Five alumni and the manager of a sixth spoke Saturday about their careers in film and television and offered advice to students aspiring to work in the business.Jeremy Larner '58, the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of The Candidate; Ross Martin '95, the head of programming for MTVu; David Ian Salter '88, a film editor for Finding Nemo; Donald Silvey '84, vice president of strategic planning for Lifetime Entertainment; Clare Tully '80, an entertainment lawyer; and Erwin Stoff, a producer and manager of, among others, Debra Messing '90, spoke to a crowd of about 60 in Sherman Function Hall.

Their backgrounds held a common theme: Regardless of whether they intended initially on entering the entertainment industry out of college, none of them are doing exactly what they pictured-Stoff, for example, earned a doctorate before making his way to Los Angeles.

This is in part due to the fact that throughout the 1980s-when three of the five alumni graduated-Brandeis had no film studies program, they said.

According to Martin, those interested in content-based fields should not go to graduate school, because it is more valuable to "get things wrong and experiment."

Salter agreed, calling his time at USC Film School a "wash," citing the networking connections he made as among the few overall benefits. He added that it is much easier to live in Los Angeles and start out in the film industry, although it is possible to live elsewhere.

The panelists answered questions from moderators Scott Feinberg '08 and Melissa Kahn '07 for an hour before taking a few questions from the floor.

Speaking from a legal perspective, Tully noted that the "contacts [she made] from Brandeis were more valuable than [her] law school ones."

Silvey, who spent 17 years at MTV before moving to Lifetime, recommended that students interested in television should find jobs at cable networks because they are more likely to "give younger people a chance."

Larner spoke ruefully of the treatment screenwriters receive nowadays from directors and studios, citing the teams of screenwriters who worked on a single script for the Oscars last week. He noted that good screenwriters should know a little bit about directing and acting so they can write better scripts.

When asked what advice he would have given himself right after graduating from Brandeis, Martin responded: "Chill out, everything's going to be great." Also, Stoff noted that he is where he is today because of the "sum total of small, inconsequential decisions.