It’s our last day of class and I’m feeling sentimental.

We spent this past week finishing up our final presentations, adding the finishing touches to our creative projects, and trying to piece together everything we’ve learned. All the projects were great and had their own unique spin. Ben wrote a script, Corrina storyboarded it, and Elle made a production package for it. Christina did production design for movie adaptation of a children’s book. Caitlin enlightened us with color. Charlie made his own snail sounds. Georgia was a location scout. Kaitlyn and Gennie co-wrote a pilot. And I erased white faces from TV show posters – to illustrate the lack of representation on screen, of course. Throughout these presentations, I was just in awe of all my classmates’ talents and insights, thankful for the time we got to share and learn together on this trip.

In this month, our class laughed together, sometimes cried together, learned together, sang together, danced together, ate together, and grew together. We had lots of epiphanies about life, midlife crises that came and went in seconds, and gut-wrenching feelings of uncertainty. Despite all this, I’m thankful that we got to do it together, with two incredible professors who cared so much about us. Even though we can sulk in the unknowns and the what ifs, or get bogged down by questions that no one has the answers to, it was refreshing to be able to walk into a table read or a set rehearsal and see people living and thriving in this industry. It grounded all my fears and ideals in reality. What made it better was walking in those rooms and meeting those people with my class of film dorks and sweethearts.

Today, to finish up our presentations, we went to a park in Hollywood Hills that has a beautiful view of the Hollywood sign. After we finished class, we posed and flailed for photos under the sign, and that’s when it hit me that class was over. As we drove back down on the curvy road, we blasted “California” by Phantom Planet and sang “California, here we come!” at the top of our lungs. That moment seemed to stand still. I felt thankful for the little community we built in that van, and for the memories we made in Hollywoodland.

We may be leaving Hollywood for now, but give us a couple years and we’ll be running the show.  California, here we come.

As we walked around Warner Brothers Studio today, I gawked at the large beige buildings on each side of us. Inside these simple, seemingly sterile buildings were worlds out of our reach – some in New York, Chicago, or even an underwater cave. We walked along a street of “New York” in the back lot of the studio and walked down some “city apartments” whose interiors were just wooden beams and storage space for tools. I blurted out, “It’s all fake?!” Everyone laughed at my seemingly ludicrous question. Of course it’s all fake. This is Hollywood.

On the outside, Hollywood is sunny and pleasant, but underneath it all is an industry of make-believe for the sake of making money.  However, there’s more to that than I initially thought.  We have been meeting very grounded, authentic, and honest people who know how the industry works and yet are still able to do what they love.

We met with two people today with very different jobs. First, we met Marc Solomon, the Executive Vice President of Post-Production at Warner Brothers Studios. He’s been working at WB for over 20 years and I could tell he had a lot of people’s respect. He gave valuable insights into the industry and gave us advice on how we can get into the system. He got to know us individually and then personalized his advice based on our interests. On the flip side, we then met with Tim Sexton, an award-winning writer who is now working on the TV show Chicago PD. When we got in the writer’s room, his team was going through a mini crisis. Tim was a bit frazzled, but was still able to have a Q&A with us. He said many important things, but one that stuck with me was his belief that in order to get through obstacles and setbacks, you have to have “pathological optimism.” 

Pathological optimism started to connect in my mind with the large beige sound stages in the studio lots. It’s all a facade in some way, but a necessary one. To mask the struggle and power hierarchy and rejection in Hollywood, there’s a sunny exterior – like the big Hollywood sign, grand theaters, and studio lots. Pathological optimism and all its sunny props are a necessity to keep doing what you love, or to keep working towards what you love to do.

However, there’s another layer to this. Beneath the facade and the underbelly of Hollywood, there are lots of good people working in this industry. People who believe in the next generation, who want to make good work, and who are nice to people they meet. They are what is keeping this place afloat. There is authenticity in this land of make-believe, and it gives me comfort as I approach my immersion into the deep, dark pool of adulthood. Just remember, pathological optimism.