quote:

Originally posted by Icarus Ascending:

AFI
+ Small, cozy, personal.
+ AFI actually DID offer me a substantial scholarship, which made me all warm and runny inside. Maybe they “get” my weirdo writing. I dunno. Point is, they like me, which makes me like them.
+ SWers come out with three features, at least one of which has gone through an intense semester of revisions.
+ Pitch-a-palooza or whatever they call it there.
+ A happy absence of Crit Studies BS.
+ My boyfriend and I could affordably live in a little house in Los Feliz. From some (affordable!) locations, I could even walk to school. The sheer cuteness of this scenario almost makes the decision obvious.

- Who was the last working SWer to graduate from AFI SWing? Seriously, anybody know? From what I can tell, their recent track record leaves a little something to be desired... Of course, it's hard to know: many working writers don't appear in IMDB because their pieces get stuck in development.
- Nobody outside the film industry has ever heard of this school. I know that shouldn't matter, but... when I tell people about it, they say, “Oh, like the New York Film Academy?” It's depressing.
- The "crewing" requirement for screenwriters sounds vaguely like slavery. This is particularly true when it comes to second and third cycle films, on which all other fellows perform their respective crafts and SWers are "story editors" which I assume means "janitors."



USC (provided, of course, that they accept me)
+ Famous, world-renowned program
+ SWers seem to come out with a substantial body of (well-revised) work
+ "Get Pitch Quick" or whatever they call it there
+ Chance to work with the producers-of-tomorrow
+ Production opportunities
+ Mafia

- In the ghetto ("and his mama cries...")
- I've heard that the SWing program starts out painfully basic--as in, scene-writing exercises. Don't get me wrong: I think reviewing fundamentals is the height of good health, but I'd rather not pay through the nose for another thrilling round of Aristotle’s lecture notes.
- The vastly oversized film program (100 production students alone every year... yegods...) leads me to wonder how much individual attention one gets.
- I read some silly article in a SW mag a few months ago that told me not to go to USC. The reasoning went something like this: USC is the McFilmSchool... everyone and his plumber went there… if anyone in the industry finds out you attended, they’ll just roll their eyes and figure you for another McScreenwriter... Yeah, it was the usual pointless we’ve-got-70-pages-to-fill-and-we-can’t-do-another-article-about-Nora-Ephron’s-cat screenwriting magazine crap, but sometimes that kind of thing haunts you…
- I have this hang-up (my therapist has another name for it) about not fitting in at USC. I don’t know what exactly makes me feel that way. Oh, maybe it’s because the buildings are called things like “Lucas,” “Spielberg,” and “Zemeckis.” See, I tend to write kind of oddball, talky, vaguely brainy stuff. I would be of absolutely no help to someone writing a script about space aliens, and I don't think they could be of much help to me.

I appreciate anyone who has waded this far into the murky darkness which I euphemistically call “my decision-making process,” and I would grateful for any insight.

Thanks in advance,
Icarus