Film School (2 page)

1. Made some very good films.
   
2. Had a stroke.
   
3. Sold a television show to CBS.
   
4. Killed a wild mountain lion with my bare hands.
   

Scratch #4. That's a lie.

The other three did happen. I really did make some good films, I really did have a stroke, and, not long after that, I dreamed up a TV show, one that aired on Sunday evenings on CBS. It was called THREE RIVERS.

There is one more piece to this story. I went to film school as a middle-aged guy
not
because I was seeking personal enlightenment or having the kind of midlife crisis that is usually treated by getting a divorce or a new sports car. I went because my career had skidded into the ditch and my wife had cancer and I felt I was running out of options.

A
ttending film school at USC was a great privilege, and I thank my large extended family and many friends from the bottom of my heart for supporting me. I would never have been able to do any of this without them.

My wife, Julie, first suggested going to film school. She thought it was a perfect place for me. She also raised our three daughters as a de facto single parent for the long months when I was away from home. It was very hard for her, and my heart goes out to anyone trying to raise children as a single parent.

My parents, Tom and Mary Boman, didn't blanch when I told them my desire to go to film school, even with three young kids (one still in diapers). They always gave an encouraging word and a sympathetic ear. My father-in-law, Stan Schwantes, spent hundreds of hours babysitting our kids while I was at school and Julie was at work. My mother-in-law, Jean Schwantes, went so far as to quit her job at a nursing home and move two thousand miles to help take care of our kids for four months so I could start school. Unfortunately, she died of lung cancer before I could graduate from USC. I wish she could have been there to see me get my degree.

And it went beyond family. Carl and Irene Christensen, a retired couple living just outside Los Angeles, allowed me to live in gracious splendor in their house while I attended USC. And what an intriguing couple they are. Carl is a rocket scientist retired from NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. Irene spent a year of her childhood in a Japanese internment camp and became an elementary school teacher. I first met them when I was eighteen and traveling by motorcycle; I did landscaping for them for a time. I call them my “Los Angeles parents.” Irene cooked many meals for me while I was at USC, and both of them served as the first filters for this book.

Finally, I would also like to thank whoever green-lighted my application at USC. Early on, I often felt I was admitted by mistake or because of a clerical error, and that somewhere a talented young guy also named Steve Boman was denied the chance to attend USC.

Oh well. His loss, my gain.

L
et me say a few words about the process of researching and writing this book. Everything in this book happened. I only write about what I witnessed.

None of my classmates or instructors or people at CBS knew I was planning to write a book about my experiences. During my time at USC, I took notes and kept a journal. I did it all quietly. I changed the names of some of my classmates and instructors to protect their privacy. I used some people's real names (such as Drew Casper, Ted Gold, Curtis Hanson, Donald Sutherland, Peter Krause, Alex O'Loughlin, and more) because they are well known and there is no reason to disguise their identity or because they are such unique characters they deserve to be recognized. Some of my classmates and instructors may recognize themselves in this book despite the pseudonyms. I know several of them will be famous in the future simply because of their talent and drive. Looking back, what I should have told my brother is this: film school is, quite simply, a great and unpredictable adventure.

Enjoy the adventure; enjoy the book.

We file into the screening
room, forty-eight of us. The room is warm and it smells like nervous sweat and cheap deodorant. We are the incoming class of spring semester graduate students at the University of Southern California's vaunted School of Cinematic Arts' production program. We are going to learn to be directors and writers and producers at the world's oldest and most prestigious film school. It is our orientation day.

Every year, USC admits roughly one hundred students into its graduate production program. Half start in late August, half in January. I'm in the spring semester class. More than two thousand people went through the lengthy application process. I am one of the lucky few admitted to the program.

I catch my reflection in a window. There's no hiding the fact I'm an old man among the group. Most of the other students are in their twenties. Some look like they're straight out of college; a few are in their late twenties. My hair is going gray, and I'm a year away from hitting forty.

The other film students generally look very cool and hip and very . . . L.A. Most wear a similar uniform: a faded T-shirt, ripped jeans, and flip-flops. Sunglasses are the norm. I don't see many guys who've shaved in the past three days. Long hair is in, but a few guys have shaved heads. A lot of students snub out a cigarette before entering the building, and plenty look as if the last physical workout they got was running to beat closing time at Taco Bell.

I look like a middle-age contractor here to fix the air-conditioning system. My graying hair is cut short, and I shaved that morning. In addition to a golf shirt I bought from Sears, I'm wearing crisp new Levis and a pair of Red Wing construction boots. My posture is military straight. I don't smoke. I wonder if I should slouch, just to look cool.

I don't. It just doesn't feel right. I'm not going to try to fake it. I'm not a trendy young
artiste
. I'm a middle-class, middle-of-the-road, middle-aged Midwestern suburban dad with a wife and three kids who's going to the most famous film school in the world for a three-year program that will give him a chance to write and direct and produce films and television episodes. I'm excited as hell, but I feel a weight settle in my stomach.
I knew I would be a fish out of water, but Jiminy Cricket, I didn't think it would be
this
obvious.

I ignore the window reflection, make my way into the screening room, settle into a seat, and survey the other students. It's clear most of us don't know anyone else. We all keep an empty seat next to us. I nod to a guy in the row behind me. He looks thin, about twenty-five. He's wearing a black T-shirt, flip-flops.

I attempt a conversation. “It feels good finally to get started, doesn't it?”

“I suppose,” he admits. “Are you on the faculty here?”

I smile. It‘s a question I will get used to answering.
Are you faculty? Are you on staff? Are you a coach?

“No. I'm here as a student,” I answer. He forces a smile but has nothing else to say. He looks at his phone and finds something important on it.

Then, in the back of the room, two women see each other and let out a yelp. I hear snippets of their excited conversation.

No way! I didn't know you were even applying here! That's sooo cool! I thought you had another year at Stanford!

The women, both with sunglasses perched on their heads, cell phones clutched in their hands, hug. The other students around me also watch the two women with slight envy. It must be nice to know someone.

The vibe in the auditorium is all first-day nervousness. It's like the first day of fifth-grade summer camp. Even though this is graduate school, and we are supposedly older, wiser, more mature, and much better at new social interactions, we are still nervous. At least I am.

I have a tremendous amount riding on my journey through film school. I'm spending far too much money on tuition and spending long weeks away from my wife and kids in order to attend USC. I wonder how I'll fit in. What little I know of film school is that it is apparently very collaborative. I'll be spending hundreds of hours working with people who could be my own children.

Just before coming to USC, I read a book called
The Lucifer Principle
, by Howard Bloom. The book discusses how scientists have discovered that the way in which animals find their pecking order can differ from group to group. Scientists found that group dynamics are so complicated there is almost no way to predict those dynamics beforehand. The bottom line—as a chimp, sometimes you'd be the chump, sometimes you'd be the champ. Scientists discovered the same was true for humans.

I wonder how I will fit in. I've spent years working since I finished college. I've worked as a reporter for two newspapers, reported for a radio network, spent time as a transplant coordinator at the University of Chicago hospitals. I've been married since before some of my classmates were in grade school, and I have three daughters. I've always loved the buzz and excitement of the newsroom and the operating room. I like talking with people. I get along with nearly everyone. A friend of mine once said I “would have fun at the bottom of a cesspool.” How could my time at film school be any different?

We're about to start the orientation when a small man with a mop of wild hair bursts through the doors, the last one in. He's electric with energy and all smiles. He works his way around the auditorium and plops into a chair next to me. We grin at each other. He's sure happy!

A faculty member takes the podium. The orientation is starting.

In the weeks leading up to orientation, I had practiced a speech I would give if we introduced ourselves. I honed my speech while jogging, while in the shower, while driving. I felt it had all the elements of why I was coming to grad school, where I had been, where I wanted to go.

Hey there. I'm a guy a decade and a half out of college with three beautiful daughters, a lovely wife, and a journalism career that was sidetracked as I supported my wife's dream of attending medical school and becoming a doctor. But my wife,
not long ago, discovered she had cancer, and during her recovery, I applied to this institution so I could jump-start my career and take some of the load off her shoulders.

It went on. And on. As I huffed and puffed on my jogs, I went over and over my speech. It constantly changed. One thing was certain—in my imagination, my fellow students dabbed tears from their eyes
and
laughed uproariously as I told my life's tale.

I'm jolted back to reality inside the screening room when a short, smartly dressed woman is introduced. She's the dean of the film school. She tells us what an honor it is to have us. We hear our program is one of the most selective in all of academia. More selective than Harvard Law School. More selective than all medical schools. We all nod and feel very lucky
.

We then hear lots of dos and don'ts from other faculty. Mostly they're don'ts. Don't film on the edge of tall buildings. Don't use real guns. Don't use anything that even looks remotely like a gun without first talking to your instructors. Don't fall asleep behind the wheel and crash into a tree.

One of the instructors tells a story about a former grad student that makes the room go quiet: the student had been a medical doctor prior to applying to USC's film school as a production student. Going to the first year of film school, he reportedly said, was harder than anything he had to do in medical school or residency.

I feel like we're grade school campers gathered around a fire, hearing horror stories from the camp counselors.
There was a kid who tried to sneak away from his cabin one night a few years ago. Nothing was ever found but a piece of his shirt. A bloody piece. He was an orphan, so he didn't have any parents who called the cops, and since the camp wanted to keep the story quiet, you never heard about it. Until now . . . 

Apocryphal or not, the doctor-who-came-to-film school story gets my attention—I witnessed my wife go through medical school. But I'm skeptical. I doubt making films and writing stories can be as hard as dissecting a cadaver or passing biochemistry. Finally, a female instructor takes the podium and asks us to introduce ourselves. I smile.
Perfect
. I've got my speech all ready. Then she says, “Let's keep it short. Just tell us your name, where you went to college, and what your degree was.”

I think,
What about my awesome speech?

She points to a student in the far back corner. “Why don't you start?”

He gets up, nervous. It's hard to hear him from where I'm sitting.

“Ahhh, hi, my name is (mumble) and I went to Yale. I graduated two years ago with a major in (mumble). I was going to go to law school but decided on this instead. I'm really glad I did. I look forward to working with you all.”

He sits down. The next person gets ups. She's from UCLA. Then there's a guy from Harvard. A Japanese guy who struggles with English. Then a petite Asian woman introduces herself, coughing. She apologizes, says she's sick, and is from Wisconsin. She majored in film production. It sounds like she said her name was Fee Fee
.
Did I hear it right? Did she really say
Fee Fee
?

Soon afterward, a thin guy with a beard stands up to introduce himself. He's nervous and very emotional. He's got a heavy New York accent and he's intensely earnest. In a wavering voice, he explains he applied several times to USC but had been rejected each time. Finally, he says, he got in. He says he is so grateful to be here. He clasps his hands together like he is a serf thanking a king for giving him a little extra grain to survive the winter. He seems ready to burst into tears. He's really letting his inner self out for all to see.

The introductions come closer. I'm getting nervous. I wonder if maybe I should do my speech. That would show some
cojones
.

The man next to me with the mop of hair stands up. He looks like a stunt double for Roberto Benigni, the Italian actor/director of LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL. And he sounds like Benigni! He explains that when he flew in from Rome, the airline lost his bags so he hasn't changed his clothes in days and he just retrieved his luggage from LAX.
That
explains the slight wave of body odor that wafted my way when he sat down. He tells some jokes in his lilting Italian accent. Everything he says sounds so comic! The class laughs. He, too, expresses his appreciation for being accepted at USC and says it was his dream to be studying at a place that is so well known. He goes on and on. The class laughs along with him. His speech is great. He's very funny.