Lights! Camera! Absence!

Happy #Oscars Week. In spite of the debasing of our beloved institution, by viewers who have fled and theatres who have fleeced and a face-slapper, et. al.

And, in spite of #Hollywood itself - the studio merge/purge, the changing habits of consumers, the writing down of created content, the elimination of traditional exhibition windows and their residual value, the wanton piracy, the risk-aversion of the conglomerates, the coming of the robots, etc. - I have still been telling all young & hungry aspirants to Go For It.

Go For It! Just maybe not IN Hollywood, per se.

Is there a necessity to being here in L.A. (and further congesting my Trader Joe’s)? There is no longer that singular velvet-roped Way-In - accessing the silver nitrate cannisters or the commissaries or the soundstages or the performers & crew or the fat-cat distribution decision-makers in our Show Biz of yore.

Instead, I implore the kids, perhaps just stay wherever you are (or consider Vancouver?), grab your phone and your laptop (and the latest text-to-video #AI model), and go make stuff. And make stuff and make stuff. More Mr. Beast than Mr. DeMille…

But I do tell ‘em to stay ever curious. Cinephiles & videophiles will still win the day. Read and watch all you can. I welcome any/all notes on my syllabus, “Film School, Hold the School,” curated with a little help from my friends:

• Visions of Light – the 1992 doc about cinematographers
• The 100 Years series – AFI annual lists with accompanying CBS docs
• Easy Riders & Raging Bulls – the 2003 doc and Peter Biskind book
• The Director’s Cut – the DGA podcast
• The Kid Stays In The Picture – the 2002 doc and Robert Evans autobiography
• My Name is Alfred Hitchcock – the 2023 doc by Mark Cousins
• The Story of Film: An Odyssey – the 2011 15-hour British doc by Cousins
• Screenwriting how-to’s, either Field’s Screenplay or McKee’s Story
• The Cutting Edge – the 2004 doc about editors
• Adventures in The Screen Trade – the 1983 William Goldman book which coined “nobody knows anything”
• The Clock – the 2010 film that runs 24 hours - a montage of scenes from films and TV shows that feature clockfaces (with the “actual” time)
• @criterioncollection – the Instagram feed featuring vids of directors & actors joyously free-associating with DVDs pulled from the CC closet
• Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling – the 2012 essay by Emma Coats
• Hit and Run – the 1996 book about Guber & Peters fleecing Sony
• Directing: Film Techniques & Aesthetics – the Rabiger et. al. tome cited by many pros as essential
• Conversations with (Billy) Wilder – the 1999 Cameron Crowe book
• Red Harvest – the 1929 Dashiell Hammet book reco’d by Scott Frank
• The Conversations – the 2002 book about editor Walter Murch

Honorable Mention: The Business of Film, Spielberg, Powerhouse, The Big Goodbye, On Directing Film, Nina Foch classes on YouTube, The Devil’s Candy, Pandora’s Box, Rebel Without A Crew, Lost in La Mancha, The Last Tycoon, American Movie, Hearts of Darkness, Making Movies, Overnight, Hollywood: A BBC Celebration of the American Silent Film, You’ll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again, the 11/7/23 AP article about Alexander Payne, That’s Entertainment

?