What is it like being at Chapman as a screenwriter working towards his/her MFA?

[avid spots]

This is a pretty broad question. I am very curious to know what your lifestyle is as student at Chapman pursuing a MFA in screenwriting. Any experiences you would like to share would be great.

Thanks.

 

[DJ]

This is a pretty broad question. I am very curious to know what your lifestyle is as student at Chapman pursuing a MFA in screenwriting. Any experiences you would like to share would be great.

Thanks.

I graduated from Chapman in May '12 with a MFA in film / tv producing, so my experience might be a little different than what yours will be. I started out as an intern in October '11 with a very successful veteran Hollywood film producer. I worked with him a few days a week, while also going to class.

In the middle of my first semester, I started searching for my own material to produce -- scripts, pilots, and ideas for reality tv shows. I was urged to do so (and so were my classmates), by an agent from Paradigm that visited one of our producing classes. The film producer I worked for also recommended I find and develop my own material as well for the experience.

I then started networking via IMDbPro -- just sending out cold emails to take general meetings, have a phone conversation, or exchange a few emails to try and build a working relationship and find out what they look for in projects they develop and produce. This proved to be incredibly beneficial. At first, a lot of people won't respond, but you just have to keep making contacts and introducing yourself.

I spent almost my entire second year networking and developing projects so I had an arsenal of projects to take out once I graduated. By March of my second year, I had been offered a job as an associate producer on a reality show, which I accepted. I'm still working on that reality show as a story producer. I made the connection on a random cold email, and it eventually turned into a job offer.

I also have a ton of connections to pitch projects and have several of my own reality concepts in development at various production companies, as well as a couple scripted series, including my thesis binder project, in development with a couple companies as well. These all came through cold calls and emails to producers, development heads at production companies, agents, etc.

I guess the biggest take away is to spend as much time working and honing your craft as possible. Being a screenwriter, I would advise you to just write as much as you can -- not just for your assignments. It's two years that you can spend writing and developing projects to send out once you're done with Chapman. I've known too many people in the program who sat and waited for opportunities to come to them instead of making things happen, and I doubt many of them are having too much success this quickly out of school. I'm not saying they won't have success in the future, but if you want to try and fast track yourself, then I would recommend writing and networking with as many industry professionals as possible.

It was really important for me to try and start my career a little further along. I really didn't want to start out as a PA or assistant, as I feel that almost defeats the purpose of earning a top MFA degree. Just my personal opinion. There's nothing wrong with starting out that way and working your way up, but I personally didn't want to start out that way.

I know this doesn't completely pertain to you since I'm a producer, but hopefully it helps a little! If you'd like to know anything else, feel free to ask.

Good luck!

 

[Mike_V]

Good to see you around DJ
P.S DJ is the producer for the Thesis film that I edited.