just rented seven electric scooters in one day

clarity.

that’s all I wanted when I decided to spend six weeks of my summer living away from family in Los Angeles.

some clarity on whether I should…
a. continue working in tech full time, and try to get a college degree on the side
b. forget college all together and focus on working in tech
c. focus only on getting into a good university and put all my effort into getting a good degree
d. if so, get a film degree? marketing? some sort of stem degree?
e. become a full time freelancer and make my own content on the side
f. be like the Nike founder and travel the world until I’m broke (definitely doing this one day)

so I did what any intellectual of the 21st century would do and turned to ChatGPT for suggestions on short-term, intensive filmmaking courses that would give me a better idea of which path to choose.

four months later, here I am living with friends of friends of friends in Westwood, LA, spending way too much money on transportation since I can’t drive…

and I can honestly say I have way less clarity than before I started this whole thing three weeks ago 🫠

but here’s a lil recap on how things have been going for the first half of the program…

week one started off strong. classes basically going from morning to night, with some even being four hours long. and while we did spend hours upon hours sitting taking notes off of slideshows, there were definitely practical aspects too, which is rare to find these days in education.

we learned how to operate cameras and lights to get us shooting our first scenes on the soundstages.

we also got to learn from some industry experts on how they climbed the ladder, balance multiple roles, and work on their own side projects. takeaways here.

and on the weekend, we got to tour Warner Brothers studios, which was sick - we saw active film sets, huge soundstages, and some iconic props.

week two, our first big assignment: a non-narrative short film. it’s what it sounds like - we get points taken off if there’s a story involved. ironic.

this was quite fun to make with one hour to knock off all the shots, assisted by two classmates. check out my attempt at (not?) telling a story through shadows below:

week three: I’ve officially fallen for the electric scooter trap. it’s way too convenient - you walk anywhere on campus and within one minute you find multiple e-scooters.

the best part is you can ride it to anywhere in LA, and park it anywhere too. a few days ago I rode it into a friend’s neighborhood with no other scooters in a 20 minute walking distance, and parked it right next to his driveway. gotta love technology.

on monday, we did our first joined writers room - three screenplays, narrowed down to two by the end of class.

today, we get to choose what role we want to spend the next three weeks working on to get these screenplays turned into full, 6-8 minute short films.

i’m going for editor - hoping I can get the role :)

so the million dollar question: is film school worth it?

so far, I have no clue. but I love the way a friend of mine framed it:

hopefully by the end of this I have a little more clarity, but if not, then hey - at least I got to make some cool mini movies with some cool people :)