Film School Blues

I have vehemently disagreed with past Calendar stories about Hollywood and its rose-colored look at the theft of our jobs by Canada. This time we agree. The truthful article on film schools might save some kids and their parents a lot of grief (“Film School Daze,” by Robert W. Welkos, Nov. 18).

The sad fact is that the vast majority of film students come to Hollywood and never get a job. The odds are enormously skewed against them. Even in the heyday of Hollywood prosperity, only a handful of film students broke into the industry, usually by having solid pre-contacts or sheer luck from being in the right place when a job opened up during busy seasons (which no longer exist).

I saw far more kids succeed who never went to film school. I graduated from college, but I am a realist and believe that the film industry is one job for which college is not necessary or even important.

My suggestion would be that young men and women with film aspirations pass on film school and go directly to Hollywood (better yet, Canada) and use those saved four years of their lives and $100,000 to build all-important contacts. Do any job on any film--for free. Between free jobs, read film books and take night classes.

At least they will have had four years of making solid contacts, learning on the job and using cutting-edge equipment. If they find that they can’t make a living in the film industry, they are still young enough to go back to school and retrain in a different career.

JOHN COFFEY

Sound mixer and owner of Coffey Sound

Hollywood

Welkos’ report would work better in a national publication for rich folks. More than 25 colleges and even trade schools are mentioned, scattered all around the country, costing $20,000 or $30,000 a year.

I’m just guessing, but I’ll bet more than 90% of Times readers live in and around Los Angeles. A lot of them might have been interested to read this: Los Angeles City College in Hollywood has a huge studio complex of soundstages, screening and editing rooms, professional film and TV equipment, and top instruction.

Radio, TV and film courses have been offered at LACC for a long time by a faculty with industry specialists who stress real-world techniques. They already have studio contacts and know about internships, and most are very good at what they do.

They are justifiably proud of directors like Mimi Leder or the Hughes brothers, actors like Mykelti Williamson and Albert Brooks (as a filmmaker too), and writer-producers like David Richardson. But the faculty is also proud of the countless other students who work in the industry and, as crew, at studios all across America, even in other countries.

Readers would certainly enjoy knowing about the most geographically accessible and non-costly alternative (only a few hundred bucks a year), and the fact that L.A. City College is the only accredited public college actually in Hollywood.

GEORGE BOWDEN

Professor emeritus

Los Angeles City College Department of cinema-television

Encino

The exploding number of film schools and film school students seems to be inversely proportional to the output of good films. Most film school grads seem to simply want to avoid a more traditional vocation and land a “cool job.”

A waiter friend working at Spago told me an illuminating story about a table of American Film Institute students inquiring who the gentleman at another table was, as many visitors had stopped to say hello. “That’s Tony Curtis,” my waiter friend told the students, who responded with a collective “Who’s that?”

JEFF SOFTLEY

West Hollywood