Should you go to film school?
In this episode. Soo Zee and I talk about why and if you should go to film school. In it we touch ever so briefly on one point: how do you make the jump to a career in filmmaking after film school? It seems like no one really talks about this, so today I wanted to tell you the story of how one of my USC classmates actually did it. It's the story of Jon M. Chu.
If you haven't listened to the podcast, maybe do that first then come back to this.
Jon Chu is by all accounts a big time Hollywood director. He directed Step Up 2 and Step Up 3, two of the three major Justin Bieber movies, and Now You See Me 2.
I know what you're thinking, and let's put our snobbery aside for a second. I know Step Up 2 isn't the height of sophisticated moviemaking, but think about it from a practical standpoint. How do you convince a major studio to give you, a fresh-out-of-college 20 something newbie, over $17 million to direct your first ever feature length film? Moreover, how do you even get to be in the room where you can try to convince someone to give you $17 million in the first place? That's the question all wannabe feature length directors are asking themselves.
Plus, from a business perspective, it doesn't matter that Step Up 2 is more a series of music videos strung together than a dramatic movie. Who cares? It grossed $150 million in the box-office. If you're the bonds guy in a suit, you don't care how Jon directs, so long as he comes in on time, under budget, and makes you a profit. Step Up 2 made more than 8.5 times what it took produce. That's all that maters.
Even more amazingly, the guy had no track record when he took up the directing helm. So again: how did he get the gig?
The same way I told you I got gigs in the podcast: from his portfolio. At USC one of your final production classes is 480: Advanced Production Workshop, and Jon Chu turned the film he directed in his 480 class into a portfolio piece that was enough to get him a mentor. That mentor was Steven Spielberg. It was also enough to get him a picture deal. And signed with William Morris Agency, an top 10 talent agency.
If you're curious, here's the trailer to Chu's 480 film, called While the Kids Are Away. It's a 15 minute musical about what housewives do when their husbands and children go off to work and school. And you know what else we said that he agrees with? How important your network is. In an interview with moviemaker, Jon even admits that, "Prior to USC I didn’t have any connections, so that community allowed me to make my short film...and that’s what really launched my career."
Of course, it wasn't exactly a straight line from While the Kids Are Away to Step Up 2.
Immediately after graduating, he pitched a feature length musical called Moxie that got funded, before that fell through. Then he was hired to direct a remake of Bye Bye Birdiebefore that got too expensive for the production company, which balked at putting $70 million behind an unproven director on his first Hollywood film. Then there was the promising Great Gasby Remake. You know, the one with Leonardo DiCaprio?
Well, Chu redeveloped the script before it was purchased by Warner Brothers for the Baz Luhrmann reboot with Leo from 2013. There was that romcom called The Prom, which didn't get enough financing, and a Kung Fu Hustle reboot that never made it into production. In all that time, Jon was drafted and benched by DreamWorks, Sony Pictures, Lionsgate, Warner Brothers, Walt Disney.
By the time Step Up 2 finally happened, Jon had been waiting for 5 years to actually start his directing career and suddenly he had only six weeks to prepare for filming the damn thing.
But he did it. All because of a great portfolio piece and a strong network.
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