The undergraduate film and television major at UCLA resembles
the master’s film program more than any other undergraduate
program on campus.
This reality neglects the fact that the study of film production
and film criticism deserves to be taught as a liberal arts major.
Digital video technology is pushing filmmaking and film language
into a diverse new set of professional fields; Hollywood filmmaking
will no longer be the only market for film production. Film
literacy should be a basic tenet of a liberal arts education,
intended for use in combination with many other skills, applicable
in many diverse professions.
The way I see it, a film school can judge itself by two distinct
criteria: Do its students consistently get good jobs in the film
market, and does it put out the best possible filmmakers that it
can? The first deals with conforming the education process to an
external market pressure, while the second evaluates the education
process for how well it teaches what it is supposed to be
teaching.
For many film students, both are legitimate concerns. I imagine
the basic thought process is something like, “Learning how to
be a good filmmaker would be nice, sure, but seriously, I got this
idea, get me a meeting with Hollywood money.”
The problem is that in practice, the two objectives come into
conflict. The filmmaking market is unique in that being a great
filmmaker does far less than it should to ensure a job making
films. The result is that “creativity is only a piece of the
puzzle,” says Tom DeNove, vice chair of production in the
UCLA Department of Film and Television. “I tell my students
all the time, you have talent and you have luck. But if I am going
to pick one … I’m going to pick luck.”
At the beginning of this quarter, six non-film students tried
their luck and showed up for the first class of Film/TV 135, a
yearlong senior thesis screenwriting class. Between first and
second week, department administrators decided to let the non-film
students into the class. Extra students meant extra money from the
university, which would facilitate dividing the class into two
sections of 10 students instead of just one class of 14.
But after second week, some of the film students organized a
petition to get the other students kicked out of the class. On Oct.
13, administrators sent out an e-mail saying the non-film students
had been dropped from the class.
The question is why the film students, and then film and TV
administrators, decided that outside students did not belong in the
class. It’s clear to me that the film students’ desire
to keep the class pure was not, at least primarily, a concern about
the quality of their education. If anything, the addition of the
non-film students made it easier for the School of Theater, Film,
and Television to budget in an extra section, thereby reducing the
student-to-professor ratio.
The function of actively distinguishing the few film students
from the abundance of film-hungry students who are not in the major
serves one purpose: It reinforces competition for the limited
slots, which in turn reinforces the prestige, notoriety and
reputation associated with the department.
This is the type of currency that carries particular weight in
Hollywood spheres. UCLA’s unspoken message becomes, “We
accept only the best of the best.” Whether this is true, or
even better, whether UCLA really has any way of telling who’s
the best, doesn’t seem to matter. It becomes pivotal then,
for many film students bent on Hollywood to develop the mentality,
“I deserve to be here.” For mediocre people, the only
way to strengthen this legitimacy is to point at a hundred other
people and say, “They don’t.”
The department itself is also obliged to maintain this status
quo, since the pedestal it provides seems to effectively elevate
film students into opportunities in Hollywood. Getting UCLA
students into Hollywood means money and support for the
department.
But this whole setup misses the point of undergraduate
education. Film deserves to be taught outside of the context of
Hollywood.
The film school seems to be heading in this direction by
emphasizing the importance of storytelling instead of just
technical filmmaking skills. But this is not enough. The department
still limits the quality of its education by playing to Hollywood
markets.
“We pride ourselves on creating independent filmmakers …
but whenever one of our students succeeds in Hollywood, they are
our shining examples … (because) they help us get the donations
… necessary to keep the film school running,” said
DeNove.
Of course, it takes more than just the film school to fix this.
The university needs do its part to fund film studies more than it
has in the past; in turn, the film program needs to wean itself off
the Hollywood bottle.
The UCLA film school does seem to be heading in this direction.
Talk of a film minor and a possible influx of digital technology
sound promising. But as long as the film school and its students
are infatuated with Hollywood money, the expansion of film studies
will suffer.
The problem with playing to Hollywood is that Hollywood
doesn’t make sense. It’s a business before it’s a
platform for filmmaking. Luck, connections, business savvy and who
knows what else seem to play as much a part in Hollywood as skill.
Let the graduate film school worry about placing students in
jobs.
If anything is simple and clear about this whole situation,
it’s this: Undergraduate programs should be designed to teach
the most students, the best they can.
After all, you can’t teach someone how to be lucky.
If you’re feeling lucky, e-mail Macdonald at
jmacdonald@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to
viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.