From the beginning,
Schwartzman's parents sup-
ported his artistic interests in
painting, drawing, and pho-
tography, even helping him
build a darkroom and equip-
ping him with supplies.
His father was an entertain-
ment attorney whose clients
included prominent producers
and directors such as Stanley
Kubrick and William Friedkin.
From a young age,
Schwartzman became familiar
with these great filmmakers in
the casual setting of his
family's home. When he was
16, he spent a summer working
as a gofer for Hal Ashby. "He
used to edit movies at his
house in the Malibu Colony. I
remember he showed Coming
Home at his house. I was proba-
bly one of the first to see it all
put together."
Although Schwartzman's
father approved of a career in
filmmaking, he insisted that his
son go to college and earn a
degree, to ensure he had
"something to fall back on."
Following his father's advice,
he earned a bachelor's degree
in economics from the
University of Colorado and
planned to go on to law school.
Prior to graduation, he partici-
pated in a program for photog-
raphers called "Semester at
Sea," sailing around the world
on a freighter equipped with a darkroom, stopping at exotic ports of call.
"Photography became a real means for me to express myself. On that
trip, I really got into photography and began to understand it on a
What do you like
least about your job?
"The thing that I like
least about the job is the
hours. Because filmmak-
ing has become so expen-
sive it requires a huge
commitment in terms of time. The idea of a
40-hour week in which you can get home at
night and go out to dinner with your friends
is something that does not exist in the film
business. On a typical movie I work on, in
a five-day week I will put in somewhere
between 70 and 80 hours. If you do the math,
that is between 15 and 17 hours a day. It is
all consuming. You don't see your family
much. You have to have the kind of friends
that understand, when you're working on a
film, you're probably not going to call them
back right away. If I could change anything,
it would be that we work more days and
less hours, instead of longer hours and less
days. But, it's the economics of filmmaking."
--John Schwartzman
What do you love most
about your job?
"What I love most about my job is my office
changes every day. One day my office may be
the beach and the next day it may be the
35th floor of an office building. How great is
that? There is this constant newness to the
job. The other thing I love is, how many
people can get up in the morning on a
rainy day and say, `When I go to work
today, I'm going to make it sunny'? Or on
a sunny day, say, `I'm going to make it rain
outside the windows.' It is a lot of fun. It's
so creative."--John Schwartzman
VOICES OF
EXPERIENCE
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