate (as well as influence and exploit) across vast distances, and populations. It’s a good read. There’s a companion called Homo Deus that hypothesizes on future societies, and the merging of human and technology. I haven’t read that one yet, but looking forward to it (kinda).
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[Jeremy Garchow] “There’s a great book called “Sapiens” by Yuval Noah Harari that supposes fiction, or imagined realities/collective myths, is the very foundation of modern humans and therefore society.”
On my list as of now.
And the scary corollary now, is that if you can successfully manipulate people into accepting an fictional reality well enough – you can manipulate their behavior in reality, in return.
(shudder)
Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery. -
[Bill Davis] “OTOH, I suppose it’s just barely possible that he felt that an organized curriculum put together by people who had actually studied how to efficiently sequence learning and had a pedagogy, developed over time, that had been tuned for effectiveness might be a smarter play. Oh heck no. That’s crazy talk. Learning is unlike ANYTHING else. Putting it in a structure totally KILLS it. “
I don’t know what Ron Howard did or didn’t get out of going to film school, you’d have to ask him.
I do know that at least some of the folks on your original list got absolutely nothing out of film school, because they never went to film school — Terence Malick was a philosophy major at Harvard, Lynch was a painter at the Penn Academy of Fine Arts and Burton went to an art school where he studied animation.
Learning always has a structure, but it need not be organized by pedagogues. Sometimes a library card and an 8mm camera will do. It worked for Spielberg, it worked for every Director before 1970, and guess what – you don’t necessarily paint better for going to art school, or play better for going to music school and you don’t write better for having a degree in literature.
I believe in education, I believe in paying and treating our teachers better, but I’m one of those old guys that actually prefers someone with a well rounded liberal arts education as opposed to someone who sees college as trade school.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf -
[Herb Sevush] “I don’t know what Ron Howard did or didn’t get out of going to film school, you’d have to ask him.”
From Wikipedia:
“Howard was tutored at Desilu Studios in his younger years, and graduated from John Burroughs High School. He later attended the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts but did not graduate. Howard has said he knew from a young age he might want to go into directing thanks to his early experience as an actor.”
– Oliver
Oliver Peters – oliverpeters.com
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from the same Wiekipedia article (and I saw a documentary on Ron Howard that said the same thing) –
Before leaving Happy Days in 1980, Howard made his directing debut with the 1977 low-budget comedy/action film Grand Theft Auto.[1] This came after cutting a deal with Roger Corman, wherein Corman let Howard direct a film in exchange for Howard starring in Eat My Dust!, with Christopher Norris
So, from what I recall, Ron Howard worked for free in order that he would be given the opportunity to direct a real movie. Once again – you bust your ass, you make sacrifices, and you get what you want. The ONLY thing that every one of you (that does hiring) cares about is WHAT IS YOUR EXPERIENCE – not “what is your GPA”.
Bob Zelin
Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com -
[Bob Zelin] “This came after cutting a deal with Roger Corman, wherein Corman let Howard direct a film in exchange for Howard starring in Eat My Dust!, with Christopher Norris”
Roger Corman was the greatest film school ever – probably half the people on Bill’s list were happily exploited by him in their youth – along with the likes of Jonathan Demme, Joe Dante, John Sayles and John Cameron – but he didn’t give out a degree – just knowledge and experience.
https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/23528/8-hollywood-directors-from-the-roger-corman-film-school
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin\’ attached to nothin\’
\”Deciding the spine is the process of editing\” F. Bieberkopf -
[Bill Davis] “Think of how much better off the industry would have been if…
George Lucas,
Martin Scorsese,
Joss Whedon ,
Terrance Malick
David Lynch
Darren Aronofsky
Chen Kaige
Joel Cohn
Francis Ford Coppola
Tim Burton “Somewhat successful people that didn’t go to film school. ????
Steven Soderbergh
Christopher Nolan
James Cameron
Quentin Tarantino
David Fincher
Wes Craven
Kevin Smith
Luc Bessen
Harold Ramis
John HughesFirst off, I don’t think there is an inherently right or wrong answer with film school. Personally I don’t think it’s worth the huge price most of them charge. A big selling point of film schools used to be access to filmmaking equipment but that’s pretty much a null and void advantage at this point. I think you can get 80% of the same experience at a fraction of the cost by going elsewhere, but to each their own. And I’m sure my friends/acquaintances that teach at film schools would disagree with my opinion. ???? There is certainly something to be said about a structured environment that forces you into learning situations that you wouldn’t otherwise experience if left up to your own devices.
Secondly, looking only at successful people (or in this case super successful people) and then tracking backwards from there to see what ‘made’ them successful is inherently flawed because we are cherry picking the results we want to see. What percentage of child actors are as successful as Ron Howard? What percentage of USC grads are multimillionaire titans of the film industry?
It’s a logical fallacy called Survival Bias.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
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