Why Did the Film School Graduate Cross the Road?

Here’s a joke for you… Why did the film school graduate cross the road?

Answer: To fetch his boss some coffee!

Ha ha! Seriously though. I remember my time at NYU very well. I remember spending hours studying and researching various Liberal Arts classes required for my degree, and writing 20 page papers on Italian Cinema. I spent so much time in the library, working hard… studying… and eventually earned my degree in 3.5 years.

It’s funny then, that one of my first internship experiences involved plunging the toilet of a B List movie star. And then, when I connected with many of my film school buddies in LA, I found they were using their hard earned degrees for similarly themed tasks. Picking up their bosses dry cleaning, taking long and detailed coffee orders at Starbucks… you know, important stuff you could only know how to do with a college degree.

We all learned this the hard way, but we’re trying to get this out there so you don’t have to. The reality of the film business is much much different than any of the nonsense you’ll pick up in film school. In fact, I remember the rep at my first temp agency out here in LA telling me that my resume was a mess, and that I should put “Education: New York University Bachelor’s of Fine arts in Film & TV Production” at the bottom, or don’t include it at all.

I was stunned. After all, wouldn’t such a credit on my resume get my “foot in the door”? Her response was basically “Nobody cares about your education: they want to know if you’re competent enough to pick up their dry cleaning or run tapes.”

In fact, this is one of my favorite clips from a Kevin Smith movie called “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back”. It’s a scene with Jamie Kennedy as a film school grad and Chris Rock making fun of film schools. And it really speaks to the truth. In this case, the answer to the question “Why did the film school grad cross the road?” would be “To get the director some coffee.”

So if you’d like to skip paying $30K a year to end up grabbing coffee, or want to know a better way you can use that time and money, then be sure to check out Film School Secrets.

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