Knowledge is power. That statement is especially true when attempting to break into the movie business. All you need to begin your career in the film business are a few simple things – $100,000 for tuition at a top film school, be sure to see thousands of movies including all of those considered to be historically important, don't forget to save at least $25,000 or more for the projects you wish to finish, get used to the lack of sleep or a social life... oh, and it really helps to have talent.

The unfortunate reality is that money is probably the most important part of this equation. That is, unless you enjoy playing the part of a production assistant working on someone else’s movie at film school, probably for the kid whose family was smart enough to take out a loan.

There really is no formula for success in the film business, no matter the level of education, access to money or God-given talent, it all could amount to nothing. So it might inspire you to know that Quentin Tarantino never graduated high school. He's a dropout and sometimes it shows in the work -- his screenplays are rife with spelling and grammatical errors. But reading a Tarantino script is like poetry to any movie geek who has had the pleasure to soak in his words. Sure, there's a "teh" here and there and rampant misuse of "your/you're" but these words were not meant to be read, they were intended to be heard from the silver screen accompanied by powerful images. It's well-known that QT took advantage of his video store job by watching countless movies. He exposed himself not only to the beloved classics, but to exploitation films from the seventies as well as Hong Kong cinema. Tarantino is not the only one who skirted traditional schooling in favor of the school of life. The film industry is perhaps one of the few businesses in which the points of entry are as varied as the levels of education - a business populated by everyone from college dropouts to those with PHDs. And there are still no guarantees that a degree from film school will gain you anything but a production assistant job paying less than working as a fast food meat jockey.

For those without the ability to fund an expensive film school education, or if you're simply seeking a way to supplement your schooling, there are several ways to achieve this. And the best part is that the school of life is free. Well, mostly free. The one thing to keep in mind if you choose this path is that you never really graduate. The schooling just goes on and on. In fact, the education should never really end. Spielberg himself sees many films each week because he always feels he can learn something new. And so can you by pursuing a few of these opportunities.



Listen to DVD Commentaries
Paul Thomas Anderson, the director of Boogie Nights has said that listening to commentary tracks (then only heard on laser discs) was how he learned about filmmaking. Some great commentaries are almost like sitting in class with professor Scorsese. In fact, listening to commentaries should become a habit. Personally, I'm addicted to DVD commentary tracks and I listen to them like talk radio at home and in my car and on my ipod. It's not difficult to rip a DVD and grab an MP3 of the commentary tracks for convenience later. However, now that commentaries are an expected part of a "special edition" DVD, most are average at best. A solid commentary should offer inside knowledge free from the political "niceties" so often heard on these tracks. One of the best is on Requiem for a Dream by Darren Aronofsky. He includes his cinematographer on the commentary and the two reveal the guerilla filmmaking methods they used to get the movie made. The recent release of Joe Carnahan's Smokin' Aces has two commentary tracks that are amazing.

A filmmaker who consistently provides excellent commentary is Steven Soderbergh. He is probably the best filmmaker doing commentary on DVD today for films like sex, lies and videotape or Ocean’s Eleven or Traffic or The Limey or Out of Sight or Full Frontal. Soderbergh always hosts his commentary with the screenwriters of his films and introduces the commentary track by saying “Hey, welcome to another episode of two white guys talking about movies...”

What makes Soderbergh’s commentary so amazing is that he hits on almost every layer of what you’d look for in a good commentary-
- First of all, insight into his process. We learn firsthand how he makes movies and his philosophies on cinema. Soderbergh will explain why he did what he did and he’s even his own worst critic – he’ll even tell you whether he thought it worked or not.
- Secondly, we get to know about him as a person. With all his success, he’s strangely humble and a regular guy. He reveals personal history, elements of his family life as they relate to the film, where he went to school, where he came from, who influenced him, favorite films, where he stole ideas, etc… Soderbergh also displays a great sense of humor.
- And finally, Soderbergh’s commentaries always include lots of inside stories and anecdotes about the actors, the financing, the problems, the marketing, the studio, etc... He’s not afraid to be vulnerable or even get into an argument with the screenwriting co-hosting the commentary on the disc. Listen to the commentary track for The Limey and you’ll hear Soderbergh’s heated argument with the screenwriter over cut scenes. It’s brilliant!

Others who excel at commentary are actor Bruce Campbell – he’s hysterical.

Explore
For those lucky enough to live in the capitol of the entertainment industry, there are plenty of places to explore.

Hollywood Museum
Learn about the history of Hollywood, and you can even do the tourist thing and take the Location Tour in which you'll visit the actual locations for movies and television shows. The most popular tour currently is the Entourage which takes you to landmarks sucha as Jerry’s Famous Deli, the Urth Café, the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf on Beverly, Koi and Real Food Daily on La Cienega and ending at the Santa Monica Pier (location for the fictional Aqua-Man movie). Or you could just drive by those places yourself. Anyway, visit them at 3200 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 1680 South Tower, Los Angeles, CA 90010.

Margaret Herrick Library
The official Oscar web site has incredible resources including The Margaret Herrick Library. This prestigious library collects a wide range of materials relating to motion pictures, including books, periodicals, scripts, photographs, posters and other publicity materials. The library is housed in the Fairbanks Center for Motion Picture Study, at 333 S. La Cienega Boulevard, Beverly Hills, California 90211

Warner Bros. Studio Tour
Studios VIP Tour is an insider's look at one of Hollywood's busiest and most famous motion picture studios - past and present.

Universal Pictures Backlot Tour
Not just a theme park with a look inside big movies, but they even serve beer and margaritas.

Sony Pictures Tour
Just like the other tours, but it’s Sony!
Tip: If you can, find a way to get to the official Sony Pictures Studio Shop where you'll find CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray discs, PS3 games and even PS3s at employee discounts. Whenever I get on the lot, I stop by the store and load up.

Become a Member of the Studio Audience
Hey, if all else fails, you can clap, can't you? Become a member of the audience and learn firsthand how boring shooting a television show can be. Some shows even pay for you to stay seated for hours.



See Movies and More Movies
The multiplex might be a safe place to see mainstream movies, but you must broaden your horizons and seek out film festivals and screening programs in your area. Here's a round-up of the best.

American Cinematheque - Los Angeles
Features classic movies, film forums and daily presentations of Forever Holywood in the historic Hollywood Egyptian Theatre.
6712 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90028

Creative Screenwriting Magazine Screening Series
See major films hosted by the screenwriters in lively question and answer sessions. Just sign up to their mailing list and you'll be invited to free screenings of new films. Screenings are always packed to capacity as seating is first-come, first-served, so get in line early to guarantee a seat. Best part - it's free as the program is paid for by studios seeking to promote their latest film to the most dedicated fans.

Flicker LA
Hosts special screenings of shorts on Super 8 and 16mm.



Learn Everything in a Weekend
If a four-year college is not in the cards, then you should consider many of the weekend programs available. Many of these serve to not only offer useful instruction, but are a great way to make industry connections. For aspiring screenwriters, the Writers Boot Camp will put you through the paces and provide assignments that will result in a fully written script in six weeks. This is a program that I have taken myself and the exercises they provide will assist anyone with writer's block to fill pages with dialog. Their continuing support after the initical course and list of distinguished alumni, who have actually sold scripts, is a testament to the process they've developed and the succes of their methods.

Perhaps the most reputable and worthwhile is the Sundance Institute which has programs for producers, screenwriters, directors and even emerging film composers. Don't expect to just sign up and write them a check, you have to fill out an application and be selected. I've attended the Producer's Program the last two years and it was an amazing experience, not just from the amount of information, but the contacts, the giant binder of info and even the food. This intimate seminar takes place in Utah and is like summer camp for film geeks.

There are plenty of others, but be careful as these can be very pricey. So do the research yourself and talk to others who have taken the programs to see which ones are worth the often hefty price-tag.

Free Money! Get a Grant
There are many grants available in screenwriting and even for pursuing the career of a film critic. You can even get a grant if you are out of school and have not yet had success in the business. The Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting program is an international competition open to screenwriters who have not earned more than $5,000 writing for film or television. The
Broadcast Film Critics Association, of which I am a member, offers a scholarship to a student seeking a career as a film critic. If you already have a feature film going, the Sundance Institute has grants available for documentaries and works-in-progress up to $75,000. There are countless other grants and programs to seek out, these are just a few.
Tip: There are hundreds of screenwriting contests out there and they all offer the hope of getting a large cash prize. Many of them require an entry fee to enter. Be wary as the cost to enter these competitions can add up fast, so research the best and seek out the fate of past winners.

Read All About It
It also helps to hit the books. When I realized that I could never afford to attend USC's film school, one of the most prestigious and expensive in the U.S., I simply walked into the student bookstore and purchased as many titles as I could afford. I then wrote down the names of all the books provided for the film program and then gave a copy of that list to my fellow classmates back in Detroit at Wayne State University. Sure, I could never afford that USC tuition at the time, but I knew that at the very least, I could read the same books as those lucky students.

For me, the best books include Chris Voglers' The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell and Breaking In: How 20 Film Directors Got Their Start by Nicholas Jarecki. For truly advanced books about the industry and the craft seek out
Michael Wiese Publications, Living Spirit's series of Guerilla Filmmaking books are must-reads and for data and contact info, the Hollywood Creative Directory is top-notch.

Taking advantage of just some of these non-traditional ways to learn about film may be your ticket to a successful career. Or it could all end horribly. Y’know, depending on how you decide to script the climactic ending of your own movie.

Gore gone.

Chris_Gore is an author, a filmmaker and the creator of Film Threat. Chris counts himself among the many proud graduates of the school of life.

Around this time of year you’ll read many stories about the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special. It’s become trendy to mock this musical-comedy-variety show made just after the unprecedented success of the original (none of this “Episode IV: A New Hope” business) Star Wars before it turned into a merchandise empire.

What gets lost in poking fun at the cheapness of the production, the horrible songs, the inappropriate humor, along with terrible performances by the cast including Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill, is the message of “Life Day”. Yes, Life Day. It’s one of only two fictional holidays, along with “Festivus” from the Seinfeld TV show, that many people seem to know about and some actually celebrate.


Carrie Fisher has claimed that she never did a Star Wars Holiday Special. Some of us wish we could forget too.

Before I discuss Life Day, it’s important to note that Carrie Fisher was once asked in an interview about her work on The Star Wars Holiday Special. “We never did a holiday special,” she insisted. Ms. Fisher either doesn’t remember or would like to forget it. However, due to fan conventions allowing the distribution of bootleg tapes and the internet, many are experiencing it for the first time. And, more importantly, learning about the importance of Life Day.

For those who have not seen it, or seen it in its entirety since, well, it is rather hard to watch the full two hours, we begin with Chewbacca and Han Solo in the Millennium Falcon cockpit enroute to Kashyyyk to join the Wookie co-pilot’s family to celebrate “Life Day.” Photographed in poorly lit video intercut with recycled special effects shots from Star Wars, this jarring inter-cutting between film/video formats is reminiscent of British comedies like Monty Python. So, any idea that this could be taken seriously goes out the window immediately.

We catch a glimpse of the Wookie homeworld where the furry amazons live in treehuts which look suspiciously like Ewok treehouses from Return of the Jedi. Chewbacca’s son Lumpy is seen playing with a wooden X-Wing fighter when the hairy family is invaded by Imperial Stormtroopers bent on capturing rebels. To pass the time during the occupation, Wookie-mom, Wookie-grandpa and Wookie-son Lumpy entertain themselves via intergalactic cable television and “futuristic” video games. Oh, joy.


Chewbacca's family including adorable son Lumpy (lower right).

Harvey Korman cameos in a cooking show of sorts in which he provides an unfunny recipe demonstration for Chewbacca’s wife, Mala. The Wookie grandpa puts on some sort of old-style hair dryer-mind device which conjures up fantasies of a disco-dancing Dianne Carrol. “Now we can have a good time can‘t we?” Asks Carrol in what may be the first-ever display virtual phone sex ever on television. Star Wars was truly ahead of its time in many ways. Lumpy plays video-games like those featured in the original. Bea Arthur does a song and dance in a cheesy replica of the Cantina scene. The Jefferson Starship delivers a trippy performance complete with laser lights and disco ball. Ultimately, it’s kind of a greatest hits of bad clichés from unwatchable variety shows primarily seen on television in the 1970s. I can’t believe George Lucas had anything to do with it. However, he did go on to make Episode I: The Phantom Menace along with its sequels detailing Anakin Skywalker's rise from a toe-headed whiny kid to a whiny Jedi to the fearsome Sith Lord Darth Vader.

The Star Wars cartoon is by far the best part. The story is top-notch and introduces the character of Boba Fett in an adventure-filled 12 minutes. In this stylized 2-D animation, Chewbacca and Han Solo have crash landed on a water planet and Luke and the droids must rescue them. Luke’s Y-Wing lands near some Loch-Ness style monster that begins to eat his ship. He is rescued by Boba Fett who befriends the young rebel warrior. Chewie and Fett venture into the waterworld civilization to find a cure for the sleeping sickness plaguing Luke and Han. After R2 discovers Boba is in cahoots with Darth Vader, Fett turns on his rocketpack and jets away as he prophetically says, “We’ll meet again.” It’s a worthwhile tale that adds more depth to the Boba Fett character, so for that reason alone, it’s a must-see for fans.

One unexpectedly entertaining aspect of some versions of the bootleg DVDs/videos/downloads out there are the classically bad commercials– relive unsophisticated spots from Duncan Hines cake, Hungry Jack biscuits, Fruit -of-the-Loom underwear, Contact cold medicine and the Ford Motor Company. The best of these commercials is seen at the very end as C-3PO and R2-D2 introducing a new line of Kenner Star Wars toys.

In between the cartoon, the commercials, the comedy bits, the musical numbers and other “variety” segments we are treated to guest appearances by the familiar cast of Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Peter Mayhew, C-3PO, R2-D2, all in character, as they forward the thin storyline to the finale—the Life Day ceremony itself.


The whole cast joins in a joyous Life Day sing-a-long.

Life Day is best described as a sort of a non-secular, non-commercial holiday in which people wear red robes and sing and, ultimately, howl. And during this celebration, for the very first time, we are treated to the words to the stirring, though, somewhat altered, music of Star Wars. Carrie Fisher sings these precious words, so in the interests of promoting the true meaning of this holiday spanning unknown galaxies far, far away, I hope you enjoy the following song lyrics:

A day that takes us through the darkness...
A day that leads us into life...
A day that leads us to celebrate...
A lifeeeee!
To live!
To laugh!
To dream!
To grow!
To know!

Carrie did her best to belt out these words and, yes, it's total crap. And I'll admit that this special is both bad and entertaining (mostly bad) – a harmless look back at the seventies and my favorite faraway galaxy. But it does trouble me, as we ready ourselves to celebrate New Years that the this piece of Star Wars-kitsch seems to overshadow the true meaning of Life Day— to live, laugh, dream, grow and know. No matter your religion, or whatever holiday you celebrate this time of year, this message must touch you in some way. So, as you overpay for champagne bottle service or engage in celebrations involving large amounts of alcohol, spread the message of Life Day to one and all.

Happy Life Day!

Gore gone.

Chris_Gore is an author, a filmmaker, the creator of Film Threat, and plans to skip Life Day celebrations this year in favor of watching football.

“I woke up last night I thought I was going to die
My doctor came a-runnin’ and my family stood by…”
-- “Bop Pills,” Macy (Skip) Skipper

Today started off on the ass side of the bed with one of my dogs in the hospital after puking up blood last night. The doctor floated all kinds of possible doomsday scenarios in front of my wife and I – cancer, Addison’s disease, Parvo – but it turns out that the big knucklehead has what appears to be a parasite that he most likely got from eating stuff off the sidewalk (which, as we all know from The Cramps, is something you should never do).

He’s got another night in the hospital ahead of him, and then he'll most likely come home tomorrow where he'll be spoiled rotton. A sick pet is the surest and swiftest route to crippling, unmanageable worry (next to a sick child or parent, of course). It’s not like the little buggers can tell you what’s wrong with them, so I declare that if you’ve got a pet within reach, let them know how much you appreciate their good health and unconditional love by giving that fuzzy or feathered or scaled little crumbgrabber a smooch (unless it’s a fish, in which case I guess you can give it a couple of extra flakes).

Speaking of animals gone berserk, Synapse Films has just released the Satanic hair-metal train wreck Rock 'N' Roll Nightmare in a deluxe DVD. If you've never experienced RNRN, I strongly suggest you carve out two hours from your life, erase as many brain cells as possible with the industrial cleaner of your choice, and tuck into this film with both hands; it is, without question, one of the most bizarre yet consistently entertaining low-budget films ever made. Canadian stunt rocker Jon-Mikl Thor (or just Thor to his pals) stars as the frontman for a horrible, horrible flash metal outfit which runs afoul of a gaggle of demon hand puppets in a remote farm house before facing off with a Great Satan constructed from what appears to be pipe cleaners.

Yeah, it’s cheap, dopey ‘80s horror, chock-a-block with teased hair, unfortunate nudity, and half-assed nods to Gremlins, but RNRN is so wrapped in its own lunatic logic that you can’t help but feel deep affection for it--which, incidentally, is the perfect sentiment to bring this post full circle: it’s the same sort of affection I felt when I discovered that my dog once ate a AA battery. You can’t believe that it happened, but you’ve gotta admit the dedication behind something like that. Synapse’s DVD is loaded to the gills with extras, including interviews and commentary by Thor, acres of behind-the-scenes footage, and music videos for the two gawd-awful songs performed in the movie (“ENERGY! YOU GIVE ME ENERGY!”). Trust me, you need this one in your life.