Quentin Tarantino GROUP 1 BRENT PARZUCHOWSKI ALEXANDRIA ASSELIN PHIL PLACHTA DEVIN BORIA

Early Life ●Born March 27, 1963 in Knoxville Tennessee ●Named Quentin after the Burt Reynolds’ character from the TV show Gunsmoke ●Only child ●Father was an actor who left the family before Quentin was born ●Preferred to read comics and watch movies over studying

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Awards ●Named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2005 ● 2 academy awards ● 2 golden globes ● Won a screenplay Oscar for Pulp Fiction ● One of the most studied film directors in the U.K.

10,000Hrs ●Worked as an usher at an adult film theatre right after dropping out of high school ●During that time he also took acting classes ●He then landed a job at a video archives store in California. ○Interviewed customers about the films they returned

10,000Hrs Cont’d ●Eventually he got a job at a producing company called Cinetel ●Around the of age 24 he came up with his first screenplay, (9 years after dropping school which was roughly 10,000 hours) ● (This may contribute to his success, but there are other factors that may explain it better. )

Hidden Advantages ●With an absent father, Quintens mother allowed his step- father to ‘step’ into his life. ○His step-father supported his passion for film ●Little parental guidance and his distaste for school lead to him dropping out, which left him more time to focus on film ○able to attend acting classes and work at the adult film theater

Hidden Advantages Cont’d ● Not being able to afford to go to a film college Quentin spent time working in the video store, learning from experience ● Got arrested at a young age for stealing a book; where he used his time in jail to learn some “jailhouse lingo” ● Screenplay for My Best Friend’s Birthday (1987) ending was lost in fire which became a screenplay for a different movie

Concerted Cultivation ●Tarantino’s mother encouraged his individuality from an early age ●“He wrote me sad Mother's Day stories. He'd always kill me and tell me how bad he felt about it," his mother Connie Zastoupil once told Entertainment Weekly. "It was enough to bring a tear to a mother's eye” ●Supportive stepfather ○Allowed Quentin to follow his passion

Luck/Opportunity ●In his early 20’s Tarantino worked at a video archive ○Met Roger Avary who helped work on script ideas ●Met Lawrence Bender at a Hollywood party ○Who funded Reservoir Dogs, his first big hit ●Met Tony Scott at his Cinetel job ○Bought the rights to his first script ‘True Romance

Prodigy ●Has an IQ of 160 ●Autodidact- A self-taught person; a person who teaches himself about a subject in which he has had little or no formal education - this way he had complete control in what he was learning ●Self taught by skipping school, watching and working on films in the movie store ●Also a big reader growing up, especially cinema literature

Practical Intelligence ●At his job at the video rental store he actively recommended videos to customers and then would discuss the films with them when they came back to return them. ○Through these practices Tarantino was able to network with people who he worked with later. ●Tarantino also used this practical intelligence to meet people at parties like when he met Lawrence Bender who encouraged him to write some of his first screen plays and later worked with him on several movies

Passion/Grit ●After losing his screenplay ‘My Best Friends Birthday’ in the fire, many people would have called it quits, but Quentin wasn’t phased and continued his dream. ●Using what remained from My Best Friends Birthday he wrote True Romance (His first movie to go to theaters) ●“How dare you send me this f… piece of shit? You must be out of your f… mind. You want to know how I feel about it? Here is your f… piece of shit back. F… you.” – studio executive review for True Romance

Summary ● The 10,000 hour rule may contribute to Tarantino being an outlier but we found other reasons that are more likely to explain his success ○ Many hidden advantages ○ Concerted cultivation ○ Luck/Opportunity ○ Prodigy ○ Passion/Grit ○ Practical Intelligence

Fun Facts / Questions? ● Middle name : Jerome ● After getting in a fight with a cab driver over his girlfriend the driver almost bit off his nipple. He said if he would of taken a smaller bite he most likely would of lost his nipple. ● He occasionally drives around his hometown in the “Pussy Wagon” from KIll BIll. ● The BAMF wallet from pulp fiction actually belonged to Tarantino

References ● ● ● ● things-you-didnt-know.htmlhttp:// things-you-didnt-know.html ● ● movies-are-achingly-personal.htmlhttp:// movies-are-achingly-personal.html ● ●