What programs should a student learn to be valuable?

[Gary Hazen]

Regarding #1
Keep in mind that Bob is an engineer. Engineer’s don’t do creative. They don’t give a crap about creative. If creative had a specific voltage then Bob could hook up a meter to your demo reel and determine your market value. If you want to be an engineer then don’t worry about your reel.

If you have any intention to work in post then your reel matters. Most of the people that do the hiring for post positions care about the basics. It’s an extremely competitive market. If everyone that interviews is willing to work hard, have a great attitude and do the mundane jobs just to get their foot in the door, then the only thing that sets you apart is your your *reel.

That said, I agree with Bob that they don’t care if you’re the next great director. Proclaiming yourself as the next “Great Director” shows arrogance more than anything else. There’s nothing wrong with confidence, just don’t over do it.

Regarding #2 (knowing your potential employer)
This is solid advice. Always do your research prior to the interview.

*Your reel is way too long. No one is going to endure 18 minutes.

[Damein Green]

To echo what a few have said, the reel is far too long. Personally, I wouldn’t go anymore than 8 minutes. Anything over 9 or 10 is overkill.

Regarding what to learn? I’d learn how to shoot. If you already know how to shoot, learn again. Learn new techniques. Stay fresh on new technology.

Damein Green
Creative Producer
@DGreenTV

[Andrew Rendell]

My somewhat limited experience is that no one watches more than a couple of minutes, tops, when they have a bunch of reels to go through, so there’s probably not much point in making more than that. Although TBH you should probably ignore me on reels… in over 20 years cutting I haven’t made one for myself yet.

Anyway, before anyone’ll trust you with anything you have to get your foot in the door. Be the guy who spots what needs doing and does it without being told to. Be the guy who communicates openly and is a pleasure to be around. Be the guy who knows when to shuddup and learn.

[Tim Wilson]

[Andrew Rendell] “Be the guy who spots what needs doing and does it without being told to. Be the guy who communicates openly and is a pleasure to be around. Be the guy who knows when to shuddup and learn.”

This is a variation on Bob’s advice, and for finding a job, it’s exactly the right advice. Be willing to do whatever it takes, and be the KIND OF GUY that people want to work with. If you’re not pleasant to be around, you won’t BE around.

But the question was about what a student should be doing.

The answer is, not getting hung up about software. You can learn that stuff online for a few hundred bucks, and it’s good stuff. If you’re looking for super-practical connections between school and work, consider a trade school like Full Sail. These are much more than button pushing exercises. I love that Full Sail requires drawing classes before you ever touch a computer. They teach visual approaches to ART, which is critical to you if you want to be an ARTIST.

Werner Herzog is one of my favorite filmmakers, and he hosts a rolling educational seminar called The Rogue Film School. When asked what an aspiring filmmaker should learn, he says, “I tell them to read, read, read, read, read, read, read. Only those who read own the world. Those who are on the internet or watch TV too much lose the world. I give them a required reading list that has nothing to do with cinema. I tell them to read Virgil, to read Latin. To read Latin is to understand the genesis of our culture, of the Western world.”

Because that’s the thing. Any monkey can learn After Effects. You might have spent the last 4 years of your life learning Final Cut Pro – oops, there may never be another FCP editor hired again. (Kidding…mostly.) Who knows? Who cares? That’s the easy part.

But you will read more in school than you may for the rest of your entire life combined. You will NEVER replicate the opportunity to LEARN EVERYTHING. Be a STUDENT.

Look, you might even discover that you’d rather be a geologist than a filmmaker…but I can tell you that the best job I ever had in production ($300K/yr gross, which worked out to $100K net or so) came from GEOLOGY and BIOLOGY. I was shooting, editing, producing, and to be honest, I’m not sure they ever saw a frame of my work before we started. They certainly never said “We’ve seen your work and we love it.” They heard I was reliable, professional, nice to work with (I shit you not), and while we were talking, I blew them away with my knowledge of the earth sciences. Sold.

Here’s another thing. What job do you want? If you want to get into graphics, After Effects is barely a starting point. If you want to get into editing, you sure as shit better learn to be an assistant editor first — and the most valuable software for an assistant editor is Microsoft Excel.

In fact, Walter Murch’s assistant editor got in touch with me once. You know what software he spends most of his time in? Freaking FILEMAKER. I didn’t even know they MADE Filemaker anymore. But he said that Walter’s tool of choice is actually index cards, so you can imagine how much data his assistant has to manage.

And yes, on a movie set, to this day, the primary DATA gathering tool is PAPER. Oscar winning DP Dave Stump ASC refers to it as “metapaper,” and while he’s trying to build computer and device-centered approaches (included devices embedded into cranes, etc.), he knows we’re many years away from that.

Do you want to be a monkey or a manager? I don’t mean monkey derogatorily. Because there are some people who only want to DO effects, or editing…but if you want to be a post supervisor someday, well, you need management chops. You need to be able to work with vendors, like people who make miniatures. Maybe YOU want to make miniatures. Yeah, some previz software…but most previz is done with PENCILS and PAINT…oh yeah, and there’s a pile of clay, now get to work.

The fastest growing field in production right now is DIT, digital imaging technician. It’s a lot more than, say, an X-ray techician, in that you have to know EVERYTHING, including where you stand in the production workflow THAT DAY. Your closest associate on the set may be the assistant director: you need to be this place, at this time, and you need to be ready to shoot this much footage.

And you know what the most important tools of an assistant director are? A clipboard and a walkie talkie. But it’s real work! You have to know how much time this particular team is going to take to light a scene, and how much of that the DP needs to be there for, and know exactly what time the DP needs to be ready to shoot, and where in that process the director wants to be there, and a million other things that have zzzzzzzzeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrooooooo to do with software.

The last story I’ll tell you about is Tony Hudson. All he ever wanted to do was operate puppets. He started with Sid and Marty Kroft (if you’re old enough, you know that this is like coming out of high school and starting on a Major League club. NOBODY does that. Tony did.) He talked his way into a job in Lucas’s creature shop. (Can you talk your way into a job?)

Among his jobs was designing and operating the whales in Star Trek IV. When Lucas started moving digital, Tony learned what he needed to learn on the job. One of his favorite accomplishments was the Jeebs head blowing up in the first Men In Black movie. He did every frame of that all by himself. No crew. Just him.

Then he got the chance to work with Ray Kurzweil, so he came to the COW and taught himself FCP. Then he moved back to Lucas as a manager, and now his job is running the place he used to work.

So what do you need to learn in school? You need to LEARN HOW TO LEARN. Read. Learn at least one foreign language. You’ll be amazed at the way it can reshape your brain if you let it.

Then do the software stuff on the side at any number of wonderful online repositories. You may never NEED a reel…but don’t look like a moron if somebody asks you for one. Be ready. That’s the point of all this.

Last last last thing. The job that I had when I ran my own company didn’t even exist when I was in school. The idea of somebody owning a meaningful computer or even a pro video camera was preposterous. I don’t mean to sound like this was ancient history, in the sense that, less than 10 years after this was true, I was in fact running my own company with these exact tools that never existed — editing software, I/O, media drives, none of it. (I graduated in 82, started my own company in 90.)

So ask yourself, which tools might exist in 10 years that don’t exist today? Or don’t exist in a form that you might recognize or be even vaguely accessible? Because THAT may be what you build your career around.

Some links to get you thinking:

David McGiffert, assistant director of King Kong (1977), 4 films for Sidney Pollack (including Tootsie, for which he was given an associate producer credit), all three Back to the Future pictures, Witness, The Fisher King and many more.
https://magazine.creativecow.net/article/playing-your-role-in-a-working-film-crew

Todd McMullen, DP. His first job? Martin Scorsese’s Casino. (Why? Because he was a nice guy.)
https://magazine.creativecow.net/article/dont-miss-your-shot

Tony Hudson, from puppeteer to ILM management
https://magazine.creativecow.net/article/a-nonlinear-career

Von Thomas, A DIT Tells All. I asked him to write this when he posted a picture of the DIT cart he built, but it turned into a much wider discussion of what a DIT needs to know. By they way, Von’s cart includes Cartspresso, a built-in Braun espresso machine in the same bright green as his cart. People keep him around because he’s good, he’s NICE, and he’s fun to be around. And he’s good. 🙂
https://magazine.creativecow.net/article/a-dit-tells-all

Think bigger than than I think you’re thinking based on your first question. If you’re already thinking big, think bigger.

And read.

PS. Just for grins, here’s Herzog’s Rogue Film School “About Us” page. Highlights:

“How do you sensitize an audience? How is space created and understood by an audience? How do you produce and edit a film? How do you create illumination and an ecstasy of truth?”

“Related, but more practical subjects, will be the art of lockpicking. Traveling on foot. The exhilaration of being shot at unsuccessfully. The athletic side of filmmaking. The creation of your own shooting permits. The neutralization of bureaucracy. Guerrilla tactics. Self reliance.”

“Censorship will be enforced. There will be no talk of shamans, of yoga classes, nutritional values, herbal teas, discovering your Boundaries, and Inner Growth.”

“Related, but more reflective, will be a reading list. Required reading: Virgil’s “Georgics” and Ernest Hemingway’s “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”. ”

You get the idea. Read it slowly. Read it more than once. Think bigger.

https://www.roguefilmschool.com/about.asp

Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou