Film Schools Face Effects of Success : Questions of Access, Ethics, Expense Plague Programs

If film school is a tough way into the movie and TV business, many partisans nonetheless claim it is becoming the only way.

According to some educators and others, the small core of top schools is beginning to “institutionalize” access to movie and TV work--much as professional schools have become the valves that admit, or shut out, new talent seeking entry to architecture, medicine or law.

“In a couple of years, this could be the only way in,” “In a couple of years, this could be the only way in,” predicts Frantisek Daniel, cinema-TV dean of USC, where the “480” movie production workshop is firmly established as a stepping stone to the industry.

The nation’s 1,200 film programs have recently enjoyed unprecedented success in placing graduates in professional movie and TV jobs. But the schools have been troubled by problems, including the high cost of attendance, intense competition and increasing ethical debate.

The schools’ control over access is growing, Daniel says, because the burgeoning cost of film making has made it tougher for bootstrap directors and cinematographers to compile a strong reel of sample work without institutional support.

“That’s how it was in Europe,” he says. “It was impossible for the guy who didn’t have film education to compete. It will happen here.”

Sharply disputing that claim, many industry insiders say music video production, TV commercials and local TV shows remain a much richer source for new talent than the academy.

“The good directors come from the BBC, videos, all over,” says an agent with International Creative Management.

But other insiders say Daniel may be right, if only because success is so quick to feed on itself in Hollywood.

“It’s a chicken-and-egg thing,” says one Walt Disney Co. movie executive. “More talent is getting pulled into the schools. So more development people are going to the schools looking for talent.”

With applications rising, schools are getting fussier in terms of grades and credentials. According to at least some educators, moreover, university admissions committees are restricting entry to a small handful of relatively homogenous students--more and more of whom have already attended exclusive colleges like Harvard and Yale and most of whom can afford the tremendous financial burden of film school.

“Will the poor kid be frozen out?” asks Ralph Rosenblum, a longtime movie and TV editor and director who teaches at Columbia University.

“I think the same rules apply as to law, medicine or any other profession. Upper-class whites can afford $12,000 a year for education. It’s not going to be any different for film.”

Among the Big Four film schools, only UCLA is state supported. Columbia, USC and New York University--all private universities--charge tuition of at least $11,000 a year. Like medical and law schools, moreover, NYU’s film school tuition is now higher than the university’s general rate, reflecting the higher cost of providing professional education.

At NYU, to pick one example, increasing cost and competition appear to be changing the film school’s makeup.

In NYU’s prestigious graduate dramatic writing program--which expects up to 300 applications for 20 slots--three current students are Harvard graduates, and several more came from other private schools.

“We’ve seen a rise in applications and acceptances of Ivy League students,” says Janet Neipris, who heads the program.

What’s more, says Eleanor Hamerow, head of the graduate film program, NYU students appear to be wealthier, since fewer have been applying for financial aid, even though tuition has risen sharply in recent years.

“(Film school) is a dream for the white, middle-class, well-heeled kid,” she says--adding that even Spike Lee, the school’s most prominent black graduate, came from a middle-class background.

“The others don’t see anything on film they can connect with,” says Hamerow. “Mexican kids. Puerto Rican kids. Even the number of blacks who apply is very small, because you need money.”

For the lucky few who do get into film school, money can quickly become an obsession.

Graduates often carry $30,000 in student debt--enough to keep some aspiring film makers in school for an extra year or two trying to defer initial loan payments.

But expenses only begin with tuition. At NYU, UCLA and Columbia, young directors must pick up the tab for films budgeted at $20,000 apiece and more. Actors and crew members usually work free, and university film makers occasionally save on expensive permit fees by shooting without permission in streets and subways. But ever more expensive film stock, props, transportation and catered meals have pushed the cost of student movies to about $1,000 a minute.

Some students defray expenses by selling their films for varying fees to HBO and other pay-TV companies as filler. Many also work at part-time jobs, while still others have more exotic resources.

While an NYU undergraduate, Ari Taub, for instance, financed his $10,000 film “On Time” with insurance money left over from a car accident he suffered at the age of 7. At UCLA, an imaginative student says he tried to arrange for friends or relatives to make tax-deductible contributions to a university scholarship fund that would be tailored so that only he could win it. The scheme fell through.

More often, students simply borrow to the limit of their ability, hoping for a quick studio deal to erase the debt.

“It’s like a lottery, but they can’t advertise it that way,” says Steve Wachs, a USC graduate who works sporadically as a free-lance cameraman and is making debt payments of $350 a month.

In stark contrast to other schools, USC has tried to mitigate the financial risk of student films by developing a mini-studio system, under which the school underwrites five movies a semester at a cost of about $35,000 each.

Under the 480 system--named for USC’s hotly competitive production class--faculty committees screen about 100 scripts and nearly as many would-be film makers before picking the five directors and projects each term.

“It’s the keystone of the school,” says production professor John Howe. “Students work toward it, and they work from it.” He says students are discouraged from using their own money to keep “the more affluent” from rising to the top just by outspending rivals.

In recent interviews, however, USC students sharply criticized the 480 system as “brutal,” “political,” “creatively stifling.” Several students complained that the system places power over film making in the hands of faculty members who are averse to artistic risk and nearly as eager as studio chiefs to back mainstream, commercial fare.

“The question gets to be: How do you play the political situation?” said one production student who declined to be identified. “How do you write for a few faculty members who choose the scripts and directors? And how do you learn about feature film in a system that barely allows you to make two films during your student career?”

Occasionally, such pressures have led to serious disruption at the school.

John Cork, a 26-year-old USC senior, filed a $1-million lawsuit against the university and a fellow student in February, alleging that the school violated his rights by assigning a script he had written to another director. The school has vigorously disputed the claim in court, and Cork has had settlement talks with USC attorneys.

Michael Rissi, another USC student, is in a similar dispute with the school but has not sued.

“As a writer, I got the feeling I was just helping some other student get ahead,” says Rissi, who objects to the procedure in general and in particular to the school’s assigning his screenplay to another director. Rissi had tried to void a script release he had already signed by physically mutilating the document.

Acknowledging that politics and competition have sometimes had a “bad effect” on the school, Daniel says he is encouraging more students to fund their own productions outside the 480 program.

The step may bring USC into closer alignment with the other Big Four schools--where, as UCLA-educated screenwriter Neal Jimenez (“River’s Edge”) puts it, “Some of us do end up in debt for the rest of our lives, but at least we get to make films that suit our passions.”

In large measure, film school administrators think such problems could be solved by a powerful cure-all: more Hollywood money.

By many accounts, movie and TV companies have done relatively little to support the schools.

At UCLA, for example, the theater, film and television department draws less than 5% of its annual budget from gifts, while more than half comes from state and federal governments.

“It’s ridiculous, given the rich industry we’re dealing with,” says department chairman George Schaefer. The university is restructuring the department as a separate theater, film and TV school--in part to encourage gifts that would previously have been shared with other sections of the fine arts college.

NYU’s Charles Milne likewise complains that too many studio executives use the schools as a cheap development pool but give little back for scholarships and new equipment.

“It’s clear to me that the industry ought to be doing about 1,000 times more,” he says.

“Where is our obligation?” responds a studio chief, who rankles at the notion that student film makers deserve support. “Are those schools in business for charity? Who are we kidding? These kids aren’t poor. What is the obligation?”

Virtually all of the top film schools are dabbling with elaborate schemes to tap more Hollywood money--and just as quickly becoming mired in debate about the propriety of proposed relationships between companies and academe.

USC’s Daniel, for instance, has proposed to sell a major studio the “first look” at the school’s student-written screenplays for more than $100,000 a year. The student would receive any money if a deal resulted. Columbia Pictures originally agreed to such an arrangement, but drew back after David Puttnam resigned as head of the studio last year.

Daniel says he doesn’t foresee problems with the concept, which mirrors an earlier deal he struck between Columbia University, where he was department co-chairman, and Warner Bros. But USC screenwriting student David Goyer bridles at the idea of letting the university peddle his scripts.

“Maybe I want to do that myself. Maybe I don’t like (the studio they pick),” says Goyer.

At Columbia University, film studies professor Annette Insdorf (who occasionally contributes to Calendar) says she and several other faculty members adamantly oppose reviving the program there--even though department co-chairman Richard Brick is actively pursuing a first-look deal.

“I may get to the point where economic desperation will overcome my ethics,” says Insdorf. “But at the moment, I don’t think we should be agents. If the schools have these movie studio relationships to manage, are they going to churn out work that is geared to the industry? I’m interested in the capacity of a film school to lead rather than follow.”

In another plan at NYU, Milne is creating a university-sponsored independent production company, through which recent NYU graduates will write and direct commercially viable feature films with financing from a major studio. A Disney executive confirms that his company is interested in the scheme, purely as a profit-making venture.

“Philanthropy is not what I do,” the executive says.

There is already evidence that Hollywood largess can cause as many problems as it solves.

Ironically, USC’s film school--by reputation, the richest of the lot--has come under severe financial strain as it struggles to make debt and maintenance payments on a complex of glamorous buildings for which George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and other superstars provided the seed money.

“In some ways, the new buildings actually hurt the school,” says Daniel. After holding down faculty pay increases last year, the dean was recently forced to cut $600,000 from the school’s approximately $10-million annual budget. He is now planning a fund drive, trying to raise $13 million to help establish endowed chairs in screenwriting and other disciplines and strengthen television studies.

“I think Frank (Daniel) is a bit of a Pied Piper,” says Columbia film studies professor Andrew Sarris, a friendly adversary who believes that Daniel and other administrators are leading the schools away from the high road by seeking more involvement with Hollywood.

“But maybe education is one of those things you just can’t look at too closely.”

A MINI-STUDIO SYSTEM How student movies are selected for funding in USC’s 480 production workshop. BLIND SUBMISSION: Each semester, students submit between 90 and 110 scripts--without the writer’s name attached--to the writing faculty. THE CUT: 12 scripts are chosen for submission to the production faculty. Script Analysis FACULTY: Six production professors read the scripts, with writers’ names now attached, and render an opinion on “produceability”--i.e., the likelihood that the script could be filmed on budget with the resources available to a USC student. The opinions are turned over to four professors on the directors selection committee. STUDENT DIRECTORS: Between 25 and 35 aspiring directors--who have completed extensive classroom requirements--are permitted to submit a detailed written critique of scripts they want to pitch, along with their qualifications. THE PITCH: Would-be directors appear before the directors selection committee for a personal interview. GREEN LIGHT: The committee chooses five projects, i.e., director-script combinations. PRODUCTION: Each director recruits a crew, including producer, camera operator, sound person, etc. The crew members make the film, while meeting once a week with the 50-member 480 class to review progress, including rushes. SCREENINGS: 480s are screened for the press and for movie industry executives and agents, and are submitted in prize competitions world-wide. This often leads to the big time. THE BIG TIME: Student directors are routinely interviewed by most major studios and many independent production companies. Many quickly find agents, and some are signed to development deals under which they may be paid several hundred thousand dollars to write scripts, sometimes with a chance to direct a resulting film.