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One of the Writers Was My Screenwriting Professor!

posted 17 years ago by It_Is_Minus_9
14 replies | jump to latest

John Freitas taught my screenwriting class in the Pratt Film Department, in between his teaching gigs at the New School. He would come into class and tell us about the script, and by the second semester, he was telling us about it getting made.

I haven't seen the film yet but by the looks of this board, it seems like the reaction is... er, poor.

He was a great teacher and gave some great tips for our scripts. I've never read any of his work, though.

I'm still pretty blown away that he got Chloe Sevigny to do this film (forgive the 'blow' line, no pun intended on Chloe's past work).

He's completely obsessed with Cronenberg, so I can definitely see the correlations between David and some elements of the trailer.

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] vendrell88 17 years ago

he is my teacher right now for film at hofstra lol...hes the man

[–] Chainsaw Slasher 16 years ago

amen to the above...although he does get off topic frequently.
______________________________________

"Life's a pain and God's a sadist."

[–] aroop_d 16 years ago

god help you...!!

[–] thatsmydesire 15 years ago

The whole "Education" game is a scam that these idiots help each other make $$$ off of.What a mountain of *beep* John freitas is a dolt!

[–] wroutson 16 years ago

Wow I just looked at his list of accomplishments here on the I.M.D.B and well you might want to try to get a refund from the school I didn't know an electrician could teach writing.
Theres hope for the rest of us.
I have a friend who is a carpenter maybe he could offer a few tips.
From what I've read here this film doesn't look like it's going to do that well since the only film the director has done that I recognise is a Troma Film which he wrote and we all know how paticular LLoyd Kaufman is about the movies he directs.
Damn maybe the craft service guy is going to teach a class on directing, I realize that I'm being a little sarcastic in what I'm writing but if you really think about it don't you feel like the school might have ripped you off or at the least didn't even look at his resume before hiring him to teach the class?
He might be a cool guy to hang out with but did you get your moneys worth?

Personally I'd be pissed, but thats me.

[–] It_Is_Minus_9 16 years ago

Yeah, my friend (and former Freitas classmate) and I were joking about that when we checked out his filmography. "Great electric on that one movie, John! You're the best!"

But, I digress...

In the bigger picture, I don't feel ripped off. If I had taken a Tarantino class, I wouldn't feel like I'd been conned into learning screenwriting from a guy who used to jockey movies at a video store. John was a cool guy -not such a great writing teacher- but a cool guy. He had some useful and not so useful tips about the trade. He loves Cronenberg films as much as I do, and the majority of his classes were workshop-based, so we would mostly crit other people's writing exercises and not really hang on every little nugget of wisdom that came out of John's lectures.

As for feeling if I got my money's worth, well... I feel like school -not John- shortchanged me and a lot of other alumni. But it was their choices of curriculum and shortsightedness when it came to prepping us for the business, and selecting their faculty. That's not John's fault by any means.

From my understanding, his New School classes are great, and the film festivals he curates are a blast. Would I have loved to have a "real-deal" screenwriter teach me the craft? Sure. But I like sort of writing for me and learning as I go. But that's just me.

[–] urbanbooger 16 years ago

My condolances to your education.

[–] manutd17117 16 years ago

John Freitas is my professor now and he has said many times how IMDb is wrong and how he never did the electric work on that film. IMDb just hasn't changed it yet...he usually laughs about this. He is a great professor though; very smart and absolutely hilarious.

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] Mirage4 16 years ago

I think this epitomizes the adage, those that can, do...those that can't, teach. Not to take myself too seriously--I'm a Business/Management professor.

[–] Random Terrain 13 years ago

My name is Professor Poopypants and I am here to teach you how to write screenplays. First, get a frying pan. Next, bash yourself in the head with it 20 times. Dip your finger in the blood and scribble on the floor. Now you have your first Hollywood screenplay!

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http://www.randomterrain.com/ - Free nude pixels.

[–] tarchon 13 years ago

Does he live in a box or something? It's hard to believe the person who wrote this has the slightest acquaintance with anything resembling the real world. It's all well and good that the characters are very dramatic, but at some point they need to act like people.

[–] GeneticSugarKane 12 years ago

The fact that the three main characters are all suffering from some form of mental illness or disturbance may be an indicator of why they don't act like real, every day people.

I'm not saying this was a brilliantly portrayed depiction of mental illness (nor am I saying it's not, because I don't have much knowledge of mental illness) but I've been around quite a few of "average" people in my life... and I like to think that the characters in this film aren't supposed to portray humanity as a whole.