Q&A (Part 1): Screenwriter-film school teacher Brad Riddell
Interview (Part 1): Brad Riddell
I often get asked about the merits of attending film school. While I do teach one screenwriting course per semester at the collegiate level, I didn’t attend film school, so I always feel hamstrung in terms of what information or insight I can provide. So I reached out to a screenwriting colleague Brad Riddell who has four produced movie credits and has worked on assignment for MTV, Paramount, and Universal, and rewrites and book adaptations for several independent producers.
Brad has also taught screenwriting at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts for six years, SUNY Oswego for one year, and is now an Assistant Professor in the School of Cinema and Interactive Media at DePaul University.
I asked Brad if he could take on a series of questions about film school to provide an informed perspective on the subject and he kindly agreed. Today in Part 1, Brad talks about his background as a screenwriter and gives us an overview of the program at DePaul.
How did you become a screenwriter?
I had a creative writing teacher at the University of Kentucky who told me my short stories were really more like screenplays, with lots of dialogue and succinct, visual description. I had never seen a screenplay in my life, so I tried to find one, which wasn’t easy in pre-internet Lexington, Kentucky. Eventually, I got ahold of the script for Chinatown and was like — “Oh. Wow.” That teacher’s name is Nikky Finney. She just won a national book award. I owe a great deal to her and all of my teachers, back to my 12th grade English teacher who encouraged me to write and act, which I did all the way through college.
Eventually, I applied to a bunch of MFA producing programs — and I was universally rejected. USC actually told me “you lack savvy.” That really pissed me off, so I wrote a screenplay, applied to all of the same film schools again as a screenwriter, and got into all of them but one. I flirted with UCLA, but eventually decided on USC, thinking it was poetic justice. Long story short, my thesis script, Band Geek, sold to Universal a year after I graduated, and then I rewrote it into American Pie: Band Camp. The original script was a sweet ode to John Hughes that was only modestly influenced by the original American Pie. It was based on my high school band experiences, along with a good bit of my college fraternity life. That first job has directly lead to each and every assignment or project I’ve had since.
Why did you start teaching as well as writing?
I always wanted to teach. My parents are teachers and coaches, and I guess it’s in my blood. When I graduated from USC, I told the department chair I wanted to teach. Surprisingly, he didn’t laugh in my face. Three years later, and a few months after Band Camp was released, a former classmate of mine who had started working in administration for the writing program at USC called. A faculty member had grown ill, they needed someone, and gladly I stepped in, thinking I was a made man — teaching at the very same school I had once only dreamed of attending. (The lesson I’ve always taken from this is: no one can help you if you don’t tell them what you want.) I really love teaching. And the coolest thing is, seeing your former students get jobs and build exciting professional careers. It sounds cheesy, but if I can help make somebody’s dream come true, given that I often doubted mine ever would, it’s a total win. And teaching keeps me on my toes, forces me to stay current, and most of all, reminds me that I’m a hypocrite if I don’t practice what I preach in my classes.
Could you describe the program at DePaul?
We have BA and MFA degrees (with BFAs coming soon) in screenwriting, film production, game design, and animation. The screenwriting MFA is a two-year program with classes taught at night so students can hold a job, and we offer both TV and feature-focused tracts. There are also electives that let students work on sketch/joke writing, sitcoms, webseries, adaptations, writing for video games, and genres like horror, thriller, romcom, or sci-fi. We build universal and fundamental screenwriting skills in the first two quarters of the first year, then let students hone in on what they specifically want to do in their remaining four quarters. The MFA in production is built largely the same way. Students can choose either directing or producing concentrations after their first year, and then take courses that specifically support their choice after that. Of course, many of our students want to be DPs, editors, or sound designers, and we work with them to develop a suitable curriculum and thesis project, often involving participating in several films to build and extensive reel as opposed to a single thesis film. We also offer a production MS degree, which takes two years, and allows people to learn specific crafts such as VFX or post production, without having to generate a thesis project.
Our undergraduate programs are similar to the MFA programs, and just as rigorous, only stretched out over four years due to other university requirements.
I think what makes DePaul unique is our commitment to allowing all students access to every piece of equipment we have at any time. We are also fully committed to digital filmmaking, and endeavor to stay as up to date as possible, so our students get experience working with the gear they will encounter in the field. We allow filmmakers and writers to discover who they are, what their voice is, and what interests them — be that commercial Hollywood fare or edgier independent stuff. We feel students must become acquainted with the demands and realities of the market, but they must also be given the freedom to find who they are as storytellers.
How big is the school / size of each class?
That depends on the course. We have large lecture courses like Hollywood Film Structure, The Big Picture, and Script to Screen, which have up to fifty or sixty students in them. Our MFA thesis workshops cap at twelve, and some of our genre courses or specialized writing courses have between twenty to thirty students in them. We endeavor to keep them as small as possible, and compared with other majors on campus, we do very well in that regard. Our incoming undergrad and MFA cohorts vary from thirty-to-forty each year respectively, depending on the volume and quality of our applicants.
Do the teachers have experience working in the movie and television business?
Yes. Universally. In order to get a teaching gig at a top program, a MFA degree is not enough. A body of professional work is necessary, and then to keep your job and ultimately earn tenure, you must “publish or perish.” That means we are constantly writing and making films, webseries, or other content. But this is an important distinction: we don’t do all that work just for tenure. We do it because we are professional filmmakers and writers with something to say. We have work to do that matters to us. We have faculty who have written studio and independent films, as well as network and cable television. They have had major festival successes with shorts and features, and our producing faculty have dozens of theatrically released credits between them. It’s funny, new students often visit my office, in which I have a bunch of stuff from my movies, and they get excited when they realize I’m not just some guy with an English degree who was assigned to teach a screenwriting course. I’m a real screenwriter, just as our production faculty are real filmmakers. That’s the big difference between a film school and a school with a few film classes. We’re not building courses from a text, we’re building them from life experience.
What is the focus of the program’s curriculum? What are some of the more noteworthy classes the program offers?
Project Bluelight is a fantastic element of our program that operates much like a movie studio. Faculty submit project proposals to fund their films, and if awarded, they make a movie in the summer with a student crew working under professional keys. It’s an amazing opportunity for faculty to be sure, but our students get to take a class that is actually held on a working movie set, and they learn from industry pros on the job. As far as I know, this program is unique among major film schools.
Recently, we developed a course that trains writers to create original content that is eventually performed by Second City actors and airs on their website. Chicago was just named the funniest city in America, and we’re trying to take advantage of that natural resource at DePaul!
Finally, we have a partnership with Cinespace studios, which is the only one of its kind in the country. We have a giant sound stage that serves as both a classroom and production space. Our stage is right next door to Chicago Fire and Chicago PD — and we’re seeing lots of our students being hired onto their crews due to that proximity.
What is the balance between writing theory and practice?
In our undergrad and grad programs, all of our students take theory courses on structure and theory in both TV and Film. Those courses combine a bit of film/TV history with intense study of varying structural paradigms and dramatic techniques. Our genre and specialty courses like Adaptation, Joke/Sketch-Writing, and Webseries (among others), incorporate history and theory throughout the coursework from start to finish. The last quarter of our MFA program entails two “industry prep” classes wherein students learn to pitch and focus on the business of writing, including portfolio review, an overview of contests (and The Black List!), query letters, social media, and personal branding. We want to teach you to write well in whatever form you choose, but also to speak the language of the business, understand how best to gain exposure as a newcomer, and have a clear idea of who you want to become as a writer or filmmaker.
Does your program offer any networking opportunities with professional filmmakers and TV writer-producers?
In addition to the Visiting Artists Series, L.A. Quarter, Project Bluelight, and Page One, we provide our students with access to a Script List, which is an annual publication of loglines and synopses for new work created by current DePaul students and alumni. That list goes out to professionals across the industry every year, and provides another avenue for writers to gain exposure. Agents, managers, and producers contact our writers directly to discuss the projects that interest them. All of our graduates can use this service for life! We also seek to hire local professionals to teach a course or two every year. I can’t say who yet, but we have lined up two fantastic writers with amazing credits to teach courses for us in the fall.
Tomorrow in Part 2, Brad answers several questions about the value of a film school education.
In addition, Brad has agreed to respond to any follow-up questions you may have, so if you or someone you know is considering going to film school, now is the time to interface with a professional screenwriter who has years of experience teaching, and is on faculty at an impressive and expanding program.
You may follow Brad on Twitter: @bradriddell.
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