James Franco is my classmate

Today was the first day of orientation. I was a bit nervous, so I arrived at the Tisch building a bit early. When I walked in, I passed James Franco, who was sitting on a bench in a lobby. I thought, "that's cool." I went up to our meeting room and sat down. A couple minutes passed and the room began to fill with students, and in comes James Franco. He sits down among the students and listens to all of the orientation stuff. I kept thinking, "I wonder when James Franco is going to stand up and tell us cool stuff about the film industry." It wasn't until about an hour passed that I had the realization that he was also a student there, one of my classmates in fact. Pretty exciting because he has experience working in the industry and might have some helpful knowledge he could pass onto us. I keep referring to him as James Franco. I need to introduce myself and get to know him as James and stop pretending I know him. If he somehow reads this post I'm gonna be mad embarrassed. 

During orientation we got to see a couple student films. We also got to meet most if not all of the faculty members, the Graduate Assistants (who are 3rd year students in the program who get FREE TUITION to be assistants in the department), and the Associate Dean, who was awesome. I got the impression that all of the faculty and the dean are genuinely invested in our success and are here because they really care, so that's cool. We had a one-on-one session with our advisors. Mine is working on a documentary she has been shooting in Afghanistan. She provided us with yummy Italian cookies, was funny, and had some great advice about writing. There was a mixer in the evening with the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th year students. The department provided beer (Corona!) and wine. It was good to meet some more people, to talk film and how the world is ending (read: climate change, peak oil, over-consumption, overpopulation, species die off, the possibility of McCain getting elected), and to hear some unfiltered comments about the department. I basically heard nothing but good stuff, and we start shooting next week, so I am very excited. If I work hard, write my ass off, and believe in myself, I will come out of this program a working filmmaker, no doubt about it. Over the next couple years I could have films at Sundance or Cannes, I could be having meetings with industry professionals who want to buy my screenplay, I could be shooting documentaries in other countries. It's all within reach, I just need to work hard and believe I can achieve it all. 

One particularly simple but memorable thing my advisor said to my group today was, "You deserve to be here. Believe me." She talked about how extensive the application and selection process is, and that even though most of us probably have doubts about ourselves and think it is an accident we ended up in the program, she assured us it was not, and we deserved to be there. It was nice to hear. I typed those simple words up and taped them to my door so I see them every day.

Tomorrow I register for classes in the morning, and then orientation with the post-production and production departments along with some info on financial aid. Supposedly if you do well the department gives more money to their students as the years go on, along with my housing job and the possibility of being a GA my third year, this program could be a whole lot cheaper than I ever imagined. More updates to come. NYC rocks!!