College Bound: Senior shoots for future in film

Editor’s note: This year, the Falcon will be following the trials and tribulations of the college application process. Saro Acharya is one of two seniors who will be profiled in this series.

Senior Saro Acharya is unassuming and can be easily overlooked amidst the Media Arts and SHSTV students with whom he’s often found. Once in conversation, however, he brings out emotive hand gestures and genuine, eye-crinkling smiles.

Acharya’s interests reflect this creative, energetic personality. Across various social media sites including Facebook, Instagram, Ink361 and hitRECord are a collection of his artsy photographs, a graphic of the Eiffel Tower, art for a Coldplay song and a six-word poem.

Acharya’s best work, however, is on his YouTube channel under the username Frosty Wabbit: a collection of videos made for school projects, montages of video clips, late night ramblings — the den of this self-named Interneter/adventurer abounds with variety.

It shouldn’t be surprising that Acharya has chosen to pursue film and television production.

His dream colleges are the University of Southern California (USC) and New York University (NYU). The two schools are known for their strength in film and for their connections to the industry. USC, for instance, has annually had at least one alumnus nominated for an Academy Award since 1973.

“The USC program for film is really great,” Acharya said. “George Lucas and J.J. Abrams and a few other directors donate regularly to the program, and [USC is] like the center for digital arts.”

Acharya has not visited NYU, but he has visited USC. USC’s beautiful campus and digital media center stand out in his memory.

“When I walked in, I thought, ‘Wow, this is awesome’ because the digital media center is really a cool place to be,” Acharya said. “They have all these types of touch screens, expensive media sound stages and everything that is a filmmakers’ dream.”

In contrast, NYU does not have a traditional campus, since New York has such limited building space. NYU instead consists of buildings integrated throughout New York City, which Acharya has visited and admires for its beautiful architecture.

“I like how you can go from one end of the city to another while going to a class,” Acharya said.

In order to better his chances for NYU, which he plans on applying early decision to, Acharya has been preparing his portfolio since the summer. He is required to submit a five-part creative portfolio: a resume, a leadership and collaboration anecdote, a personal story, artistic influences and a creative submission.

As part of his portfolio, Acharya plans to create a video in which he talks about his experience in film and shows a few clips from past projects for his creative submission.

Another college that he will apply to, Chapman University in Southern California, is somewhat of a dream school as well. The university sits in the top 10 film schools in the United States and has a film major acceptance rate of just 14 percent. Acharya may end up applying for television, which has a higher acceptance rate of 35 percent.

Although he has been working consistently on his applications for NYU and Chapman since summer, both of which are due Nov. 1, Acharya admits he is “kind of scared.” He still has to film and edit the video for NYU, which will likely take a few days, and complete his NYU writing supplemental.

The application process has not been Acharya’s only barrier. Film school, an unusual path for students at SHS, took some time for his parents to warm up to. His father is a software engineer, and his mother is in recruiting at a firm.

“My mom wanted to go into journalism, but in the end she ended up not going, since she did not think it was a viable job,” Acharya said. “I think my parents are worried about me from that experience. They're both supportive of my choices, though, and respect that this is what I want to do with my life”

Acharya admits himself that his choice is not completely realistic. Still, he has the support of friends and teachers, as well as the determination to push through.

“I think it's pretty crazy to pursue any type of art career, but you also have to be pretty crazy yourself to do it,” Acharya said. “I've always felt a bit shaky about going into film, especially due to parental pressure, but I absolutely know it's what I want to do.”