Journalism: AKA Film School
April 29, 2008
When I became a journalist, my primary goal was to gain credibility as a writer. So I focused on what I knew – screenwriting. I analyzed form, interviewed writers, and waxed poetic on improving a script. Little did I know that being a journalist would turn out to be an incredible education - my real-world version of film school.
Like most lessons in life, it happened while I was looking in the opposite direction. I met a magazine publisher at the Toronto International Film Festival…and suddenly had a chance to pitch an established film magazine. But they didn’t want stories on writing. They wanted full-bodied stories examining the cultural impacts of film. Score!
Why score? Well. As a writer, I’m fascinated by people and everything that makes them tick. Kinda comes with the job. Here I was being handed a chance to pitch magazine articles about just that - from a film perspective. How do movies affect us? Why do we love them so? Can films be a positive voice in the world or should they be pure entertainment?
My imagination went wild. I came up with 25 article pitches overnight. And the magazine editor loved it. He handed me my first assignment. And that’s when it hit me. Oh God. I would have to interview these people!
Like most green journalists, I shook my way through those first interviews. Then I began to love them for the goldmines they were. I had a perfectly legitimate reason to pose questions to anyone in the business. Whatever I wanted to find out about film, I could ask!
Even after courses and books and conferences about film, my real “film school” came through a channel I never would have predicted: being a journalist.
Looks I am at the place you were at. While I am not working for a magazine and really working on my own, I find I am having that educational experience.