James Franco, student of life, teacher of N.Y.U. and U.S.C. film students, guest starrer of soap operas, will next bestow his hard-won wisdom upon a lucky few high-schoolers. Friday night via Instagram, Franco alerted the young citizens of California that he’d be hosting an eight-part film class at Silicon Valley’s Palo Alto High School and encouraged them to join him. “Sign up NOW! ” he implored (sunburst emoji his).
The application for the workshop does not mention Franco by name, but does contain the written equivalent of a casual hair-flip: “The teacher is a very well known director and actor supported by a team of professionals.” The form explains that Franco and his cohorts are looking for “24 students who are very interested in film making and want to help produce a film that will actually be shown in a film festival at the end of the year (if it is good).” And while you “don’t need to have your own camera”—like, if you’re, I don’t know, a high-school kid—“it is helpful.” In other words, if you’re looking to get schooled in celluloid by Franco, you best be prepared to make a film of inarguable quality (as deemed by Franco) and also have your own equipment that you can drag around Silicon Valley at your leisure.

Know an ambitious, preternaturally brilliant, and camera-owning high schooler who meets these qualifications? To get in, students must pen a 200-word essay “ABOUT WHY YOU WANT TO BE IN THE WORKSHOP AND WHAT YOU WOULD BRING TO THE CLASS,” and make a one-minute video with their cell phone. (The application doesn‘t require proof that students watched the scene in 127 Hours wherein Franco saws off his own arm without covering their eyes and/or weeping openly, but it couldn’t hurt). Accepted pupils will work in groups of three; for those high-school students or Hollywood news writers who have not yet mastered the art of multiplication, the application explains “there will be 8 groups of 3.” The four-hour-long workshops will run from September 13 to December 13 and applications are due Thursday, September 10 by midnight.

Source