orientation round 2

Last Friday was orientation day for the School of Cinematic Arts.  This was great because I finally got to meet all my classmates in person, along with a bunch of the second-year writers and various Important People to Know in the SCA administration.  Jack Epps, the chair of the writing division, is a talkative guy but seems to really care about his students and their artistic and professional development.  John Furia, the former chair (of whom I admit I was a bit dismissive at first since he looks like a crusty old man) offered some surprisingly prescient words of wisdom about writing that made me think, Wow, he totally gets it.

I was really curious about the people in my class, since I'd only met most of them online and some of them not at all.  Also, since I'd recently started paying attention to diversity (or lack thereof) in the industry, I was eager to see how the class broke down.  My first impressions:

Geographic diversity: excellent.  People are really from all over the place, including 3 or 4 international students.

Age diversity: excellent.  There are people who have just graduated undergrad and people who are married and have children in high school.

Gender diversity: better than expected.  Somewhere between 1/3-to-2/3rds and 40/60 female/male, in my estimation.  Not exactly in line with the US population, but still better than the industry as a whole.

Racial diversity: room for improvement.  The class is certainly not all white, but it is pretty damn white.  Although I think we're still doing better than production, if my small, non-scientific study of the four white dudes I met is any indication.

During introductions, we were asked to say our favorite movies and TV shows.  Buffy scored high (woohoo!) with at least three nods, and my pick of The Battle of Algiers as favorite movie was apparently worth some cool points.  People's tastes seemed really diverse, which should bode well for writing classes. 

After that there was a little game of around-the-world-style movie trivia, at which I'm proud to say we all failed pretty hard.  (In case anyone is wondering, the 1976 Best Picture was Rocky--although I thought Network was a pretty respectable guess.)

After a lunch break in which there was some amusing leaderless-pack-wandering around campus in search of food, most of us headed back for the two-hour safety seminar.  I would like to say that I now know a whole lot about using children, animals, weapons, and fire on set, but I mostly just know that there is a lot I need to know.  I did learn the following: (1) never leave your props for your terrorist-themed student film lying around where the LAPD can find them, and (2) never try to bring a pig into a Chamber of Commerce conference room.

The day wrapped up with another BBQ (they seem to like those at USC) which thankfully had better food than Monday's, and then we were all supposed to go meet some of the second year students at a bar in Silver Lake.  Unfortunately I had been lax about consuming my daily intake of 3 liters of water that day, which is apparent what I need to avoid developing a raging migraine by sunset.  By the time we made it to the party I was feeling a bit vomitous, so I didn't stay very long.  I did learn, however, that a cab from Silver Lake to my house costs about $25, and that LA cab drivers are just as insane as New York ones--possibly more so, since they get to drive faster.