Interview (Part 1): Michael Ballin and Thomas Aguilar

My interview with 2021 Black List writer for their script The College Dropout.

Michael Ballin and Thomas Aguilar wrote the original screenplay “The College Dropout” which landed on the 2021 Black List. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with with Mike and Tom about their creative background, their script based on a period of time in the life of Kanye West, the craft of screenwriting, and what making the annual Black List has meant to them.

Today Part 1 of a 6-part series to run each day through Saturday, Mike and Tom talk about how they got into filmmaking which led to their interest in screenwriting.

Scott Myers: Congratulations, Mike and Tom, on making the 2021 Black List with your script, The College Dropout. Great to have you here. I’d like to learn a little bit about your background, how you developed an interest in movies, television, and writing. Mike, let’s start with you.

Michael Ballin: So much of our youth was watching movies and films together, so our interest developed together. We’re brothers by the way, just with different last names.

Thomas Aguilar: It’s a long story, but basically, our parents were on-again, off-again. They had me. I got my mom’s last name. They split up, got back together, and then they had Mike.

Michael: And I got my dad’s last name. For our whole life, we’ve been explaining that story to people because nobody believes that we’re actually full-blood brothers.

Scott: That’s wild. This was where? In Southern California?

Thomas: Yeah. We grew up in the suburbs of Southern California.

Scott: What’s the age difference between you all?

Thomas: I’m about a year and a half older.

Scott: Pretty close then. You were growing up together, you’re watching movies, TV, comic books. What’s the thing that piqued your interest in writing?

Thomas: Movies and TV were everything to us growing up. We saw Independence Day in the movie theater that summer probably about 17, 18 times.

Michael: Four times in one day.

Thomas: We got in there at 9:00 AM. We’d go see Independence Day. We’d walk out, and my mom would be like, “We should see it again.” We’d go back into the theater and watch it again. And on the other hand, our grandpa showed us One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest when we were about eight years old.

Michael: He kind of gave us a film school at that age. One Sunday it was Cuckoo’s Nest or 2001: A Space Odyssey. I remember sleeping through some of that, but the part that we were enthralled by was Dave and HAL 9000. That dynamic had a strong impact on us at a young age.

Scott: This is your grandfather and your mother, both supporting your interest in film.

Thomas: Totally.

Michael: A movie household. People were amazed at all the movies Tom and I have seen in theaters. We saw everything. I remember we saw War of The Worlds or even Miss Congeniality on opening weekend. We used to run a WordPress blog to review all the movies we were watching.

Thomas: TV too. When we weren’t at the movie theaters, we were watching a lot of TV. We grew up with our Grandma and our Mom. Our grandma loved CBS and loved procedural television. ER, Law and Order, CSI. We were just in it all. On our fridge, we would have the network schedule. Prior to DVR, we’d be like, “OK, tonight’s Numbers, tonight’s House MD.”

Scott: That’s great. You had film school education even before you went to college, really grounded in film and TV. Let’s talk a bit about that. Thomas, Cal State, is that right?

Thomas: Yeah, I was at Cal State, Los Angeles. I did my undergrad there.

Scott: That was sociology?

Thomas: Yeah, I took a sociology class, and I loved it. And throughout college, I started to think, “Am I really going to do this movie thing?” Am I really going to pursue this? I was like, “You know what? Maybe I’m going to put movies aside for now and pursue it after being a professor or something.”

Scott: Mike, you went to Cal State, Long Beach, is that right?

Michael: Yes.

Scott: You majored in something a little bit more directly relevant to writing literature and film. Is that correct?

Michael: Yeah, I actually started out majoring in film, but in film school, there’s a lot of bureaucracy. It’s not like high school, where we could just shoot whatever we wanted for the AV club. We had these great teachers who encouraged us.

Tom: Shout out, Mr. Murray and Mr. Herschler!

Michael: But it was tougher in college, because you get there and it was like you had to enter a lottery to get a film made. I wasn’t into that and was like, “We can go out and make a movie with three people right now.”

I read Rebel Without a Crew plus the technology at the time was just burgeoning where Canon DSLRs gave you close to film-like quality. You just go out and shoot something. We’d cast our friends or younger siblings in our short films.

So I minored in film and got a degree in English. That was probably one of the best things because I was able to learn storytelling from the masters in literature and learn filmmaking on the side. It was a great experience.

Scott: Both of you wound your way into the whole Hollywood system. Thomas, how did you get into working for Sony?

Thomas: It was funny. After I graduated from CSULA. I got into graduate school at USC for journalism and that was the plan for me. I was going to do some serious journalism. I told Mike, “Hey, I don’t know if I’m going to be doing the movies as much anymore.” Mike was still shooting short films. But one day, I called him. I said, “Hey, I have to make a video, a journalism video,” some piece, and he said, “OK, I’ll help you.”

And we start shooting it. During the shoot, Mike said, “Tom, this is what you’re going to do?” It had become some David Lynch thing.

Michael: When it really should have been a straightforward local news piece about this record store and it became this trippy, avant-garde movie. Fun, but not journalism.

Thomas: When I took it in to the class, they looked at it, and the teacher said, “I think you want to be in the film school. I don’t think you want to be here.” I was like, “Well, it’s too late to go to film school. I didn’t get in.”

I call Mike, and I say, “Hey, where are you?” Mike was…

Michael: In San Clemente, shooting a music video.

Thomas: He was shooting a music video, and I said, “Mike, I’m coming. I’m done with this.” I walk into the USC registrar, and I say, “How do I leave the school?” They said, “For good, or…?” I said, “Yeah. I’m done.” I dropped out of graduate school. I drove down to San Clemente and met up with Mike.

After that, we never really turned back. It was sort of like, “This is it. We want to do this together.” I just got an internship at Sony and got into the movie business.

Tomorrow in Part 2, Mike and Tom discuss how they decided to write a script about Kanye West’s breakout as a recording artist.

Mike and Tom are repped by:

Mike Goldberg, Kyle Loftus, Adam Perry (APA)
Matt Ochacher, Michael Pelmont (New Wave Entertainment)

Twitter: @MichaelBallin, @Thomasraguilar

For my interviews with dozens of other Black List writers, go here.