By Desa Philadelphia

When Producer and adjunct professor John Ira Palmer (September 5, Flag Day) took over the long running movie case study class (which was originated and taught for many years by Prof. Jason Squire), he thought long and hard about how he could put his own spin on the offering. The class breaks down the making of a film from idea to distribution, inviting creative talent and executives as guest speakers, to expose and explain behind the scenes decision-making to students. For his first film, in the Fall 2024 semester, he chose the buzzy Netflix film They Cloned Tyrone (2023), which was written by alumni Tony Rettenmaier ’15 and Juel Taylor ’15, and directed by Taylor. 

Taylor had previously written the films Creed II (2018) and Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021), but this was his feature directing debut. Palmer realized that created a buzz among students, since Rettenmaier, Taylor, and many of the lead creatives were alumni. “I was really sort of struck with how excited all of the students were at being able to look at a first-time feature filmmaker, who was a somewhat recent alumni on a film that also had, you know, department heads and people working on it that also had sort of come up through USC,” he says. He had found an exciting formula.

So, in Spring 2025 Palmer chose another breakout first feature, Didi, which was written and directed by alumnus Sean Wang ’16. “I knew that I wanted to repeat that I wanted to and use a film where the students sitting in the class were able to sort of relate to the filmmakers, and to be able to see a clearer view of how, where they are sitting can lead to a career in filmmaking,” says Palmer.

Didi is a coming-of-age story about a Chinese boy who lives between two worlds, his semi-traditional home life, and the semi-rebellious world of the skate parks and neighborhoods he roams as a wannabe filmmaker. Wang based the title character on himself, drawing from his experiences growing up in Fremont, California, where he also shot the film. “It was this curiosity of looking back at my childhood, and sort of feeling like, oh, there are things about it that shaped me in ways that I didn't even know or understand until now,” he says. “And that was sort of an active process of kind of unpacking things and dissecting things. Not be too heavy handed in terms of showing things as they were. But you know, with today's eyes.”

Wang, of course, was a guest speaker in the class, as well as department heads and even the film’s star Izaac Wang (Good Boys, Raya and the Last Dragon), who gave a breakthrough performance. 

Palmer, who earned a graduate degree in Production from SCA in 2017, says there was a palpable excitement among the guests of the last two semesters, as filmmakers who were having their first big successes. It energized the class, he says. And it was a different kind of energy than hearing from famous, important filmmakers who had already had many years of successes. “I remember hearing from all kinds of guests (as a student at SCA). But you know it's exciting when you have this guest with this long-esteemed list of credits, and you feel just so lucky to be sitting in the room hearing, you know, from these very established people. But I, too, like, as a student, often felt. ‘How do I get there?’” he says. “USC is a wonderful program and teaches you so much about storytelling and filmmaking and collaborating. But what I found was a big gap when I left was ‘how do I take all of that knowledge that I've gained, and bridge that meaningfully into a career?’” Palmer says filling that gap has become his goal with bringing a USC-centered approach to the case studies class. “You know I've been lucky enough to teach it over the last year” he says. “I hope that the students that take this class while I've been teaching it get a little bit of insight into that and how do you go from sitting here in the case study class to sort of meaningfully through next steps, and through the stories that we tell through the class and through the guest speakers.” Especially when those guest speakers actually did once sit in those same seats. 

Wang says it all comes back to School of Cinematic Arts adage that what happens here will affect the rest of your career. “Day one of orientation or something, I think someone said, like ‘Look to your left. Look to your right. These are the people who will be hiring you and firing you, and who you'll be working with for the rest of your lives,” he says, adding “And you know you kind of sit there and laugh like ‘Ha, Ha! Cool!’ But now that I'm a decade removed, you know, more or less, it’s kind of true. Maybe less the firing part.”