Welcome to Students Incorporated, a podcast exploring the topics of business, education,
technology and design.
I'm your host, Mr. Jason.
Join me weekly as my team and I produce content that's informative, positive, fun and uplifting.
Episodes include student conversations, interviews with thought leaders and inspirational stories
with an international flavor.
This podcast is created and produced with the help of students from the International
Community School of Bangkok.
In today's episode, we'll be talking to an alumni who's currently enrolled in the Cinematic
Arts Master's program at the University of Southern California.
He's pretty special to me as he happens to be my eldest son.
He's quite the busy guy though right now, but we thought we would bring you some news
about ICS alumni from time to time, what they're doing and where they've landed.
Before we jump into our conversation with Mr. Coleman, let's hear our quote of the
day and get some headline movie news.
Our quote of the day comes from Malcolm X.
His quote is to have said, education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs
to those who've prepared for it today.
This quote implies that education provides individuals the opportunity to move on to
a successful future.
It also suggests that individuals who invest time and effort in their education today are
the ones who will be well prepared to navigate the challenges and opportunities of tomorrow.
Education plays an important part in shaping a brighter and more promising future for individuals
and society as a whole.
Here's some top movie news out of Hollywood.
We go back to the 80s for our first news piece adapted from the 1981 TV series Fall Guy.
The new 2024 movie The Fall Guy features the main protagonist Colt, who is an aging stuntman
working on a film set.
When the main actor for the film disappears, Colt decides to investigate the disappearance.
The film will feature actors such as Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, both prominent and
award-winning actors.
It's set to release in March 2024.
Now, what happens when you mix a panda and kung fu four times?
You get Kung Fu Panda 4.
Pol, the dragon warrior, is set to become the leader of the Valley of Peace.
However, he must find a successor as his title for the dragon warrior, and he finds a fox
called Zhen.
Additionally, Pol will have to face off against Camillan, a villian who was able to summon
past villians.
Now, moving on to our last piece of movie news, another new animated feature film coming
to a screen near you is connected to the iconic Lord of the Rings story.
This new fantasy film will be titled The Lord of the Rings, The War of Rulmherum.
It is set 183 years before the 2002 film The Two Towers and revolves around Helm Hammerhead,
a legendary king of Rohan, and his defense against the Duneling army, which is out for
vengeance due to the death of their former leader.
And that ends our Hollywood news segments.
Thank you for the quote and headline news.
Now let's get into our first segment.
I'm joined by co-hosts Premi and Rebecca, and we welcome Coleman, our guest alumni,
for this episode.
Premi will get us started with our first question.
Thank you for joining our show today.
Could you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about where you are now and
what you are doing?
My name is Coleman Weimer.
I'm a filmmaker.
I'm currently at USC in the MFA program studying film and television production.
And what I'm doing right now is I'm sitting on the balcony at school after a day of classes.
And it's like 930 p.m.
I should be at home probably sleeping.
But the grind never stops, as they say in L.A.
The grind never stops.
So yeah, so I'm but I'm really excited to be talking with you guys today.
It really is so fun to be able to talk to students at ICS.
Now having been out of ICS for a long time, so I'm excited to be here.
Our next question is a little bit lighthearted.
What actor would you want to play in a movie if there was a movie made about your life?
This is a great, great question to ask oneself.
I really I love a lot of actors.
So the question is, you know, it's difficult.
You know, do you want an actor to play you who would make you, I don't know, more glamorous
than you actually are?
Because that's kind of my head went to like, oh, my gosh, I could have anyone, you know,
if I could choose anyone.
But honestly, there I always come back to there's a few actors who actors who I really
love to watch.
I love Christian Bale and I love Adrienne Brody.
I think both of those actors are phenomenal.
And if either of them ever played me, I would be like I would be I would be so confused.
I might even be embarrassed because I'd be like, how could they?
They you know, why would they ever want to play me?
That's crazy.
I don't know how they would do that.
But that would be cool.
Maybe a more realistic actor who could pull pull off my vibe would be a lesser known actor,
but really, really, really good.
His name's John McGarrow.
I think he's a phenomenal guy.
I would love to work with him one day.
He he was in a movie recently called Past Lives.
That's probably my favorite romance film from the past 10 years easily.
I mean, it's an incredible film about this Korean woman who falls in love with this guy
when she's like a kid and then she has to move out of Korea to the States and she loses
touch with him and gets married to this white guy in New York.
And then randomly, this Korean guy hits her up and is like, hey, how are you?
And they kind of rekindle a friendship.
And then he comes to visit her and it becomes this kind of awkward potential love triangle
with her and her white husband.
And then this Korean long lost Korean boy that she used to know.
So John McGarrow in that film plays the white husband from New York.
And he does such a good job of being kind of shy and like kind of embarrassed and maybe
a little insecure about, you know, what does my wife think about this this this old flame
of hers?
Yeah, John McGarrow is great.
And he would probably do a good job of playing me.
So that's a long answer to a pretty simple question.
That sounds like a very fun film.
And those are great choices.
And now here's another fun question.
Who is the most famous person you've ever interacted with or have been in the same room
with?
Oh, that's tricky.
OK, I might I might give two answers, because I've definitely found, you know, being here
at school at USC, they do bring in a lot of really great filmmakers and there's a lot
of really cool screenings that happen.
Film screenings when they premiere in L.A. oftentimes have kind of a general it's open
sometimes to the public to buy tickets.
So for example, I was in the same room as James Cameron, who directed Titanic.
And I was there for that because it was a it was a big screening for the Pinocchio movie
he helped produce.
So that was a cool thing where you're able to hear the filmmaker kind of talk about producing
the film after the fact and kind of be in the same room as them with all of the hype
in the room with everyone watching at the premiere.
So that was cool.
But those moments often feel a little less genuine.
You know, there's a distance between you and the person.
And not only that, for some of these people their reputation precedes them.
You know, like you can go online and read countless stories of certain directors who've
had kind of thrown temper tantrums on set.
And so you kind of get a certain vibe about them even without meeting them.
And you're in the same room as them and there's a big event and it's kind of it doesn't always
feel real.
But some other more real experiences I've had have been really, really good.
Like there was a screening I went to at Sundance, the film festival, one year and it was the
film Minari.
And I saw one of the premiere screenings of that at Sundance and it just overwhelming.
It was so overwhelming.
The experience was lovely.
I was crying during the movie.
It was just a beautiful, it was a beautiful film.
And I walked out of the theater still like kind of tears in my eyes still and kind of
the post screening days.
And I look over to my left and Josh Brolin, the actor, producer extraordinaire who played
Thanos in the Avengers is standing next to me also tears in his eyes, also having just
thoroughly loved the movie.
And there was just this unsaid kind of acknowledgement between us of like, wow, wasn't that a powerful
movie?
We both loved each other and both of us still were in the days of having walked out of that
film.
And so that was kind of a special moment too of just unspoken kind of hello.
Wasn't that a great movie?
But I guess a more, I had a very typical, I don't want to say typical, but it is a very
typical LA story.
When I first moved here, within the first two weeks of being here, I went to this, this
bookstore that was doing a reading.
They were doing like a reading, a poetry reading and a book release.
And it was a very small event.
I just expected I would meet some potential, you know, other friends who were interested
in literature or interested in the arts.
And when I got there, I was talking to some folks who were artists and I thought, oh,
this is cool.
This person paints, this person sculpts, does like sculpture.
And they said, oh, our friend is going to come over and you should meet them.
And I was like, oh, great.
So their friend arrives and I realize, oh my goodness, their friend is a Grammy award
winning artist that I've listened to in high school.
His name is Beck.
You can look them up.
He goes by Beck, B-E-C-K.
And I'd listened to him for years and I recognized him immediately.
And I was like, oh, you're the friend.
And he looks at me and goes, oh, yes, I'm the friend.
And we just kind of started having a conversation.
And I was already, you know, having talked to the folks he was there to hang out with,
I was able to really organically just spend some time with him and talk with him a bit.
And afterwards, we all went after the after this reading, this event, we all went and
hung out afterwards.
And it's just really cool.
A very organic way to meet someone who in a lot of ways would have been you would have
had to go through security guards to get to them, you know.
But here you was on a Friday night just going art hopping from art show to art show and,
you know, just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
So things like that happen and it's very fun.
And what I've just been learning in LA is it's when you least expect.
And so it's better to just be always just be yourself and lean on that.
So I've been I've been trying to practice that as much as possible.
Going back in time a bit, what are some things that stand out to you about your time here
at ICS as a student?
The most important thing I learned at ICS was that being a part of a community that
cares for one another is absolutely essential.
And it's probably the biggest thing I miss about being at ICS.
There's a lot of experiences I've had in other places, like my undergrad experience
also had pockets of deep community that I was able to find.
But at ICS, it's a little more immediate.
And because the school is smaller, it really does have a sense that everyone knows everyone.
And even though there's pockets and kind of clicks within each class, for the most part,
you know everyone in your class and you do care about everyone and you hope for the best
for everyone that's at school.
And that's a really special, really, really special experience that I think as you at
least for me, when I got out into the world, I started to realize how much bigger the world
really was and how I was very much known at ICS.
My classmates knew me.
My teachers knew me.
And outside of ICS, nobody knew me.
And each step into the world, you become more and more aware of how your belonging to a
community really does in many ways shape who you are.
And so at ICS, I was able to really build an identity for myself and become kind of
who I am today.
But it was also planting the seeds of how my identity would continue to grow and develop
over time.
So as I entered, you could say, bigger ponds after ICS, when I entered undergrad, and now
that I'm in LA, which is one of the mega cities, and I'm trying to live in an industry and
kind of make my way in an industry that is huge, that sense of having roots in a place,
in a community that I was raised in that really cared for me means all the world.
There's so many lessons I learned because of that community.
Teachers who would pull me aside and say, hey, Coleman, have you ever thought about
da-da-da?
Or friends who were checking on me when I was stressed.
Those small things in high school really helped me learn how to be someone who cares in every
other community I've entered.
Even though they're bigger ponds and bigger places, wow, I mean, the lessons of when you
see someone who looks like they might need help just asking how they're doing, those
things are lifelong lessons that ICS definitely helped me with.
The school name, International Community School, I feel like sometimes it gets overlooked a
lot, but I think community is such an important aspect to ICS.
The community we have here is truly, really heartwarming, and it really is special.
Now fast-forwarding a little bit, what was your undergraduate experience like?
What classes did you take, and did they prepare you for your master's program?
Yeah, so I got my undergrad degree at George Fox University.
It's 45 minutes outside of Portland, Oregon.
It's in a beautiful part of the state.
Oregon's in the northwest of the United States, so it's a really beautiful, beautiful area.
Evergreen trees left and right.
It's green all year round, even in the winter.
Sometimes it snows, but mostly it's just kind of temperate, ideal kind of weather.
In the summer, it gets maybe upwards of 95 degrees Fahrenheit, but nothing too crazy.
So, yeah, undergrad I studied film, so I actually got my degree in cinematic arts, and I studied
all of the basics of the industry and also the art.
So I took film theory classes, learned about kind of the history of cinema in the states
and also internationally, and then I also took production classes where I learned how
to make films, where it'd be directing actors a little bit, also learning how to use a camera,
how to use lights, how to record sound, all of that stuff.
But it was more of it at an undergrad level, right?
So it wasn't the most advanced, and it was usually just kind of intro to sound or intro
to cinematography.
And so I was kind of getting my feet wet in all of the different disciplines.
And yeah, my undergrad experience, because I went to a liberal arts school, I was also
taking classes in the humanities.
So I was also taking literature classes.
I also had to take...
I also decided to get a minor in art while I was in undergrad, so I studied art history
and I did ceramics.
I studied ceramics also in undergrad.
And so I was able to learn a lot from different disciplines, not just in film.
And actually, this goes back to a previous question.
I had an art teacher at ICS who, when I told him I wanted to be a filmmaker, he said, well,
if you want to be a filmmaker, then while you're at ICS, you need to study 3D art.
And that was kind of weird to me.
I was like, oh, that doesn't make much sense.
Because you explain, and he was just like, well, you make films in the real world, right?
And I was like, yes.
He's like, so you need to understand spatial awareness and how a space is used and how
you can frame and move actors through a space, move a camera through a space.
So I started to realize, oh, OK, 3D art might be kind of important.
So I ended up doing ceramics in ICS.
And then when I got to undergrad, I loved it so much, I continued to study 3D art.
So some of those lessons carried right over into my undergrad.
And I guess the classes I took in many ways prepared me for where I'm at now in the grad
program.
I did find my first year at USC in the MFA program, a lot of my technical abilities were
very much so advanced in comparison to a lot of my classmates who hadn't studied film in
undergrad just because I had had so much more experience and spent many more hours behind
a camera and lighting actors and that kind of thing.
So my undergrad definitely prepared me for where I'm at here at USC.
But I also took fun classes.
If you go to a liberal arts school, you can take fun classes.
So I did take a poetry class.
I took a photography class.
I tried taking an entrepreneurship class for a few days and I dropped out because it was
kind of crazy.
But you know, it's fun to try.
Trying classes in undergrad is a great experience.
What was one of your favorite classes and why?
This is a really hard question because I really did love, I loved my professors and I loved
my classes in undergrad.
I really did.
I would say there was a professor on campus that I had heard about that had kind of a
myth about him.
And the first time I ever saw him, he was on the stage playing his banjo in our auditorium.
And I was like, oh my gosh, who's this guy?
This is cool.
He's playing the banjo like the Kentucky, you know, Appalachian style banjo.
And I wanted to know who he was.
And so our school newspaper that I was a part of wanted to do this piece about this professor.
And I was like, can I please be the photographer for that for that article?
And they're like, sure.
So me and one of my future best friends, who we weren't friends at the time, who was writing
the article, went up into this professor's office and met with him for the article.
And as soon as I walked in his office, there was just a vibe.
There was a vibe in the space.
It was just books all over the wall, bookshelves all over.
And he was just sitting behind his desk and the way he greeted us, everything, it just
had this, I had this kind of feeling like, man, I'm going to really like this professor
and I'm going to have to take one of his classes.
He was a literature professor, so hence all the books.
And he taught his favorite class to teach was poetry, contemporary free verse poetry.
And so I had an interest in poetry since I was pretty young.
And so while after we had finished the interview and after I had taken his picture a few times,
I asked him about the poetry class.
I asked him about poetry in general.
I asked him if he had any recommendations for poets to read.
And he did.
He gave me some names.
And then he also reached up on the top of his bookshelf and handed me a copy of the
book that he had just published of his most recent poems.
And I was just like, totally, you know, I was in awe of this person immediately.
I was like, wow, this guy's published his poems.
This is so cool.
And he plays banjo.
But at the same time, you know, I knew that I was, you know, not the average student.
A lot of people just see a banjo and they're kind of like, cool, I guess.
But for me, I was just riveted.
I was totally riveted by this person.
So I took his class.
I took his contemporary free verse poetry class.
And that class has, by and large, shaped a lot of my personal aesthetics when it comes to how I view art, how I approach telling stories, and also how I approach writing in general.
One of the first classes he sat, you know, we were all sitting there and he was talking
about metaphor.
And he made this joke.
He said, what's a metaphor?
And you know, we're all looking at him like we don't know what he's talking about.
And he says a metaphor is where you keep the cows in, which I didn't understand the joke
at all at that moment because it makes no sense to keep the cows in.
What is a meadow?
And then I spelled it out further.
Oh, what is a meadow for?
A meadow maybe meaning like a meadow in a pasture.
I was like, oh, to keep the cows in.
That makes sense.
So I was like, man, this guy is going to be ahead of us this whole semester.
And that was really how the class went.
He would give us these kind of tastes of an idea.
He would kind of prompt us with something and then we'd think about it.
We'd stew over it.
Sometimes it felt like a riddle or a spell he was kind of casting.
But one class he did tell us, he was like, you know, when you're writing a poem, there
is the potential that you might find magic.
And when you do, you have to be really careful and you got to use it well.
And there were times when I was I'd be writing and I would just kind of uncover something
that I didn't know was there.
And I just go, whoa, I didn't know I could do that.
I didn't know I could find a detail or kind of string together a series of metaphors and
create an effect.
It was just completely exciting.
And it was how I learned how to edit films was actually by taking his poetry class because
I realized that when you're writing a poem, you're writing images.
You're writing this image and then this image and then this image.
And essentially, you're creating a series of shots that you're cutting together.
And so by learning how to create metaphor between images, you can essentially learn
how to do anything.
So huge class, huge class.
I think about it every day.
So that's really inspiring.
I feel like that definitely makes sense.
Like people might not connect poetry to filmmaking immediately, but like through like storytelling
or like the magic or the way how you tell stories through images, I think that definitely
makes sense.
And OK, now this next question also ties into the general process for college apps as well.
Could you explain the entire college app process you had to go through and what advice would
you give to current juniors and seniors at ICS and their application processes?
Such a good question.
It's a very important question, especially for anyone who's who's looking at colleges.
For me personally, I spent hours and hours and hours and hours looking at colleges.
I put a lot of time into it and I would I would recommend I would recommend that anyone
who's looking at college spends a lot of time thinking about it and researching and reading
and looking at colleges.
When we would have college fairs come to ICS, I would go to as many booths as seemed interesting
to me.
I would seek out the schools that had the programs I was interested in.
So for example, we had Maryland Institute College of Art come to ICS and I sought out
that representative.
I went and found him.
I said, hey, I'm really interested in film.
I want to I want to be a filmmaker.
What is your program like at MICA?
How is how is that program?
So I would try to kind of find ways to even while I was in Bangkok at ICS far away from
the states, I was still trying to find ways to meet people in person if possible.
So making the most of that, you know, making the most of finding those representatives
who come to ICS for the fairs and all that.
I also did, you know, I kind of knew what I wanted.
I wanted a school where I could study film and make films.
And I wanted it to be in a place that ideally was beautiful.
So I was looking at colleges in the northwest.
I was looking at colleges in the northeast of the U.S. and I applied to schools that
to me thought I thought, wow, if I got into this school, that would be crazy.
You know, I was applying for some that I to me felt like total reaches.
And then I was applying to some that I felt like would have been maybe I would have been
a shoe in for, you know, ones that weren't super risky to apply to.
So by kind of applying to that range, you're able to give yourself a sense of confidence
of, you know, I might not get into all the schools that are reaches, but I definitely
could get into this one.
And also, I gave myself freedom to not choose.
You know, I applied to schools even if I didn't absolutely love them.
And I'm really glad I did, because the ones I applied to, I got into most of them.
And then it was a matter of choosing, OK, you know, when you look at the scholarships,
when you look at how much scholarship money comes in and all that, it really does kind
of shift what your your options are and what you can choose.
But I got pretty nerdy at times.
I would get I would get in deep on the research.
There were two colleges I was really trying to choose between.
I was trying to choose between George Fox, and then I was also looking potentially at
Bard College, which was in the East Coast.
Before I visited either of them, I just kind of on a gut level felt akin to them, like
there was something about these schools, the program, the teachers.
But my heart and what I felt, it felt like a spiritual prompting, a guiding.
I felt like God might be urging me or kind of putting George Fox on my mind.
So when my family when we visited the school one summer, I just kind of realized while
I was on campus, like, wow, this place really has a sense of the community.
I felt that ICS, it might be a good place for me to land when I come to the States.
So I kind of followed that that guidance.
And I am glad I did.
You know, I do in some some days I I some days I regret not looking more seriously at
Bard College because had I looked more seriously, I would have saw that one of the professors
is a filmmaker who I greatly respect and admire.
And it would have been cool to study under her.
But at the same time, you know, nothing really, at least hindsight bias, you know, George
Fox was a really wonderful community for me.
So I'm glad I went.
So, yeah, number one piece of advice and do the research.
Really look at the schools.
It's time well spent.
It really is.
Because even when you've gotten into undergrad and you're there and you're in college, it's
really good to know that at least you know in your heart that you you looked at the other
doors and you saw what was behind them and you you gave them the fair chance.
Yeah, and shoot for the stars, honestly, apply to the schools that seem like you never know
because it can happen.
Thank you.
That was super helpful.
I'd like to ask about the process of getting into USC's Fame Film Program.
What was that process like?
And did you apply to other programs as well?
The process to get into USC was process similar to applying to undergrad.
You apply to schools and the only difference being with grad programs for film, you have
to do interviews and you have to submit films to get in.
So I also applied to several other film schools in Southern California.
I applied to USC, applied to AFI, American Film Institute, which is a conservatory.
I also applied to Chapman, which is in Orange County, a little bit outside of LA.
And yeah, the process for applying to those schools was great.
I mean, I learned a lot by filling out the application.
I learned a lot during the interviews, that's for sure.
Some interviewees I met with at the different schools helped me get a better sense of what
the program would be like if I went there.
You know, and it's like, do I want to have a professor who's like this every day?
Maybe, maybe not.
So the process to choose USC was tough because it wasn't my only option.
But what I decided on was when I talked to some folks about it, some of my friends who
are older than me, wiser than me, the sentiment was, well, you know, why wouldn't you choose
USC?
It is quote unquote the film school.
And if it's an option to you, why choose another one?
So I kind of personally have a bend toward not choosing the popular route, just with
my personal sense of taste and what I like to make.
And so I worried that being at USC would make me too commercial.
But I realized I had to just get over that and choose the school that felt like it would
probably best set me up for being in the film industry, even if I end up making really interesting
art films.
Our final question for the first segment is connected to the last question.
Could you describe what it was like to have to choose between different schools?
Was that a difficult decision to make?
It wasn't that difficult of a decision once I realized that USC is right in the heart
of L.A.
And after I met the faculty of the other film schools, I felt as if USC had maybe the best
of both worlds.
It was it would be rigorous and serious enough, but not so rigorous and serious that it would
be at the expense of the student.
And that to me was huge.
So that's part of why I chose USC.
And that ends segment one.
Thank you, Coleman, for telling us that part of your post high school story.
We'll be right back with more from Coleman after this short announcement.
Hello, everyone.
This is Amy, founder of the ICS Media Club, and I'm Alpha, co-director of ICS Media Club.
We're here to share with you guys about what being a member of our club would look like.
To summarize, our videographers from the ICS Media Club will film and edit every big event
such as but not limited to Eagles Camp, banquet and salt trip.
If you don't know how to edit, don't worry.
We can teach you how and our video and edit team will edit the final video as well.
These videos will be uploaded on our YouTube channel.
For those of you who prefer designing, we have a team for layout design where you can
design Instagram posts or YouTube thumbnails for the videos that we will upload.
Make sure to follow our YouTube channel at ICS Media Club 0204, where you can find example
videos from last year and our Instagram at ICS Media Club, where you can sign up if you're
interested.
Thank you, and we hope to see you soon.
We are back with our second segment.
We are going to hear more from Coleman about his experience at USC so far.
We'll be asking some questions about his vision for how he'd like to do film as a career.
And we might just ask him about his secret identity as a professional yo-yoer.
Premier will get us started again.
Before we get into this cool program at USC, we all want to know about this professional
yo-yoer thing.
Yeah, yo-yoing is a huge part of my life.
I started yo-yoing when I was in fourth or fifth grade.
And when my family moved to Thailand, I was homeschooled for the first two years of that.
And so that gave me a lot of time at home alone to practice yo-yo.
And a lot of the friends I made were actually yo-yoers who I met online through posting
yo-yo videos on YouTube.
And it's a whole scene.
You know, there's a whole scene of people online who love yo-yoing, love making tricks,
posting tricks.
So it became a huge thing for me and something to aspire to, something to work toward.
And my parents encouraged it.
They thought it was fun.
So a lot of my childhood was, you know, practicing tricks, trying to meet up with yo-yo friends
who if I was going to be in the States in a certain state, I would try to find out if
there are any yo-yoers there and try to meet up with them and then, you know, trade tricks
and that kind of thing.
And then, you know, before starting high school at ICS, I actually went to the World Yo-Yo
Contest to meet up with friends and compete and just had a great experience, made a bunch
of friends who I've kept in touch with since.
And to this day, you know, I'm still yo-yoing all the time.
The team I'm on is for Atmos Projects, which is a yo-yo company based in Singapore.
Really great people, kind people who make really good yo-yos.
And it's really fun to be on that team and represent them and still learning a bunch
about yo-yoing.
You know, there's only so much you can learn even if you've been doing it for 12 years.
So, yeah, having a great time with that.
And it's part of my life that's fun.
There's no pressure behind it.
It can just be fun.
And that's really great when I'm in a career-driven time of my life.
So yeah.
We want to know about what you are doing now at USC.
What program you are in and where that can lead you in the future.
I'm in the Master's program at USC and in the Film and Television program.
And it's a program that helps you connect with other students and essentially learn
parts of the craft that you don't know yet, fill in gaps of knowledge that you haven't
gotten to yet.
I think the main thing about USC that's an asset is that it's considered an industry-plugged
school.
A lot of schools in Southern California have reputations.
And USC's reputation is one that students who go to USC tend to enter the industry and
find a job, have a career.
So it's a huge asset to be at a school like this.
It's an immense privilege.
In terms of what USC has to offer students, it's we have industry professionals who come
into class quite often.
And people who have the ability to kind of potentially give you a job are often coming
into the school.
So it's pretty cool for that reason.
It's very close to the industry.
It's in the middle of everything.
So for someone who wants to be a commercial filmmaker and actually make a living by making
movies, hard to pick a better school to go to.
We'd like to know more about the program itself.
So what are some of the classes and overall environment like?
How many students are in your cohort?
What's a typical week look like for you?
The environment here at USC is really good for the most part.
You know, like any school, you can find yourself in potentially the wrong crowd.
You can find yourself in toxic environments if you put yourself there and if you allow
yourself to kind of get swept up into it.
But for the most part, I've made some lifelong friends here at school who want to collaborate
with me and I want to collaborate with them.
There's 60 students in my cohort.
So every semester they take 60 new students in the spring and the fall.
And my cohort has 60.
Typical week is go to classes almost every day.
This semester I'm at school four days a week.
And then the day I'm not at school, I'm usually writing, working on homework, in production
on a film, et cetera.
And yeah, my classes, it depends on the semester, but every semester, no matter what, I'm going
to be working on films.
I'm going to be making films.
I'm going to be running sound.
I'm going to be a cinematographer.
I'm going to be getting practice behind the camera.
I'm going to be working with actors.
Every semester I've been at USC, I've had practice in all of these different areas and
that's been really great.
How did USC become so popular for this degree?
USC became a very popular school because so many students who went here went on to do
pretty impressive work.
You have students who, while at USC, maybe were considered rebels like George Lucas,
who once they went into the field, made Star Wars and then everyone said, wow, the greatest
filmmaker.
So it really does have a reputation for putting out incredible talent, whether that's the
fault of the school, whether the school can take full credit for that or not is a really,
no one really can say for sure because George Lucas had a really hard time making some of
his films here, but it has become popular because a lot of great filmmakers have started
their careers by coming to school here and learning the nuts and bolts of how to make
a film.
And there's just so many grad students, so many undergrad students who've gone to the
film program here who are now working in the industry and it's kind of a mafia and they
talk about it that way.
So once you're done at USC, you still have kind of a family of people in the industry
who are willing to kind of open the door for you.
I would think that networking with other like-minded people in this industry is part of the values
as well.
So what kind of networking opportunities are you exposed to and do you run into well-known
actors, directors and producers much?
I'm exposed to a lot of networking opportunities here.
Some of them are ones that the school initiates.
Some of them are ones I seek out on my own, film screenings that are happening in town
that I hear about.
I try to keep my eyes and ears peeled for things.
I try to keep, I follow certain social media accounts that post about screenings that are
happening and filmmakers who are going to be doing Q&As and that kind of thing.
So a lot of it's, you know, legwork I have to do on my own to stay up to date on what's
going on.
But a lot of stuff USC initiates and they bring filmmakers in and you kind of get a
distanced chance to meet them.
The previous semester, one of my professors invited a filmmaker from Laos to come speak
to the class and she makes these really cool, creepy films.
Her name's Maddie Doe.
And I went to this director's talk and afterwards the professor invited everyone else out to
go get food and drinks afterwards.
And so, you know, the handful of us who were left joined her and Maddie to go to the bar
to get food and drinks.
And it was a really casual way to get to know this filmmaker who otherwise I probably would
have never met.
So certain things like that are just really special.
You know, you're able to connect with someone in an organic way.
For example, at some of the screenings I go to in town, I'm able to walk up to a filmmaker
who's there to present their work and just honestly say, hey, I really liked your film.
And they're like, hey, thanks.
What's your name?
And immediately you can kind of jump into a casual conversation that is built off of
a mutual appreciation for cinema.
So yeah, lots of networking opportunities.
A lot of it can be, you know, potentially scary.
But in all honesty, if you're yourself and you're able to acknowledge what you like and
don't like, it's kind of hard to go wrong.
The quote, there's a quote I hear a lot in LA where people say, real recognize real.
Meaning like people who are real and genuine recognize when other people are real and genuine.
So try to follow that.
We all know there's a creative side to producing a film, script writing, storyboarding, cinematography
and acting.
We all know it is a business and these entertainment companies have a lot of pressure to make money
as well.
What is your favorite part of the filmmaking process?
The creative side or the business side?
My favorite part of the filmmaking process is the creative side.
Like I mentioned, you know, there are classes in undergrad I took that I ended up dropping.
One of them was an entrepreneurship class.
So business is not really my thing, even though I really tried hard to like it.
The creative side is just where I get my kicks.
It's the funnest part for me.
It's where my head naturally kind of occupies that space.
The writing, writing the scripts, thinking about character motivations, thinking about
color, how to frame a shot, man, every creative decision that directing a film requires, it
excites me.
So I am less fond of the raising the funds to make the movie and, you know, submitting
the film to festivals to get it seen or anything that requires the tedious logistical stuff.
It's not my cup of tea.
And to be honest, a lot of the ideas for films I have when I think about them aren't necessarily
the most marketable films.
They're not necessarily the most Hollywood friendly films.
So the business side is not always part of my consideration process when I'm making a
film.
It's usually the last thing I think about.
That's just how I work.
Not every filmmaker is like that.
So some filmmakers really care to make sure that the film they're making makes enough
money to pay for the next one.
So they do spend more time on the business side of things.
For me, it just comes down to setting where my priorities are, which is in creating what
I hope to be works of art and allowing the business to kind of come after that.
That sounds so interesting and fascinating.
This last question is about the future.
Where would you like to see yourself in 10 years?
What would you like to be doing in the area of film?
In 10 years, it would be awesome if I could be making feature films.
Since I was in eighth grade, my dream was to be a director and make films.
So if I'm able to be doing anything remotely close to that, if I'm able to make films,
especially feature films, at any capacity, I'll be pretty excited and proud of myself
10 years from now.
It can be really hard to raise money to make a film.
It can be really hard to successfully distribute a film.
So if in 10 years I'm still doing that, I'll be pretty excited.
Because really that's how it goes, if you're directing films, you make one, maybe it gets
distributed, maybe you make a bit of money on it.
But usually when you're starting out, it's pretty dry.
So you're just making films, you scrap together the funds, you make the film, and you do it
over and over until you're able to kind of establish yourself, until you're able to actually
potentially make a livable income on it.
So yeah, I'm willing to be scrappy until then.
But if in 10 years I'm able to make a livable income making feature films, that would be
pretty cool.
And that ends our discussion with Coleman.
Thank you for joining us from California, and we hope you're able to get all your projects
done this week.
I'm sure it's an intense time of the year with the end of the semester coming up next
month.
I hope our current listeners have been inspired by Coleman's journey, and he's an ICS alumni.
It's been a joy.
Thank you guys for having me.
Yeah, it's always so refreshing to touch base with my ICS community.
So I wish you all the best.
As we end this episode, I reminded that education is important, and so is the opportunity to
follow your dreams and passions.
Don't be afraid to take a chance on something or step out in faith, not knowing what the
outcome may be.
As always, this podcast would not be possible without the hard work and support of our international
student production team.
All music and sound effects are courtesy of Pixabay.com, a vibrant community of creatives
sharing copyright free images, videos, and music.
And we are signing off until next time.
Be your Students Incorporated, because your voice matters.