Chapter 14 institute next door to hollywood

Every time I flip through the book, I can’t help but wonder when I see the self-introduction part of the author—“These guys, apart from graduating from one university, another graduate school, and another Apart from teaching at the university, has nothing fun happened to them in their life?" For many Dantou scholars who love to write books, the truth of the matter is probably just like this—their lives, apart from using A University, B University, and C University as coordinates, really have no more ideal punctuation marks up. However, it is undeniable that these people are so willing, confident, and honored to bravely announce the map of life with the coordinates of universities in front of everyone. It must be because of the names of these universities, It can always represent something, it can always prove something!

yes!What does the name of a university represent?What can be proved? Once such a question is asked, it is like asking the weather broadcaster in front of him what the hell is going on with the satellite cloud image that looks great but is actually blurry. I have a good friend who is a Ph.D. from a university called "Harvard" in the United States.My good friend is not going well in love, and everyone will always try to help him find some possible partners. But every time it's time to arrange a meeting, he will simply refuse: "Oh, people won't be interested in me!"

At this time, someone will definitely cheer up: "Not interested?! It's a doctor from Harvard! How can you not be interested?!" My good friend will definitely answer: "Huh! What about the doctor?! What about Harvard?!" yes.The weather announcer spoke up himself—— "What about Harvard?" From the moment I entered university myself, I felt -- "This place is not right"! Of course it doesn't mean there are ghosts.There is nothing wrong with ghosts, and many colleges have ghosts. What's wrong is that most of the students I met, as well as most of the teachers, are serious on the surface, but in a trance, they don't know what a university is for.

Most of my classmates expressed their attitude: University is the first time in life that no one is watching behind it. Most of my teachers' attitudes are: University is the only place where teachers don't have to keep an eye on it. There's nothing wrong with that.In fact, one of the negative functions of universities is to cultivate the principle of mutual respect: mutual respect between people, and mutual respect between disciplines. However, I feel something is wrong, because this "everyone doesn't care about everyone" situation is actually the "big ending", and then, there is no more.

Everyone doesn't care about everyone, that's it, no one cares if you are cheated, no one cares if you don't teach well. There is not even a chance to show your personality, let alone develop your personality.What you have the opportunity to show is the skill of playing billiards, the agility of investing in stocks, the gimmick of contraception, and the eloquence of setting up a street vendor.these things. But I think that an important goal of the university should be to develop personality, not just "raise people". So in such a university atmosphere, I of course closed the door to live my life.Fortunately, the university I went to has a super beautiful campus, at least more beautiful than several prestigious schools in the United States, allowing me to use the open environment as my autistic residence.

None of the other universities in Taiwan at that time were much better than the school I attended.The situation at the top of the rankings may be better. Based on my experience with these universities over the years, at best, I can only feel that those who shine are usually just wonderful and charming individuals, and rarely are the students of the same school. The elegance displayed in the system and the style displayed in the scholarship. For decades, Taiwan's political environment has been staggering. Under such conditions, it is of course extravagant to ask universities to become a paradise of truth and knowledge.

Recalling the period of political martial law, it seems that there is still an opportunity for intellectuals to show a different standard of "strength" in universities. Unlike after the martial law, universities have become nursery schools in a capitalist society. In classrooms, teachers' mobile phones and students' calls The instruments sounded together; outside the classroom, teachers and students became the upper and lower lines of the same direct selling company.On the one hand, it has the vigorousness of developing countries, which makes people laugh; on the other hand, it is extremely regrettable, seeing the most precious things in life, and the best years of life, just to earn the money first, so that both Phase missed.

It is because I have seen many unexpected situations in universities in Taiwan, so when I choose American universities at the graduate level, I pay special attention to whether these schools have shown different ideas and styles from the admission stage. After I finished my English Department at the university level, I knew that literature should not be read any further, and any further reading would definitely hurt my trust in the vastness of literature. Because I have already confirmed that I must rely on myself to write things, so I can rest assured about this path for the time being.At that time, I thought about it, and felt that movies, the muddy waters of the 20th century, had to be messed with.After all, I already know how to write, but I don't know how to shoot movies at all. If I don't take advantage of this time to practice martial arts, when will I wait? !

When I started to check the profiles of various research institutes in the United States, I immediately found that almost all of the old prestigious schools did not offer film courses at the graduate level. Take the Ivy League schools as an example, among them only Columbia University has reluctantly set up a professional master's degree in "Directing and Screenwriting", which can be regarded as filtering out those who are too lacking in the filmmaking process. The technical part of the humanistic color, of course, also saves amazing hardware equipment costs at the same time.I still remember that it was Milos Forman, the great director of Weizhen film industry known for "Flying Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Amadeus", who was in charge of the institute at that time.

In fact, don’t say that these old prestigious schools in the northeastern corner of the United States are male, even other high-level universities such as Princeton, Berkeley, Northwestern, Wisconsin-Madison, etc., are only willing to set up relevant departments of film theory at most. The research institute is not interested in turning the knowledge of filmmaking into a specialized research institute. In addition to the major concern of equipment funding, the first priority is of course the academic standards required by each school. I am a movie lover, and I know that movies have accumulated a lot of cultural essence worth preserving. Of course, I cannot fully agree with the boss mentality and chauvinistic attitude of these prestigious schools.However, this spirit of adhering to academic traditions and self-respect is still the style of the university that I respect. As long as the school's governance philosophy is clear, it will still be supported by me.

However, these prestigious schools have been under heavy financial pressure in recent years. In order to earn more tuition fees, they often open up more schools and greatly relax their admission standards.I just hope that they can save energy at night and find a master of school management who can balance fundraising and philosophy. So the direction of my application for graduate school was of course turned to a group of younger universities. Among these universities, there are quite a few well-known schools, and the film research institute is also top-notch. It is generally recognized that the United States ranks the top in terms of film production research institutes, and it is nothing more than the following comparisons—— UCLA, USC, NYU, UT Austin next to Hollywood. When I asked these schools for application forms and school profiles, I began to find that each school had different ideas, and each had its own basis, which complemented each other. Take the University of California, Los Angeles, which I entered later, as an example. I found that although they have more than 600 applicants for the Institute of Film Production each year, and the number of places is only 30, they do not pay much attention to filmmaking when screening. Experience, but your creative potential as the top priority. This kind of standard made me discover that the postgraduates in my class had all kinds of interesting backgrounds after I entered the school. Some studied economics, some studied law, and some studied history and anthropology. The intention of the University of California to do this is obvious-making movies should be listed in the academic hall, but you must conceive from the founding period: how to expand the horizons of filmmakers, how to deepen the humanistic foundation of movies, How can a film production research institute not be reduced to a "vocational training class"? The first step of the University of California is to remove the burden of technology orientation and carefully absorb groups in various fields that can add points to the film. The process of studying at the University of California, of course, also allowed me to see a variety of university styles.The school didn’t know much about a foreign student like me, so they gave me a full tuition fee discount; or they invited Orson Wells, the number one master in film history, to guide him in the department; or they tried their best to help students achieve I don’t know how weird my teaching attitude is; or I use the system to force students to take up middle-level positions in the film industry and to live with all kinds of people in the firm. So some experiences have convinced me that the idea of ​​a university is not just empty talk, but can be built step by step through curriculum design, recruitment of manpower, and use of funds. My personality is more likely to be trapped by the system than to benefit from it.However, under the system of the University of California, I have been greatly benefited. The reason is very simple - that system is a system that urges healthy competition and perfects people's self-realization. The reason why the university can be "big" and the reason why the university can "learn" all stem from this.