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CINEMA 101

Two years ago John Singleton was just another promising film student with celluloid fantasies rolling in his head. He was one of them. Now he is one of them. Singleton went straight from film school to film stardom with ”Boyz N the Hood.” He made it, and without suffering the indignities that aspiring filmmakers most dread: waiting tables for years and selling out their integrity for that first production deal.

Singleton`s overnight success would be implausible in almost any industry except The Industry, which covets youth more than Ponce de Leon did. Still, his success is stunning. Singleton`s film debut wasn`t the sort of mindless pap that Hollywoood so often spews. It had heart and fury and something to say about the pain of growing up in the ghetto. At 24, Singleton became the youngest-ever nominee for an Academy Award for best director.

He didn`t win, of course. But that`s beside the point. Around his alma mater, the University of Southern Californa, Singleton`s hero status is secure. The students behind him-not to mention ahead of him-fantasize about following his career trajectory. They want the same freedom to tell stories. And for these students, there is only one way to tell them: on film. After all, they were weaned on TV and movies. They think in pictures. Oliver Stone is their idea of a social commentator, and while they may not agree with his in-your-face style, they admire his flair with the medium.

Not every student wants to make message movies that take on the U.S. government or explore America`s urban killing fields. For every budding Stone, there is someone hoping to make feel-good Steven Spielberg films or action movies a la James Cameron. Amanda Silverwrote ”The Hand That Rocks the Cradle” for her master`s thesis at USC. It simply was meant to thrill audiences, and it did. It also did boffo box office, and while many USC students belittle the story of a vengeful nanny as by-the-numbers contrived, they respect the receipts. ”The Hand That Rocks the Cradle” made money, lots of money, and ultimately that is what counts.

The megadeals made daily in Hollywood make most Americans` annual salaries look like hourly wages. But most film students insist that is not why they chose careers in moviemaking. Instead, they say, it`s because movies are the medium their generation embraces. The screen is both the place to make an impact and to entertain. It`s what they know.

They chose USC`s Cinema-Television School for equally simple reasons. It is perhaps the top film school in the country, a fiercely competitive place to learn about movies by making them. Some 900 students-doctors, lawyers and engineers among them-pay upwards of $10,000 a year to learn how to write, direct and produce their dreams.

In a business where who you know is as important and what you know, USC`s alumni network is another plus. It is studded with names of Hollywood hitmakers, George Lucas among them. Singleton and Silver recently added their names to the list. Steven Spielberg and Johnny Carson did not graduate from USC but have donated enough time and money to get their names on campus buildings.

Still, the odds of making the big money or even their own movies are long. But film school prepares students for just that sort of rejection. Sometimes it seems like a study in cynicism. Students learn to create art for the masses. They understand that the studios prefer scripts that are both unique and familiar. Too original doesn`t sell well. Anything featuring Arnold you-know-who will outperform anything featuring any female star. Ironically, the most frequent lament among students is that they have no time to see even the most popular films. They know which filmmakers are hot but not which films.

This is not unusual in Hollywood, where he who creates the loudest buzz often makes the biggest deals. Budding filmmakers understand the value of generating that buzz. They schmooze with the best of them. Sounding a lot like stars promoting their movies on Arsenio Hall, several students from Illinois on the cusp of graduating into a Hollywood recession spoke about their ambitions.

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Tom Craig is fresh from his first ”pitch” meeting. That`s Hollywood parlance for explaining his screenplay to a producer. His master`s thesis script is about a heterosexual man who is HIV-positive but does not have full- blown AIDS. He is living with the virus rather than dying from it. The meeting went something like this:

”She thought my idea was actually commercial, but she wanted more of a happy ending. OK, I accept the point that there needs to be an uplifting message, that the human spirit can triumph over circumstances. But there can`t be a happy ending like, `Whoopee, he meets a girl, and they get married and live happily ever after.` The producer said a ghastly thing. She said she thought my movie was a cross between `Barefoot in the Park` and `Dying Young.` I wanted to kill myself. It was like, `God, don`t say that.` ”

Craig, a graduate of Palatine High School, winces at the memory, then laughs. Only 24, he already has a healthy perspective on Hollywood. After earning a BA with an English major/theater minor at Northwestern University, he came to USC with a grounding in literature that many students, even the older ones, lack. Craig cites Wordsworth rather than ”The Brady Bunch” as an influence. But if he has learned anything as a USC graduate student, it`s that his future will be filled with compromise.

”In the beginning, I was appalled that people here didn`t know Shakespeare or Dickens, and I was very snobby. I got disabused of that notion very quickly. The people in my program are mostly pop-culture junkies. Everyone`s reference is from a film. It drives me crazy when they say, `It`s a cross between this and that.` I know that`s shorthand, and I know that`s the business. But what is it really?”

Another thing that drives Craig crazy is Hollywood`s respect for mediocrity: Art is indistinguishable from profits, which makes ”Terminator” a classic. ”I see how many people are selling out while they`re still in film school. They`re writing serial-killer thrillers, and I think: `Is that really the thing that speaks most to you? Is that the thing in this world you feel most strongly about?` And they`re not even writing realistic serial killers.” Craig isn`t as cynical or elitist as he sounds. When the choice is to laugh or cry at Hollywood values, he laughs every time. He vows he`ll never write anything violent or antisocial. Yet he`d be thrilled to work in TV.

”My life`s ambition is not to be on the staff of `Growing Pains.` I`ve had people say, `Tom, get over yourself.` People tell me I`m young and I could write for `Beverly Hills 90210` because they`re looking for young writers. But I`m really going to try to not write anything that`s not too incredibly stupid. If I have to do `Beverly Hills 90210,` I want it to be the best episode ever done.”

That`s a start, not a career goal. Eventually, Craig would like to direct his own character-driven movies, perhaps casting himself in a cameo. He has been a ”couch-director” since childhood, when he would watch TV shows and consider how he would have shot a scene. First, though, he`ll take ”any crummy job in the entertainment industry I can get” while trying to convince a Hollywood agent that he can write and is worth representing.

”If I wanted to be commercial, I would do action-adventure or real broad comedy or erotic thrillers, which are big right now. One of my classmates wrote about a god that comes down from Mt. Olympus and falls in love with a waitress. The producer was very interested in that film. Sure, I could get discouraged. But I know I have something to say and can say it differently than most people. Maybe I`m not unique. Well, yeah, I am unique. I can toot my own horn.”

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Maureen Stanton-Leveque turned 30 last March. It was not a birthday she felt like celebrating. In any other industry, Stanton-Leveque would have several more years of wunderkind potential. In The Industry, she`s fast approaching old age.

”Sometimes I feel too old to be doing this. I certainly wouldn`t lie about my age. But I wouldn`t publicize it either. The odds are pretty goshdarn good that I`m going to end up working for someone who`s younger than I. I probably should have started a lot younger.”

Stanton-Leveque, a graduate of Wheeling High School, didn`t burn to make movies as a child. She says she had a classic left brain/right brain conflict, leading her to an undergraduate double major in political science and telecommunications from Stephens College in Columbia, Mo. Afterward, she joined the American Medical Association in Chicago, where she realized she was in love with two things: movies and her husband-to-be. Two weeks before her wedding, she heard she`d been accepted to USC on her second try. ”I said:

`Honey, guess what? I won`t be able to make the honeymoon.`

”I don`t know if I`ll make it. I`m practical enough to realize it`s a crapshoot. But I`m more than willing to take the risk. I`ve spent three years of my life training to take the chance. You try, knowing you`re probably going to fail and not make it. But you might.”

As an ”older” female in the film business, Stanton-Leveque has two strikes against her. And she knows it. Hollywood hasn`t provided her with many role models.

”There`s not very many female anything that I`ve seen,” she says.

”Women directors are coming into their own but not much. There are probably more female producers, but our numbers are limited.”

Few students start out wanting to produce, and Stanton-Leveque is no exception. When asked who wanted to direct during orientation, she raised her hand along with everyone else. She describes herself back then as

”pretentious out the wazoo.” But she soon realized she was better at organizing projects than creating them from scratch. That`s what producers do. Her organizational skills helped land her a coveted teaching assistantship that covers her tuition and pays a stipend. She also has an unpaid internship as a script reader at the production house responsible for

”Fried Green Tomatoes,” the kind of movie she hopes to produce one day.

”I like human-based dramas, like `Tomatoes` and `Field of Dreams.` It doesn`t necessarily have to be the most commercial script. It has to say something about the human condition, not necessarily be a message film like

`JFK,` which was like a sledgehammer. One thing that is changing is that Hollywood is starting to catch on that women ticket-buyers want to see movies with women in them. So maybe more of the kind of movies I want to make will actually get made. Maybe.”

Still, she doesn`t consider herself an auteur. She loved ”Ghostbusters” and ”Terminator 2.” As a would-be producer, she appreciates a $100-million blockbuster as much as the next mogul. Producers, after all, are Hollywood`s money men. All it takes to get started is cash, which Stanton-Leveque doesn`t have. When she and her husband, a doctor who is getting his MBA at the Wharton School of Economics, graduate this year, their combined debt will exceed $100,000. Fortunately, he has job offers. Unfortunately for her, they`re in Chicago.

”It`s not bloody likely that I`ll get to produce right away. It depends where I end up. If it`s here, I`ll look for a job in development with some producing company. If I go to Chicago, I`ll have to see what`s available.”

The uncertainty of the film business is one reason Stanton-Leveque is rooting for all her classmates. She wants them to do well. Then she wants them to hire her. ”I know a lot of people don`t feel that way. Face it, it`s a very small business. A lot of people think that if a person gets a job, that`s their own opportunity gone. I would be GLAD if someone got a job producing;

then I`d think, `Oh, God, do I still have her number?` ”