How USC Grads Freddie Wong and Ryan Coogler Became the Future of Filmmaking, Via Two Very Different Paths

Fruitvale Station was a hit at Sundance, while Video Game High School has millions of teen fans

A A A Comments (0) By Zachary Pincus-Roth Thursday, Jul 11 2013

Forest Whitaker saw Coogler's short films and invited the student for a meeting. Coogler told him about Fruitvale; Whitaker signed on as a producer.

Coogler knew a law student who worked on the Grant family's civil case, and got himself hired to help organize witnesses' smartphone footage of the murder; that helped him get interviews with the family. He was inspired by working-class stories such as City of God and The Wrestler, and by movies that take place in one day, like The Bicycle Thief and even Friday.

Unlike Wong, Coogler says he's still "hand to mouth." He's been supported by Sundance Institute and the San Francisco Film Society during filming, and now by his film's distributor, the Weinstein Company.

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But after the acclaimed Fruitvale comes out this week, opportunities will come: an HBO pilot, perhaps. Or even a web series.

"My path to my first film was relatively traditional," he says. "but I admire all paths. I look at new media and I'm so excited.

"That was one of the biggest lessons I learned at USC," he adds. "People would talk about how their career went, and no two stories were ever the same."