When Jonathan Wysocki graduated from the UCLA School of Theater,
Film, and Television in 2004, he may have been ready to say goodbye
to Westwood, but he wasn’t quite done with his thesis film.
His thesis film, “The Vessel Pitches,” was shot two
years ago, but postproduction dragged the process on for much
longer. “The Vessel Pitches” screened June 10 at the
opening night of the UCLA Festival of New Creative Work, a weeklong
showcase of student creative output designed for entertainment
industry professionals and the community at large. The festival
represents a very real opportunity for graduating students eager to
jump-start a career in the film industry and who have made major
time and financial investments in their projects to get one foot in
the door of the business. According to Wysocki, UCLA is on the
independent side of film schools ““ you pay for it, you own
it. Students develop their own reputations and means of funding;
once finished, they own the copyright and can distribute their film
as they desire. This differs from other film schools, including
USC, where students can make use of discounts and equipment in
exchange for giving up the copyright to the school. Thesis films
can set a student back $30,000 to $70,000, although UCLA does award
grants to some. Wysocki received a grant that covered about a third
of his film’s cost and said that he turned to credit cards to
pay for the hefty remaining sum, a practice that is not uncommon
among film students. “I have no money left at all,”
said Meredyth Wilson, who just finished shooting her thesis film a
few weeks ago and is heading into postproduction, though she too
received a grant. Wilson’s film, “The Black
Plum,” made in her second year, will be shown on the closing
night of the UCLA Festival on June 17.
Yet Wilson explained that students resign themselves to debt
because of their passion for filmmaking and their desire to make a
post-graduation career in the entertainment industry. “When
you’re so absorbed in (making a movie) that you can’t
imagine doing anything else, then you know you’re doing the
right thing. This is my education. This is what I’m doing
right now. I can’t not get my degree,” Wilson said.
“I have friends that gamble and I would never think of losing
$200 in one night, but then I look at what I’m doing.”
At each screening, students hope that their film will connect with
someone, and that someone is in a position to hire. However, it is
difficult to know who attending the festival can actually impact
their post-graduation career. “I don’t know how many
industry people actually come to Festival. They don’t wear
badges,” Wilson said. Perhaps no one will be wearing badges,
but it’s safe to say that industry eyes will be on the
Directors Spotlight portion of UCLA Festival on Wednesday, a
screening of student films selected by a blue ribbon panel of
anonymous industry insiders. The Spotlight Awards originated in
part because of student demand for a better concentration of people
in the entertainment industry than the number that was attending
the weeklong festival. One former student who worked to make the
Spotlight Awards a reality is director Brad Silberling, who
graduated from UCLA in 1987 and has helmed a number of films,
including “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate
Events,” “Moonlight Mile,” and “City of
Angels.” Silberling will receive the UCLA Filmmaker of the
Year Award at this year’s awards. In the late ’80s,
according to Silberling, UCLA’s weeklong screening process
was not sufficiently showcasing student work, so he looked across
town for inspiration. “UCLA was far more egalitarian,
(believing that) everyone should get a chance (to show his or her)
work, which is true, but it meant that everyone went down with the
ship,” Silberling said. “USC decided to make one good
evening of maybe two to three hours at the most, publicize it well,
and not ask everybody to come sit for a week because they’re
never going to do it.” In order to distinguish his work,
Silberling, along with a group of fellow students, pushed for a
similar evening at UCLA. “We all fought hard to try to come
up with an evening program that could help us. So we went to the
Alumni Association, which was newly reformed, and that was the
first time they sponsored what has now become the Spotlight Award
evening,” Silberling said. Their efforts paid off. In what
Silberling called “a combination of fortune and skill to back
it up,” two different representatives from Universal Studios
each asked to show his thesis film to their department. “They
realized I was very young and cheap, and if they put me under
contract, they could avail themselves of whatever might come from
me ““ whether it was directing in television or in movies, or
in writing,” Silberling said. The studio had not done a
similar term deal since the late ’60s or early ’70s.
And although it took nearly a year before Silberling had the
opportunity to direct something, he was still pleased with the rare
opportunity. “It meant I didn’t have to go wait
tables,” Silberling said. “I got a salary. I had an
office and a chance to basically go off and start writing and to
try to make as many relationships as I could with the
studio.” Still, he stressed that getting one’s work
seen is more important than just networking. Somebody has to
appreciate the film, and then take the leap of faith. This
year’s Spotlight Awards feature the work of students hoping
for similar success. Jenn Kao, who will be graduating this year
from the directing masters program, was selected to show her thesis
film “Outside.” “You do anything you can to get
your film out there. I’ll send a copy to everyone I’ve
ever known in the industry,” Kao said. “The dream thing
to happen would be to get a directing job. But I think that’s
unrealistic. A more realistic version is that I’ll have
finished my first feature film script by the time Spotlight
happens, and then seeing my film will make someone more willing to
read a script of mine that will eventually lead to me directing a
film.” Kao outlined a couple of ways that students can break
into the industry. “There are a lot of people who have the
ability to direct a film,” she said. “They really need
a reason to hire you. And a good way is to write a script that they
have to make. It’s all about collateral. Find someone who
wants to make a certain script (and) say that the only way to make
the script is if you allow me to direct it.” A student could
also make a film independently, hope it gets festival play, and
then get a job that way. But as students wait for their big break,
they immerse themselves in filmmaking and even manage to see the
intensity of UCLA’s film program in a positive light.
“It’s an opportunity to live, breathe, eat, sleep, and
think about your film,” said Amy Adrion, a second-year
directing student whose short “Surviving 7th Grade” was
selected for Spotlight. “Before coming out here I lived in
Brooklyn; I went out all the time. And I don’t really have
that (social scene) here, but making films takes over your life.
And these are six-minute films. It’s like, God, imagine a
feature,” she said. As for Silberling, when he looks back at
his thesis film at UCLA he can recognize his voice as a filmmaker
in it, although his attitude has changed over the years. “You
get much more compassionate toward your work as time goes by; I was
much harder on it when I first did it,” Silberling said. But
aside from whether a film will stand out to an industry executive
like Silberling’s thesis did, being a successful graduate of
the UCLA film school ultimately comes down to having developed a
voice as a filmmaker. “What stands out in a student film,
regardless of technique, regardless of budget, is always point of
view,” Silberling said. “That can be a great sense of
humor, an incredible sense of poignancy, or of subtlety; whatever
someone’s skill is. It’s their way of telling a story
that gets up on the screen and feels fresh and new. And you can do
that with $100 or with $1 million.”