The Duffer Brothers Their Journey from Film School to Stranger Things
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THE INSIDER’S GUIDE TO ALL THINGS ENTERTAINMENT THE COLLEGE ISSUE I SEPTEMBER 15, 2017 COLLEGE ISSUE THE DUFFER BROTHERS THEIR JOURNEY FROM FILM SCHOOL TO STRANGER THINGS RANKED! 50 TOP FILM SCHOOLS PLUS MOONLIGHT’’S COLLEGE CONNECTIONS, AND LARRY KARASZEWSKI EXPLAINS THE USC MAFIA I AM A DERON HORTON | B.F.A., performing arts, 2015 Since graduating from SCAD, Horton has landed roles in the Netflix series Dear White People and feature films Burning Sands, Dirt and Roman Israel, Esq. with Denzel Washington. Turn your passion into your profession. scad.edu/film-tv ATLANTA HONG KONG LACOSTE SAVANNAH eLEARNING “We decided12 around fourth or h grade THE COLLEGE ISSUE I SEPTEMBER 15, 2017 that we were going to lm school” —Matt Duer, co-creator (with his brother Ross) Contents of Stranger Things DEPARTMENTS FEATURES 4 THE FIRST WORD 12 BROTHER ACT A staple of every Matt and Ross Duffer THE WRAP MAGAZINE film-school education talk school days and EDITOR-IN-CHIEF might just be overrated Stranger Things Sharon Waxman EDITOR CREATIVE DIRECTOR 6 BY THE NUMBERS 20 THE TOP 50 Steve Pond Ada Guerin The top 10 film schools: We rank the best film DEPUTY EDITOR How many and how much? schools—plus, Moonlight, Steve Root the inescapable VICE PRESIDENT, SALES Caren Gibbens 8 THE WAY IN James Franco, a big anniversary and when SALES Insiders offer their tips Brit Grant at TheWrap’s college events ethics meets cinema ASSOCIATE ART DIRECTOR Otavio Rabelo 10 THE SHORTLIST CREATIVE ASSISTANT GOES TO COLLEGE Ava Selbach Eight student films get a THE INSIDER’S GUIDE TO ALL THINGS ENTERTAINMENT THE COLLEGE ISSUE I SEPTEMBER 15, 2017 © 2017 TheWrap Hollywood showcase COLLEGE ISSUE THE DUFFER 40 THE CAFETERIA BROTHERS THEIR JOURNEY FROM FILM SCHOOL TO STRANGER THINGS CONNECTION RANKED! ON THE COVER 50 TOP FILM Larry Karaszewski on SCHOOLS Matt and Ross Duer PLUS photographed by Shayan MOONLIGHT’’S COLLEGE CONNECTIONS, the partnership born in a AND LARRY KARASZEWSKI Asgharnia at the Stranger EXPLAINS THE USC MAFIA USC food line Things postproduction oce in Los Angeles, California THE COLLEGE ISSUE 1 FRONT & CENTER / Editor’s Letter Sharon Waxman anked by students at TheWrap’s event at Savannah College of Art and Design. The Road Ahead » TheWrap’s second annual ranking of film schools continues our commitment to helping students navigate a changing environment hen we published our College of Art and Design’s facil- recent solar eclipse, which didn’t first magazine devot- ities in Atlanta. We also added a figure into the conversation but W ed to film schools student- film section to our annual seemed appropriate nonetheless. last December, TheWrap was just ShortList Film Festival, allowing They wouldn’t tell us much about beginning to turn our attention to eight talented student filmmakers the upcoming Season 2 of their colleges and to students looking to to compete in the same festival that spooky Netflix sensation, of course, find a way into the entertainment has produced two Oscar winners but they did share the most import- industry. We held our first “Break- and one Cesar winner in the last ant things they learned in film ing Into the Business Live” event three years. school, along with the things they that same month, as we began Once again, this issue ranks the wish they’d been taught. a push to provide resources and top 50 film schools in the country, There are lots of ways to information to students as they and there’s been some movement get from a college campus to a navigate a rapidly changing media in the lineup: NYU moved up and Hollywood set, and the Duffers’ and entertainment environment. FSU broke in, no doubt buoyed by path is only one of them. You’ll find (Not to mention, our staff is full the fact that seven of its graduates, others in these pages as well. of people who first came here on including writer-director Barry college internships.) Jenkins, collaborated on the Oscar Enjoy! Now, nine months later, we’ve Best Picture winner Moonlight. And held additional “Breaking Into speaking of moonlight (or, maybe, the Business Live” events at USC, of sunlight blocked by the moon), Loyola Marymount University we spoke to the Duffer brothers, and IMAX headquarters in Los Chapman University alumni and Angeles, and at the Savannah Stranger Things creators, during the SHARON WAXMAN, EDITOR IN CHIEF 2 THEWRAP SEPTEMBER 15, 2017 The first [and only] school of its kind created with a hollywood studio BFA ACTING BFA COMMERCIAL DANCE BFA FILM + DIGITAL CONTENT BFA CONTEMPORARY MUSICAL THEATRE + FILM BA ENTREPRENEURSHIP BFA ART Our innovative programs are training the next generation of storytellers and content entrepreneurs. RelativitySchool.org/thewrap 800.762.1993 Relativity School is an accreditedFOLIO branch TITLE TKcampus / 3 of Hussian College FRONT & CENTER / The First Word SHORTCOMINGS Is the staple of every film-school education, the short film, just a big waste of time? BY STEVE POND Le to right: Christopher Nolan’s Doodlebug, Steven Spielberg’s Amblin’, Martin Scorsese’s What’s a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This? and David Lynch’s Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times) or the two years that we’ve brothers went on to tell us how the seeds of what they would become? published a college issue, valuable it was for them to learn how I mean, check out Martin Scorsese’s we’ve asked our cover movie sets work by making films at early ‘60s NYU film What’s a Nice Girl subjects the same ques- Chapman. (For more of the interview, Like You Doing in a Place Like This?, a tion: What do you wish see page 12.) And Matt Ross, an actor black-and-white short that evinced a Fthey’d told you when you were in film on Silicon Valley and the writer-direc- fondness for obsessed loners, dramat- school? tor of Captain Fantastic, served on our ic lighting and tough talk. Or David We got essentially the same answer ShortList jury and said, “I view short Lynch’s Six Men Getting Sick (Six Times), from Sam Esmail, the cover of last year’s films as a great oppor- a four-minute short made issue, and from the Duffer brothers: tunity to practice your in his pre-AFI days at the I wish they’d told me that short films craft.” Describing a Pennsylvania Academy aren’t going to get you discovered. “The short he’d once made, of Fine Arts, and a piece short is a weird beast,” said Esmail, an he said, “I did it as an Of my of surreal animation NYU and AFI graduate who went on to example of a tone I colleagues who every bit as odd as the create Mr. Robot. “Of my colleagues who was playing with. I’m have broken new season of Twin Peaks. have broken through, it’s never hap- helping people see Or Christopher Nolan’s pened because of a short.” And this year, the tone of something through, it’s Doodlebug, three minutes Stranger Things co-creator Ross Duffer larger.” never happened of menace with a sci-fi agreed: “We had this idea that you can In other words, it’s because of a twist that played with make some short film and it’s going to not that a short is going scale the way Inception get industry attention,” he said. “It was to get you an agent, short.” and Interstellar did with only later that we realized that it’s very much less the seven- —Sam Esmail, Mr. Robot space and time. Or Trey rare that a short film is going to capture year deal that Steven Parker’s American History, the attention of anyone.” Spielberg landed at Universal when an animated short that began the card- These comments were a little discon- VP Sid Sheinberg saw his student film board-cutout style he’d use on South certing to us at TheWrap, where for the Amblin’ back in 1968. But the right short Park. first time this year we included a student can boost credibility if you have anoth- No, those shorts didn’t really give section in our annual ShortList Film er way to get in the door, and can serve, Scorsese or Lynch or Nolan or Parker Festival. Could the student film really as Esmail observed, “to establish that entrée to Hollywood. But they’re be a useless exercise, a distraction that visual tone and that filmmaking voice.” delightful discoveries for archaeol- keeps film students from doing the kind Besides, don’t film students want to ogists of creativity—and if you ask of things that might actually get them leave little pieces of art behind, so that us, that’s reason enough for anyone noticed in Hollywood? when they hit the big time we can sift studying cinema to leave behind a trail Not exactly, because the Duffer through their early work to discern of student films. W 4 THEWRAP SEPTEMBER 15, 2017 The UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television’s Department of Film, Television and Digital Media offers the following degrees and programs B.A. in Film and Television M.A. in Film and Television Cinema and Media Studies M.F.A. in Film and Television Animation Production/Directing Producing Screenwriting Ph.D. in Film and Television Cinema and Media Studies The vision of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television is to serve as a premier global interdisciplinary professional school that develops outstanding humanistic storytellers, industry leaders and scholars whose diverse, innovative voices enlighten, engage and inspire change for a better world.