TEACHING

Carol Baum is offering a small, selective class (5–10 people) for anyone who wants a true inside look at how the film business actually works. The class will cover script development, packaging, how to deal with agents and executives—how to build a producing career without going to film school. Practical advice, based on the teacher’s extensive experience as a studio executive, and the expertise gained from producing 34 movies. Ideal for writers, aspiring producers, and industry assistants ready to level up.

The class will take place over 4 weeks (once per week), beginning the first week of October. Sessions will be 2 hours in the evening and will meet in-person in Beverly Hills. Cost is $300 total for all four sessions. If interested, please contact prodscbaum@gmail.com for more information on the selection process.

Carol previously taught an advanced producing seminar at both AFI and at the Peter Stark Program at USC. Her course, which combined lectures and interactive guests, provided a comprehensive overview of producing for film and television, preparing students for the realities of Hollywood. She recently taught at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts in the Film and Television Production Division.

USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS

At USC, Carol taught undergraduate students the nuts and bolts of production—how to find a story, shape it into a script, attach actors and a director, and finally how to get the money to get it made. As at AFI, pitching was an integral part of the class. Students pitched their original ideas and play-acted as executives in order to learn the other side of process.

AFI CONSERVATORY

At AFI the Fellows collaborate to make many short films. Carol’s class, which included both producers and writers, was instrumental in teaching them how to collaborate with each other. Producing students learned how to work with writers, how to pitch a story, how to analyze scripts, and how to make notes on scripts, both from the creative and sales standpoints. Guests from different disciplines discussed their areas of expertise: book agents provided information about how to option a book; writers presented their own produced scripts and talked in detail how their movie got made. For the term paper, the fellows were asked to choose a movie to remake and justify why there should be a contemporary version.

PETER STARK MENTOR

Carol worked with recent Stark graduates who needed help developing a script or guidance about how to raise money for a project. In the process, she helped them with specific life problems, including, typically, how to combine a career in the movie and TV business with a social life.

Since Stark is instrumental in getting the students internships, Carol walked them through the interview process and helped them decide the best fit for their temperaments and personalities—studio, agency, management company, or network.

THE SPARK PROGRAM @ THE ACADEMY

At the Spark program, sponsored by the Motion Picture Academy, Carol worked intensively with a 13-year-old girl at an inner-city school in Hollywood, who wrote, directed, and starred in a short film about bullying. The ten-week program culminated in an evening where all the students got to screen their films.