This is true. I am a teaching assistant to KBro, the best filmmaking professor at my university and people who know him envy me.
"What?! How did you get to be KBro's TA?"
Well, it was one part diligence, one part dedication to making good films, one part charisma and the rest was the pure luck that KBro and I get along really well.
It's not bragging, but I have encountered other students of his who meet me and say "YOU'RE the TA he's always talking about? I hear so much about you! Wow, nice to meet you!"
So aside from the fact that I got a big ego, after three years of being my professor and mentor, and after a year of me begging, and as this year became increasingly hectic for KBro, he let me take on the task of assisting him teach his Filmmaking I course.
In brief, KBro is a bright and extremely educated filmmaker, a gifted teacher, and an all around hilarious and delightful human being. He is fair, honest, positive, wonderfully saracastic and does just about everything he can do to help his students make great movies.
He's also obsessed with the 1980s. I know this because once he came to my radio show and played things called "records," featuring the most absurd hair metal and synth pop. He also only listens to the 1980s station in his car on satellite radio.
He also made this movie, called "Tough All Over," as his senior MFA thesis.
This probably led to my classmate getting a great grade on his Filmmaking I final film, called "Once Upon a Time in the '80s."
I, however, did not include the 1980s in my Filmmaking I final, but I'll throw it in here anyway, because this is my goddamn blog.
Well, truth be told, I was not lucky enough to HAVE KBro as my Filmmaking I professor all those years ago. I had some asshole who didn't teach me much, and therefore my film had bad sound. It's not my fault.
Anyway, that's why I'm so lucky to be KBro's TA now. I'm learning so much!
Besides the great assistant opportunity, KBro has helped me achieve so much in my time here at university as a filmmaker, in a school where filmmaking is exceedingly underfunded and unimportant.
For one thing, every month he brings his students (or whoever wants to go) to Boston Open Screen , which is essentially an open mic night for filmmakers. Anyone can screen anything they've made, if under 10 minutes, to a real live audience, drink beer, laugh, cry, network and have a great time. It is here where I see some of KBro's real filmmaking, the stuff he does when he's not teaching, and it's impressive. Unfortunately, he doesn't like the idea of putting up his films on YouTube, so I can't feature them here, but trust me, they're excellent. I myself have shown 3 movies so far.
Another great opportunity KBro has given me was the chance to be a production assistant on a real, independent feature length film. His grad school friends put one of their screenplays into production last summer and KBro spread the word that they were looking for help. I tentatively agreed, drove my ass to New London, Connecticut for three days and ended up learning SO MUCH. Plus, I'll be in the credits! The movie is called "Party Like It's a Verb."
Next week, KBro will be at SXSW, checking out all the cool shit in Austin, Texas, schmoozing, being a cowboy, typical things. I will be in charge of our Filmmaking I class AS WELL as covering his Film 101 lecture class. I'm honestly very proud of the responsibility.
Thanks to him, I've gone from being another floating face in the masses of coursework, just trying to get a passing grade, to a collaborator with someone I really admire and a trusted assistant.
BE JEALOUS.
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