Film School (34 page)

Callaway tells us he came to USC as a college student to study writing in the film school, but no one ever taught him how to pitch his material. “In Hollywood, as a working writer, you're going to spend probably more time pitching than you will actually writing,” he says. He graduated from USC in the late '80s. In the mid-'90s, he wrote the horror flick I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER and jumped into writing for television. He wrote for MERCY POINT, wrote for Disney's animated W.I.T.C.H., and then landed a gig on CSI: NY. He also sold a handful of pitches to the network. He tells us pitching is key to his professional life: pitching episode ideas for CSI: NY, pitching original ideas to the networks, pitching, pitching, pitching.

The Hollywood writers' strike has been going on for two months, and one of the union tactics is that writers will “put their pencils down”—no writing. So Callaway, who is on strike, says he thought it would be a dandy time to return to his alma mater and share some of what he has learned. “I actually pitched the idea for this class to Jack Epps,” he says, referring to the head of the writing division and the scribe of TOP GUN and other films.

Callaway tells us our final assignment will be to pitch to a panel of industry heavyweights. He doesn't throw out any names, so I'm not certain if he's stretching the truth about heavyweights.

Still, the thought that real Hollywood types might listen to us sends a murmur of excitement through the class. It certainly gets my motor running. I can't wait to learn what Callaway has to teach. I've been a pitching machine for years, albeit on a different level. I'd worked in newsrooms where most of the story generation took place at the reporter level. I'd create a fresh list of story suggestions—
mini-pitches—every week and mostly work off that list. I learned that the better my pitches were, the greater the chance I'd get to do something that interested me . . . instead of being assigned a story by the bosses. I successfully pitched stories about how people find hired killers and where the happiest orphanage in America is and why a rifle-wielding character came to be part of a Christmas display at a major mall. Plus,
GeezerJock
was essentially one big pitch that landed two successive investors and space on the Barnes & Noble magazine rack. All of these pitches, however, put very little money in the family bank account.

Now I want to pitch at a different level, where the stakes are higher and the rewards are greater. One television script sells for as much as I made in a year as a newspaper reporter. The thought of it makes my mouth water. I feel like a dog smelling meat.

Callaway lays out the ground rules for the semester: each of us will pitch two projects. One will be a television pitch, the other a film idea. We will spend two months on one project, then two months on the other. It doesn't matter which one we choose to do first, only that we create pitches for both a television series and a feature film. Callaway also explains that we'll build our pitches from small to large. We will start with the elevator pitch: a quick sixty-second news brief. Then we'll graduate to a midlevel pitch: five minutes, no more, no less. Then we'll do a twenty-minute pitch. He says he'll be timing us. If it's too short, we'll be expected to fill the time. Too long and he'll cut us off.

Callaway also warns us that he'll sometimes act like a studio executive by interrupting or fiddling with his phone or looking out the window. He says he wants us all to be able to walk into a meeting and pitch our ideas, no matter how much time we're given and no matter the situation to which we must adapt.

And, he adds, we can't use any notes. Everything must be memorized.

I look around me. A few students are biting their lips or looking discomfited. It's asking a lot, and it seems the class will be as much about theater as about writing.

I'm having trouble not squirming in my seat with excitement. I'm loving it. I love every bit of what I've heard about pitching a story, relying on a clock, being theatrical. It sounds like a bit of heaven, and I have experience in all of them.

At my first job, I was pressed into duty as a morning news anchor at Minnesota Public Radio. I was dreadful at it at first. The Morning Edition program I anchored had specific local cutaways, always timed exactly to the second. If there was dead air, I was expected to talk about the upcoming programs or give a weather update or tell people what a swell group they were for listening to Minnesota
Public
Radio. The first few times I attempted to fill dead air I bumbled nervously and sounded like the village idiot. I learned quickly never to start a sentence without knowing how to finish it, as when I announced one very cold day that the wind chill would be dangerously low and then, desperate to kill some time, figured I'd explain what
wind chill
meant. “The wind chill is,” I solemnly announced in my deepest public radio voice, “when the wind . . . uh . . . when the wind . . . well . . . um.” Long seconds ticked by. I started to sweat. I had to finish it up somehow. “Well, it's when the wind meets the chill.” A minute later, the studio phone lit up. It was a friend. She was laughing hysterically.

Callaway gives us one last bit of instruction: we can pitch any idea we want. We don't have to have written a full feature script or a television pilot script. Because all of us fancy ourselves writers, we all have a pet project to pitch. I'm going to pitch my feature script, CRAZYHOUSE ON SKIS. That will be the first part of the semester. For the second half, I'll have to dream up a television series. I'll worry about that later.

As the semester gets rolling,
I'm experiencing a level of calm I've never had in film school. I've got no pressing issues—no impending potential catastrophes, no partnership conflict, no bad medical news. Instead, I've got five classes that I need to tend like little growing flowers. If I keep watering each one on a regular basis, I should be fine.

Walking into Drew Casper's first lecture is déjà vu all over again. This time, I sit quietly near the rear of the Norris Theater and keep my head down. I don't want to become one of his foils. I'll let someone else do that. He doesn't see me, so my first lecture on the history of the musical film is a quiet affair.

In screenwriting class, we follow a now-familiar routine. We exchange scripts, read them, and in class, we listen to the instructor make suggestions—especially on any new material. Then we students will give feedback, advice, and criticism. It's a format that is impossible to do well with more than a half-dozen students. With too many students, the classes become watered down. This semester, our class size is ideal, as is the makeup of class. Dan's in it, and he's expanding his PG-13 marriage comedy; Thompson, who had his 508 accepted at Sundance, is writing an R-rated supernatural horror film; another guy, an older student in his thirties, is writing a PG-rated historical adventure drama. There's a woman who is writing a PG-13 story about Indian grave robbers. There's a baby-faced former child-actor who is writing a dark and violent thriller, a definite hard-R-rated film. And me, with my small-town summertime resort comedy/drama, a definite PG film.

We're all writing good stuff. After the first class, we leave and stand on the sidewalk and comment how we have a full multiplex of films among us. And we're all writing something that could sell. We've got an epic adventure tale, maybe with Russell Crowe in the lead. A violent thriller, maybe with a leather-clad Angelina Jolie in the lead. A marriage comedy with two cute young rising actors in the lead. A serious historical drama with a social message, a film begging for Philip Seymour Hoffman. A horror film that feels like a David Lynch film. And my comedy, an ideal role for Adam Sandler strapped into water skis. We laugh and note that all we need is a G-rated animated film to round out our multiplex. And, we add, we first have to
sell
our scripts.

In class and afterward, I revel in the discussions. I've stepped up the ladder of screenwriting at USC, and the quality of the storytelling in this class is head-and-shoulders above the screenwriting in my first semester. Then, most of the stories were disjointed, flimsy things. Now every story in our class has heft and quality.

I plot out my future. It's becoming clearer that my path is the right one for me. I'm going to push my writing and learn enough directing to helm my own films. Along the way, I'll also study cinematography and sound and editing. Every month in school I'm more confident in my abilities. When I started, I was distracted by the little things and I thought small. Now I'm realizing there's no reason to bunt or sit in the dugout. I see I'm good at this filmmaking thing.

It's the perfect strategy: I'll use Callaway's class to develop a pitch for CRAZYHOUSE ON SKIS, hone the script in screenwriting, and develop a documentary idea for possible later use in film school. In an upcoming semester, I'll have to crew on student films, but I'll also have a good chance of shooting one. Failing that, I'll produce. I drive home late that night to Carl and Irene's house and grab a Big Mac just before the drive-thru shuts down. I get in the door after 11
P.M.
They're both asleep. Carl has installed new floors to replace the damaged carpeting, and I pad quietly to my bedroom so I don't wake them.

The next morning I'm up at six thirty and off to campus at seven. My days soon become as orderly as an obsessive-compulsive's pencil box. At USC by seven thirty, check emails, correspond. Then from eight 'til one, coursework. Then I head to the gym, for a swim or weightlifting. If my knees and feet aren't too achy, I'll run on the track. On a couple of days, I have a 1
P.M.
class, so I'll run earlier and grab a quick bite beforehand. If I don't have a class, I'll hit the Jocketeria, then walk to the Doheny Library to study and write. My evening classes don't start 'til 7
P.M.
and run until at least ten. Then I drive home and try to beat the local drive-thru's 11
P.M.
closing time. Then I'll grab a beer, hit the sack, and start all over again.

I've got five classes this semester, so I only spend about fifteen hours in a classroom, far less than in my first two semesters, when classroom commitments and rehearsals and meetings could eat up twenty-five hours or more a week. This semester I've got very little weekend filming, and that's only for a short demo tape for the documentary class. I feel guilty for having such flexibility. It's a remarkable change from my 508 semester. Then, every weekend was booked solid with filming or editing. I now have enough time to explore Los Angeles, at least a little bit. I can get out more.

One morning, I have a long breakfast with Breitmayer at a quirky cafeteria in a run-down block of downtown Los Angeles. He just wrapped shooting a role for Clint Eastwood's CHANGELING, and he's waiting to see if he snares a part in the Coen brothers' A SERIOUS MAN, set in our home state of Minnesota (he does). Breitmayer moved to Los Angeles about a decade earlier. He'd been a full-time actor in Minneapolis doing comedy clubs and theater before moving west one freezing winter day. He's made enough to buy a house in Los Angeles and a condo in St. Paul, and to support his wife and son. I ask how long it took him to get traction in Los Angeles. He stabs his big brisket of beef and answers: “I get asked that question so much from actors back home. They want to know how I do it. I tell them I treat auditioning as a full-time job. If I'm not putting in forty hours a week doing auditions, preparing for auditions, meeting my agent, doing readings, then I'm not working.” He stops to take a bite. As he chews, he goes on. “So many people think to act in this town you're gonna just suddenly ‘make it.' Then they don't, and they quit. My attitude is just constantly to be auditioning.” Breitmayer is a stout fellow with a rubber face. He's terrifically funny, a great character actor. His stock keeps rising in Hollywood, and he's getting bigger roles year by year. His career arc is different from our mutual friend Krause, who was cast as a regular on a network television show in his twenties and has been a leading man ever since. But both have the same Midwestern work ethic as the corn farmers who plowed the fields adjacent to Gustavus Adolphus College. Both took risks that seemed very un-Midwesternly by going into acting. During the times I question my decision to attend USC, I look to them for a bit of inspiration.

When I was researching my TEACHER'S PET paper at the Academy's library, I spoke at length with a woman who was in her seventh semester. She was taking the Casper class to fulfill a missing elective, and she had grown bitter about USC.

“They promise you all this great stuff, but they don't tell you how many people come out of here and actually do anything,” she said. “I have so many classmates who are just angry. Everyone comes in with stars in their eyes, and then they leave. And they don't know how to pay off their loans. I don't know how I'm going to pay mine off!”

She looked really frustrated. And scared. She'd been in graduate school for three-and-a-half years; she said she owed more than $120,000 in student loans . . . and she was sitting in a library doing research about a film from the 1950s. Even at a low 6 percent rate, she'll be paying $600 a month just to cover the
interest
on her student loans. No wonder she's freaking out. The money needed for film school is staggering, and when I heard her story, I felt a big voice in my head say,
What the hell are you doing here, Steve?
At times like this, I think of Krause and Breitmayer and take a deep breath and keep moving forward.

A
t the next class with Callaway, we start pitching. He had asked us the previous week to create a pitch from an existing film or television show. Mine is MAD MAX, the classic 1979 Australian motorhead revenge saga that made Mel Gibson a star and launched director George Miller into the big-time. We are to pitch as if we have written the script.