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Post Film School Survival Handbook? by Jessica Mollo

News flash: No one hands you a Post Film School Survival Handbook when you graduate.  You have to wing it.  But wouldn't it be nice?  Not just for financial and job search issues, but for the emotional dilemmas too.  This is an entirely new and odd phase.  Expect a few existential ponderings.  Seriously.

I have to remember that I did not just graduate from film school.  I graduated from my academic existence.  Twenty-two years of school in the fall and work or play in the summer.  Well, it's fall again.  And it's still a bit strange for me that I am not sitting in a classroom, fervently writing notes or dreading the upcoming cram session for an impending midterm.  There are no more midterms!  (Which I can deal with).  

But that also means that there are no more professors -- professors who are incredible, unique people with different backgrounds and experiences in the industry.  In film school, professors are your organizational and motivational gurus.  They give you deadlines - forcing that creative chaos to become something comprehensible - within a time frame.  They are at the head of the table full of film geeks who, at each second, feel even more compelled to cross into "No Man's Land" A.K.A Hollywood - to get their voice out there and be heard.  

As a screenwriting student at USC, all the writing courses were pretty similar in terms of the way they were run.  Every week, we wrote pages for an original screenplay or television pilot or whatever it was that we were writing, and every week, our peers and professors provided us with comments and criticisms and sometimes amusing or brilliant ideas.  The stability and consistency of this writing routine are responsible for most of my sanity throughout college.    

When I first graduated, a part of me felt like I was leaving that stability behind.  How would I make it without film school, professors, and my peers' comments?  And then it hit me.  Ah, it's so simple.  At film school, they teach us the skills we need to write once we are out of school, on our own, forging a career path rather than an academic one.  Okay, so USC has provided me with the skills, but what about the deadlines?  Now this is where the work comes in.  Everyone knows that writing is most fun when you've first conceived of an idea.  You're elated, running purely on the fuel provided by your psyche.  When you're developing an idea, it's like time and sleep have no bearing on your life.  Time truly flies and you don't need sleep because you've got a great idea!  But then reality slowly rears its ugly, but necessary head.  You haven't quite got the ending worked out.  Was the first-choice setting the right one?  Is this kick-ass element really integral to the story and theme or just a fun visual?  Well, now the idea seems less thrilling and maybe your own thoughts and criticisms about your work take you down a peg.  With a few creative hiccups, your energy has somehow disappeared. There's this temptation to stop writing.  DON'T.  I recommend joining a writer's group.  With a writer's group, you can continue the "classroom experience" without the classroom.

If there were a Post Film School Survival Handbook, the Writer's Group section would probably go something like this: Assemble together a small group of trusted and diligent writers (no less than three and no more than ten).  Decide when and where you would like to meet (weekly, bi-weekly, tri-weekly).  Establish a deadline.  Write.  Write.  Write.  Email your pages to other members.  Read everyone's work that was sent.  Show up prepared to offer your thoughts and comments.  Discuss.  Go home.  Repeat.  Even big name writers like Diablo Cody (the screenwriter of Juno and Jennifer's Body) participate in writers' groups.  When she appeared on Life After Film School to give us student hosts great advice sprinkled with her own brand of wit, she discussed how important it is to have a creative support group.

  

As I think about film school and how the writing courses provided me with structure and stability, I have a new perspective.  Yes, the consistent classes provided valuable training and enriched my craft and my ability to discuss and critique others' work.  But it wasn't just the stability that kept me sane during the craziness of college.  It was the writing that kept me sane.  Just the act of writing--creating characters, developing stories, and following through until the stories became the scripts I was content with and proud of--was what got me through.  So sanity doesn't just lie in structure and consistency.  It lies in the act of writing itself.  So if you love to write, just write.  And repeat.