4thWall

In thinking over things, be it from processing contact from your lot in Sequence 64 or from my own in Sequence 63, a few thoughts have come to the forefront. I thought I’d share via my love of bullet points:

♥ Respect each other, likeness and differences, regardless of what you do during your time in the program or after. These are the first connections you’ll have in the Newhouse Mafia.

♥ Get to know each other. My sequence had an unspoken Wednesday night gathering at Chuck’s after 10 pm and whoever showed up, showed up. During 24 hr. access at the end of the semesters, people editing would just come over, have a beer and a bite and return to editing having had human contact. We organized an outing to a football game and invited professors, significant others, parents,and friends. We also did a brunch pre-game that was fun (Ask Mary Ann). We threw an end of the semester party for the fall before the holiday take off. We had an Oscar’s party at Newhouse with live video feed (see Mary Ann). We announced events and such via a Facebook account we created for just TRF. These are the first connections you’ll have in the Newhouse Mafia.  (FYI: Professors Schoonmaker and Goenka were in the same sequence. Professor Moller taught Professor Smith.)

♥ Kiss the ground that Jason Kohlbrenner walks on. He is the unsung hero of TRF and a really nice guy. (P.s.—> The man likes to laugh. He could also possibly earn his PhD. in Psychiatry via his daily routine at Newhouse.)

♥ You should have either had a class, an office visit or a conversation with every professor in TRF by the time you graduate. If you don’t by that time… EPIC FAIL in my book! They all have advice and they all are technically your advisors.

♥ As a student you can get an AMAZON PRIME membership for one year for free! Free two day shipping is amazing! If you already have an Amazon account you can simply plug in your SU e-mail as an update to your account and it’ll work.

♥ You should be familiar with these three vitals of the entertainment industry as my sequence has discovered via our internships:

1. The Phone
2. Microsoft Office (Excel & Powerpoint)
3. Saying Please & Thank You

♥ My iPhone (a smartphone)  has been the smartest investment for being in this industry. I understand that Christopher Nolan doesn’t have one but at our level it is a lifesaver in: helping you stay connected, do on the spot research, track packages, instantly play your media for others, and literally navigate your way around. I have all my keycards stored in an app and I’m trying out an app that scans and stores business cards. By the way, I LOVE my Verizon service and have been impressed by the reception in Syracuse, L.A. and NYC.

♥ SMILE on the phone, it makes a difference. (Advice a la Dubin.)

♥ Write, Archive, Read, Send (WARS)- Write an e-mail or text, save or archive a draft, read over it before you send, send. This allows you to avoid making mistakes so not to ruin first impressions or cause confusion. It also allows you to take a second look at what you wrote and to avoid extra “wordage” and to get straight to the point.

♥ BULLET POINTS are not obnoxious but vital anymore! The reason why is that many times your e-mail will be received on a smartphone over an actual computer. We are in the age in the instance and demand instant gratification and immediate availability. Just think how much easier it is to read and follow bullet points on a Blackberry screen than some long and wordy e-mail. Learned that on the L.A. Industry Seminar in an aside from a speaker. Makes $en$e, right? Time is money.

♥ Bird Library and local libraries are great ways to rent DVDs and they’re free.

♥ HBOGO is amazing! I use my brother’s account back in Philly to access it but I am not sure if the service is available in Syracuse. Oh TV Anywhere and proprietary apps… wonder how that will turn out in the near future? (That’ll come up in your courses obviously.)

♥ You’re going to be reading a lot, or should be, and you’ll get book recommendations constantly- especially from Chew and Dubin. One thing that I wish I had thought of before my cross-country road trip was AUDIOBOOKS. I wish that I had listened to some of my reading and research while multitasking.  Hell, I think that I am going to start listening to audiobooks when I’m in the car, at the gym or going to bed anymore. Oh, and as far as recommendations you’ll get at Newhouse, I’d recommend Desperate Networks, The Mailroom, Official Book Club Selection, and Bossypants. It really makes a difference to listen to Kathy Griffin and Tina Fey read their books, it is sort of like standup at points.

♥ Do NOT stress out about the COMPS. Work together for studying. We divided the work up, each question into groups, and compiled our answers into one document to study from. In all reality, you should be able to answer any of the questions based on your time at Newhouse and that is the point.

♥ Making weekly or bi-weekly appointments with the CDC, or with your self in the CDC or some place, to work on looking for an internship or job for a set time will keep you on top of your game. Force yourself and don’t cancel! Get to know St. Bridget and St. Kelly of the CDC. If you know them, then they know you and may think of you when something comes across their desk.

♥ VARSITY delivers to every room in Newhouse.

♥ Padmapper is a great free site that compiles housing on Craigslist and other sites into one place and makes a great search engine for finding a place to live.

♥ I’d make sure that you have a bank that is bi-coastal if you don’t know where you’ll be and they should all have online banking by now. I didn’t and switched. This way, regardless what coast I am on I’ll be able to find an ATM for my bank, etc. I also set up my prescriptions at CVS as it is a national pharmacy with a large presence across the country as is Rite-Aid.

♥ Timezones, East vs. West- Though there is a lot of production on the West Coast due to the weather, the West Coast bows to the east Coast in regards to timezones for working hours. I’ve found that many people in L.A. are up early and working early because NYC is three hours ahead.  If you work on the West Coast I would use the mornings to make ALL my calls and use my time after 3 pm PST to develop the game plan for the next day and log or process anything that is not time sensitive to the East Coast. Oh, and production happens all over the U.S. but historically there are a lot of studios in L.A. due to the year-round weather for shooting and a lot of business in NYC- because of Wall Street, Broadway, and the age of the East Coast vs. West Coast?

♥ On your internships or on a set, ASK WHAT YOU CAN do and don’t stand there or be idle. It shows professionalism, drive and dedication. No one will tell you, nor should they have to do so.

So I sent this document out to accepted graduates in a welcome note and included this section for incoming TRF graduates. Maybe you’ve seen it? Well I posted it on your Newhouse Master’s Program 2012 as a doc too. Umm, I get around… So here goes, my advice for TRF Sequence 64 majors from a Sequence 63 grad:

• Do the Industry Seminar during winter break. In all honesty, I did the Industry Seminar in L.A. during the break and everyone that did it thought that it should be required, hands down. There are two, L.A. and NYC. You have no idea how important it is until you are in it.

• Take Film Business with Professor Evan Smith. One of the best courses that I took at Newhouse. If you plan to go to L.A. and can fit it into your fall schedule it will help immensely on the Industry Seminar trips.

• You MUST take a class with TV and pop culture Professor Bob Thompson. I believe that you will take a summer course with him but I’d take another one. His classes are about TV but also about social issues and history. It is like taking a history course via TV and he is quite the character and very intelligent about everything and anything that you could ponder. He also holds screenings, which anyone can go to but are related to his classes, once a week during his office hours in the Bleier Center. You’ve probably seen him on TV.

• Get ready for the law class because it is a little taste of law school. I wish someone had told me that because it is hard with a lot of material to remember. However don’t freak out as the most important thing, because you aren’t in law school, is that you understand the concepts as the law is ever changing.

• Jason Kohlbrenner is one of your best resources in TRF at Newhouse. He runs the edit suites and teaches. He has taken many of the courses here and aids in supporting. He knows almost everything about every course, projects and professors. He is one of the nicest people that you will ever know at Newhouse and so easy going. Just always say please and thank you because he is an unsung hero at Newhouse- no joke!

• Some classes seem like less time consuming than they actually turn out to be. Know that any production class, including the one-credit Avid and Light & Lens classes, will take you more time then you’d expect.

• Reserve your times in the edit suites and never think that you’ll just be able to waltz in and get a suite. Give yourself time to end editing sessions and save or export your projects. The edit suites are only open for specific hours so you need to plan accordingly and balance your schedule. During the fall and spring semesters the edit suites are open M-F 8 am- 12 am and 10 am- 10 pm on Saturday and Sunday. During the end of the semesters the labs are generally open twenty-fours hours but only as long as someone is working in that lad or suite at normal close time. So at the end of the semester, make sure that you arrive to labs before the normal close time if you intend to work past close or all night. If not, sucks for you!

• Reserve your equipment from the cage! Also know that Vince runs the cage and he is also one of the nicest and most helpful people that you’ll meet in Newhouse. If you aren’t sure about something or the cager seems unclear, speak with Vince. Also, always check equipment from the cage before leaving the cage!

• Your classmates are your most important contacts. That is a really hard concept to retain when working in groups but it is essential. Respect, even if you don’t agree, with your peers’ thoughts and opinions! Welcome to the industry…

• Every professor in TRF is your advisor. You may have one on paper but know that they all are more than willing to speak with you and help. These people are amazing people! Know that there office hours are even for shooting the breeze so make sure that you visit during office hours, even if just to say hello. I have had so many ah-ha moments and insider info come from doing so, from just getting to know people and this is a people business.

• While you are in grad school, take something that you are not especially skilled at or know much about. Strengthen a weakness that you may have in your skill set or in knowledge of a certain topic or aspect of the industry.

• If you are interested in editing at all you MUST take classes with professors Coffey and Goenka. Also speak with Jason Kohlbrenner and take Sound for Picture and 2D Animation.

• If you are interested in business and programming take a course with professors Smith, Chew and Hirsch (who is a visiting Professor). Speak with all the professors but definitely professors Dubin, Elin and Tibbens (internet/web/mobile technology- he runs the computer labs at Newhouse too).

• If you are interested in audio and music you need to take a class with Doug Quin, Steve Bradburry and Rick Wright (major personality). There are other great adjuncts as well as classes that you can do in VPA. Totally audit Soyar’s Lecture Series with Professor Rezak too. Get to know the undergrads in the Bandier Program (Quin, Schoonmaker and Elin will put you in touch with them.).

• If you are interest in writing the professors that teach that subject are Coryell, Dubin, Hollenback, Moller, Seeley and Smith.

• If you are interested in TV production take a course with professor Schoonmaker. Professor Smith runs a multi-camera TV production course and Professor Robinson teaches a course in shortform TV and commercial. Film production courses are usually with Professors Goenka and Breyer.

 NOTE: Production courses are a lot of fun but also a lot of work. By a lot of work, you should know that in addition to class, writing and shooting that you have to put in time to construct sets and edit. You really have to plan your schedule and use your time wisely when you are taking these courses. This is something that some of my peers and I didn’t realize going into these courses so there’s your head’s up.

Hello All,

I hope you are all enjoying bootcamp! I got a chance to meet
some of you at the Preview Day and share my advice then, but for those of you I
did not get to meet I’ll share it again. As far as classes, I recommend taking
at least one of the writing courses. I know some of you may not have any desire
to write, I was that way too. But then I took Dr. Chew’s Programming and
Audience Analysis course and developed a series and realized that someone should
write it and it probably should be me since I created it. Guess what? I didn’t
take any of the writing courses. But no worries I talked to Prof. Smith and he
told me books I should read on writing. But you all don’t have to make that
mistake. Who knows maybe you’ll discover a talent you never knew you had. If
you have an idea for a movie or show, do it! There are practicum courses that
allow you to create your own movies/shows without going through the democratic
process of the class voting on an idea, although the other production classes
are great (especially Multi-Cam). Create content for OTN! OTN is a great opportunity
to create shows for a network. You won’t get that chance again for a while so
take advantage. If you are interested in the business side of TV, I recommend
Programming and Audience Analysis with Dr. Chew. Not only is Dr. Chew great,
but also you’ll get a chance to experience the many roles of programmers and
media researchers (and thanks to Dr. Chew I got my internship at Sesame
Workshop). Most importantly, take the time to get to know your fellow Sequence
64ers. I promise you won’t regret it. I hope you all have an amazing year!