Welcome to our fall 2019 networking
event and open house.
My name is Pascal Cohen Olivar, and I'm
the Director of Entertainment Studies
and the Department of the Arts. Thank you.
So we have a special panel tonight in
line with everything that we want to
do. These are our ex-students and are now
our instructors, so they will be telling
you what it was like to be here as a
student and their career, and now
they're giving back to us as the
instructors. This is Ray Ford, this is
Kate Rees Davies, she's a director, and
this is Richard Tuttobene, he's a
film composer. So I'm gonna start by asking
each of you to tell us a little bit
about yourselves, your current profession,
and what did you study at UCLA Extension?
So we'll start with you Ray. Hi, my name
is Ray Ford, and I just graduated
in June from the Business and Management of Entertainment Program. Thank you so
much. I'm super proud of myself and I
work primarily as an actor for the past
few years and as of the last three or
four months, and because of the program,
as a development executive and
researcher. Very cool. Kate? Hi my name is Kate Rees
Davies and I took the Directing
Certificate. I'm a director obviously
and producer. I write, and I also act, but
directing is my passion. So yeah, I took
the Extension Certificate nine years ago,
and it was awesome, so for all of you in the
room that haven't been through the
program I highly recommend it, it's
fantastic. Thank you. Richard? Richard
Tuttobene,
film scoring. I teach Score Like the Masters: Contemporary
Techniques. I've been a composer for many,
many years. I took the course, the Film
Scoring program. I finished in
1995, and throughout my career I did a lot
of television. I've done a number of
feature films. I did six seasons of a show
called All That on Nickelodeon, and Kenan
and Kel, and The Amanda Show, and this is
a great program. Thank you. 
What are the specific aspects of studying
here with us at UCLA Extension that have
prepared you for your respective careers?
Since I came through the program, I've
produced and directed thirteen features,
probably about the same amount in short
films. I've done the PSA, I've done
commercials, and I've done music videos.
So I think, you know, for me going through
the program, because I'd done a little
bit of directing before, it really kind
of filled in the gaps for me. Things that
I you know didn't really know too much
about, and the hands-on experience was
awesome. You know, we had to make a lot of
short films when I was going through the
program, so that was really awesome. I got
really fast, you know producers love that,
so that was one takeaway, and the
internship program I highly recommend
you do because I was very, very lucky. So
I got an internship at the Weinstein
Company and with Stacey Sher's company,
who does all of Quentin Tarantino's
movies, so that experience was just
invaluable, and I think you know had I
not have been in the program, I would
never have got into those rooms.
Richard? So I moved to LA in '92 and
started the Extension program in '93, and
I had already been scoring
television, and I had
a fair amount of education, musical
education, and so while I was doing
that and taking the classes in
the program, it changed my way of
thinking because the people that were
teaching the classes were
actually working, as they are now, but
they're actually working in town, and so
the way we do it here is different than
the way you learned it at the Eastman
School, and so there was
kind of the procedures that are done in
town that are done differently
than anywhere else. Also the 
camaraderie, I got to be friends
with all my instructors and that in itself was invaluable for me.
Cool, thank you. Mr. Ray. You know, because all of
the instructors in Extension are
actually working in the field, I feel I
got a first-hand look at what it means
to be in the entertainment industry.
You know, we had, in many classes there
were guest speakers every week, so you're
getting reports from the front lines, not
you know these are not people who
say oh back in, you know 1940, you know
this is what it's - no, people are
leaving their offices and then coming to
your class and telling you what their
day was like, right? So you're able to
take that information, if you're smart,
and apply it directly to your life and
to your career, and I've never had any
classroom experience like that. It's
great. Cool, we do offer a lot of
networking opportunity and this is one
of them, and also in the class you know
you have the opportunity to mingle with the
guest speakers and the instructor, so I
want to ask each of you, you know, what
role has networking played into your
success? Because I think it's a very
important one. I think being in the
program gave me the courage to really
start networking. I was in the last
course of my program, it was a writing
course, an elective, and she started
talking and I said "I cannot, I shouldn't
be here. I need to be in an internship
doing this now." It was time to like
spread my wings and fly.
I dropped the class, signed up for an
internship, was able to reach out to
people that I've worked with as an actor
and say "hey I'm looking for an
internship," got a response from the new
showrunner at Grey's Anatomy within
minutes because I was able to say hi I'm
at UCLA Extension, and I need this
internship. She signed me on. I started
the following week, and because she knew
me and because she trusted UCLA, she gave
me assignments that were above and
beyond what you would normally get as an
intern, and I was able to excel at them,
and within three weeks she had offered
me a full-time position. For four months, mind you, but still with a limited contract,
but I now have a job that I go to every
day, and it all started right here.
I think, like the networking,
it's who you know in this town not what
you know, so networking is absolutely
paramount to the success of your career.
Obviously I'm not from here. I came from
England ten years ago not knowing
anybody in town. When I was actually in
the program, I was out on the front lines
interviewing people on the red carpet
just so I could meet people in the
industry, and a beautiful story I have of
being part of the program—Eric Roth,
who's an Academy Award-winning writer,
who wrote Benjamin Button, Forrest Gump,
and his list of credits is insanely
amazing—I actually got to interview him
at the Academy because he's an
ex-student of UCLA, and
because I was in the program he
personally allowed me to interview him,
and I was the only one let in. You know
there's so much going on in this town.
For the internationals in the room,
you could be at a networking event
literally three times a day in this city,
and
there's so much of them, and you have to
look them out and go you know, and
even if you're a shy person, get over it.
You have to be in that room, and you have
to be meeting those people. It's easily
80% of your career is about your
networking. If you're not doing it, you're,
you know unless you're the luckiest
person on the planet, and in regards
to the program, but I've had considerable
work from and given work to friends 
that were my classmates, Blake Neely
being one of them. He hired me for his early series, Everwood, and he worked on a
couple of films of mine, so yeah
it's everything. Thanks Richard.
Now what advice do you have for students
who are currently in the program or
considering the program? What do
you feel like you could have told
yourself as a student now that you are a
professional? I mean I think I did this,
but because I was going back to
school as a grown man you know, I just
showed up a hundred percent at every
class as though it was a job. Super important. Right? Like
it's like we're not kids here, and no
one's forcing you to go to school, so the
fact that you're there on time or early,
networking. So showing up like it's a job,
and being ready to learn and working on
these assignments as though you're
getting paid to do the assignment, you
know? When you're coming up with a pitch
in a pitching class, like pouring a
hundred percent effort as though you
might sell this pitch tomorrow because
the truth of the matter is, you might,
right? If you're starting here with that
attitude now, that will pay off in spades.
That's very true. I mean, you get out of the program as much as you put in, that's for sure.
Yeah, I think I'd tell my younger self to
pay more attention. I'm not very good
with being focused because I do have a
little bit of ADHD, so you know I think
that you really have to be committed
100% to the program. You have to turn up.
My attendance was great, but you know you really have to turn
up and be there. You've paid for this, and
the people that are teaching you have
the best advice, and you know they really
know their stuff, and like everything, you
get out of something what you put into
it. This is a highly competitive
business, and there are people out there
who are extraordinary at their jobs, and
that's what this program, you know, you
have to become extraordinary, and you
also have to believe in yourself, and you
have to be you know incredibly committed.
Absolutely. Richard, what do you say? So if you're
considering doing the program, as Kate
said, you need to approach it the same
way that you're going to approach
everything in your career.
We talk, the instructors. Some of
the instructors are friends of mine, and
we talk you know who are your star
students? Who's you know, who's
really shining? And so your reputation
starts the instant you start
in the program. Just one last
question for panelists, I mean you are
all teachers here, and so what's the
primary kind of like life lesson, and I
mean this in a very broad sense, that you
hope your students would get from you as
instructors in your course? So I teach
Acting for the Camera I, and I noticed
that most of my students show up the
first day terrified of the camera, and
the number one thing that we start
teaching, and I think that we finish
teaching, is that it's not a hostile
environment. Whatever room you're in
is not a hostile environment just because
there's a camera there, right? And so we
start very early on working on
confidence and belief. Believing in
yourself, believing in your abilities, and
believing that you have something to
offer to the world, that your ideas are
worth it.
Right? And that's, I think, 90% of the
battle. If you trust what you're bringing
to the table, you can't help but win. Yeah,
look, you have to love what you do, and it
will love you back. You know if you're
passionate about your craft, it really
comes through in your work. You know,
and look, nobody's ever gonna be perfect,
but you can have a damn good, you know,
good fun trying. So, you know I think
go in, have fun, I mean I love to have as
much fun as I possibly can on my sets,
and I'm hoping to bring that to the
classroom as well. I really want my
students to really enjoy what they do,
and you know it become this passion for
them because storytelling is literally
ingrained in us as human beings. It has
been around since the
beginning of time basically. So we're
all natural-born storytellers, so to get
an opportunity to do this as a career,
I mean I just can't think of anything more
fantastic to be honest with you. So one
of the things in my class that we do, is we have creative meetings, composer/director
creative meetings, and I
play a director, modeled after some of
the directors that I've known, but the
idea is that they have to kind of glean
information from me as to what I
want, and then in next week's
assignment, they'll play their
work for me, and I'll
react to it. And so I think that the
number one thing that I hope to
instill is confidence. To be able to deal with the complexities
of a project on a deadline,
and also to be able to deal face to
face with the people that are gonna
write you your check. Well that's very
wise advice, and with that we're gonna
open it to you all for questions. Do you
have any questions?
So we have a big problem in Hollywood.
There's only 4% of women
directing feature films, so
that's probably the biggest challenge in
this town, but you can't let that stop
you. You just have to believe in what
you're doing and be passionate about it
and have big goals in this business. You
have a unique voice and don't be afraid
to use it.
I have a BFA in acting from Boston
University that I got a hundred years
ago, and I mean of course that helped, but
because I did this program, like I said
before, as an adult who knew what he
wanted with a specific goal in mind, I
feel it carries as much weight because
it gave me the courage to pick up the
phone and call a number-one showrunner
and say hey I'm looking for an
internship because of the work that I
had just done in this program, not
because of the BFA.
Ten years later, I'm still here. I'm now
on a green card, which I did myself. There
is a process, and I would really like
just say to the students, the
international students, give it a couple
of years, see how you feel,
and then you know don't get too hung up
on that. There are ways that you can stay
here, like the O-1 visa,
there's the E-3, there's the, you know, the
green card, so there's a lot of options
for you to extend your stay if you need to.
If you're meeting people, yeah. It's,
yeah. It's all about meeting people
and sometimes working within the company
that you want to promote you or
produce you or whatever is the
way to get to know it, but if you make
the relationships, again that's
everything.
Absolutely not. It's not even so
important to be in the Union once you're
out of the program if you're just
starting out, because there is a lot of
non-union work for actors at the moment.
So the most important thing is that you
just do the work and get good at it and
take what comes, and then the Union
opportunities will present themselves
when it's time.
It's all about story, you know? I think that the story will always win you the audience.
You know, the audience love a good story, so I just
think that if your story is great and
you have a good budget, that you can
actually make the film really well,
and pay your keys like camera, sound,
obviously music, can make a film. You know, you
can afford to scrimp on some of the
other departments a little bit, but I
really think that the story is really
what's gonna... and tell a story that's
passionate to you because it'll come
across in your work. Yeah, absolutely, I
mean like all of the international film
festivals have a short film section, so
you know, and some of those films go on
to be nominated for Academy Awards, and
it also does help if you have a named
actor in your film. It doesn't have to be
a big A-lister, but somebody that's kind
of recognizable, and if you have a
connection or you know somebody that has
a connection, try not to go through their
agents because they obviously don't want
those people working in short films, but
if you can get a personal connection to
that person, they'll do it as a passion
project if they're in between gigs.
When it was an internship, my job
was basically to read scripts to pass on
to the higher-ups, right? So I was the
gatekeeper. I was instructed to read ten
pages and no more, and if they didn't
grab me by page ten, to toss it out, right?
And then she saw my abilities
there, and that's what got me hired as a
development executive, and essentially my
job is to work with her. She's showrunner
for two shows, so she's very busy, and she
just pitched and sold another show
that's gonna go to pilot in January. So
my job is to go to her office whenever
she can have me. I'm sort of waiting, you
know in the office next door, and I
help her break the story. So I'm doing
research all the time, waiting for her
call, coming up with ideas and pitches
and stories. I come to her office, and we
break the story, figure out what it's
going to be, toss ideas, run ideas, we
improv together sometimes, but it's all
about crafting this new story. That's
the bulk of the job. And is that where I
thought I would be? No, I actually was
inspired to produce more, and as much as
I love acting, as I get older I want to
do a little bit more. I did a short film
and enjoyed that process of putting
everything together, and when I started
my internship, I was informed by my boss
that the job that I wanted didn't really
exist unless I started as a writer first
and development first. So it's exactly
where I want to be, but just in a way
that I didn't think that it was going to
happen. It's all a bit of a surprise.
Okay, well, thank you. Thank you for being here, and thank you for our panelists. Thank you Ray, thank you Kate, and thank you Richard.
