And after three days drinking with Larry Love, I just get an inkling to go on home.

Our Director Writes:

Diary of a Goddamn Mature Student: Winter Break

It's been a long and strange year. I guess that's just the way it is, really.

I mean, it surely reads like a myth being told, this tale of 2009.

Lost a job.

Lost an old friend.

Gained a new calling.

Gained lots of potential new friends.

Learnt how to direct and control a passion.

At least, it reads like one of the myths from Phonogram; the guide's explanation of the Battle of Britpop. "Wins a battle, loses the war."

That's the way it is, though. Lost a job because of the way of the world - got made redundant for the first time. Lost a friendship on the rocks of assumption and greed. Got my shit in order and decided, prosaically, to follow what is apparently a dream, and ended up surrounded with lots of little 'unformed people', becoming a rock in what is, apparently, their stream. Started to learn how to work with film until it actually starts to matter, as much as anything else.

Film matters because film doesn't matter. In any sane society, the storytellers would be given a cave of their own, far, far away from the scientists and the normal folk, because what they do is of no intrinsic value whatsoever. Films don't advance humanity in any great way; look at it like this. Spider-Man 3 had an approximate production cost of $250 million. Kiribati has an annual GDP of approximately $240 million. This is just an isolated statistic, obviously, provided out of interest, but a single film's production cost more than a year's production of an island of 98,000 people.

Hunter S Thompson surrogate Spider Jerusalem talks about Transients, people who choose to be different, in simple terms, when he says - paraphrasing - that "In any sane society these people would have been tagged as the waterheads they are and left alone". That's probably a horrible misquotation, but this is how I feel about filmmakers in general; you can try and justify it as art, or passion, or love, but it benefits society as a whole not a single jot. The film industry is an immeasurably huge beast that's sucked up money from humanity's need to be entertained for so long that it is now more or less self-perpetuating.

And, curiously, this is not a bad thing. I hate to pull a role-reversal on you, but humanity does need to be entertained, or, more accurately, distracted, because people, fundamentally, suck.

We're all self-contained little units, but culture - film, music, to some extent books - allows us to pretend that there are other people out there like us, when there aren't, and there probably never will be, really.

In other words, Chuck Palahnuk was wrong; you are a beautiful and unique snowflake. Nobody exists out there with the same conditions of production as you, the precise same data input that's made you who you are today. And that is, somehow, more terrifying than the possibility that you are unique; you are unique, apart from some broad brushstrokes, and while that may be a wonderful thing, it's crippling to think that there will never be anyone precisely the same as you down to the final, last mental detail.

Of course, broad brushstrokes are your friend, and so they should be. Without broad generalities, society wouldn't function. And that's where things like film come in; they create deep and broad brushstrokes that people can relate to. Going back to our previous example; Spider-Man 3, having spent a quarter of a billion on production, took $890, 871, 626 at the time of writing in gross revenue. That's a lot of ticket sales and DVD sales among other anciliary profits, which means a lot of people saw the film, whether they liked it or not.

That's a lot of common experience for people across that world, i.e. one hell of a big brushstroke.

Film is a way societies across the world use to communicate, and American films are fascinating because of this. By contrast, British films are fascinating; consider the Bond franchise as cultural communication instead of profitable franchise, and things are somehow more interesting. The Bond films are the equivalent of bragging to your friends about just how fucking cool you really are - the best suits, most expensive food and drink, the talent and expertise to take on the most intense situations and walk away nearly unscratched; British people and Britain by extension are just that cool. Seriously, like.

So I find the people I'm studying with fascinating, because they want to study the subject. I'm studying it because, basically, I can't not; film is that which drives me on, keeps me interested, that which I enjoy doing because it's the only way to channel countless hours of work into one (hopefully) perfectly-formed product, or at least they only way for me.

And so here I am, on the raggedy edge. Don't push me, and I won't push you...

Because if you're not really here...

Our Director writes:

Diary of a Mature Student, Term Week Nine

So... Yes. The last eight weeks have fallen like leaves into the Seine, and here we are after nearly ten weeks of tuition with two weeks left to go, and what have we learned for it?

Well, lots.

You pick up interesting things, in what I call the If you'd just done it right the first time we wouldn't be reshooting for the fourth time school of editing. The fourth reshoot's the charm, we told ourselves, as we forced the Talent into wearing the same t-shirt and jeans as the previous three shoots and made him do the same things as before, only different.

Here's the thing. I know I've put too much effort into what's going to be an odd little product; if I'd just shot a simple conversation and made it look good, I'd probably get better marks. But I'd rather be hung as a lion than a lamb, and so my few minutes of joy include an interview, a setup, a conversation and an assassination. Stitch that, basically.

Dumb, dumb, dumb, but strangely compelling.

There are a few things that I find - and I think this is unique to my capacity as a mature student - strange.

Firstly, the first year appears to be being treated as some sort of foundation year; the lecturers have said, in class, that the marks don't matter as long as you pass and don't count much to the final result. So what's the point in trying, I hear none of you ask? Well, this is a question I've struggled with, so I have to go with the Sir Edmund Hillary answer; because it's there. There's no point phoning it in when the tuition fees are as high as they are; do your best, or what's the point?

As I say, this is unique to mature students. The whole approach is geared towards not stressing out the newbies too much or putting a permanent kink in their final result; first-timers away from home and new to study do need, not to put too fine a point on it, a little mollycoddling.

But then there's the weekly assessments, which get you... Nothing. Oh, you're penalised if you don't do them, but if you do do them it's just an excerise in negative-equity amelioration; you're merely shoring up your final mark by not adding any negative modifiers to the result.

So you have assignments that don't count towards courses that don't, apparently, matter - as long as you pass them. This is an odd little dichotomy; they matter in as much as they're prerequisites but other than that all you have to do is 'not fuck up'.

Theory course? Pass the essays. Study course? Pass the test. Filming course? Film a boring-ass conversation and make it look pretty.

They do this without reckoning on Mature Students, I think, because we tend to sit in the front row of our lectures and ask questions with crazy enthusiasm. Or, at least, one of us does, because I'm hiding towards the back for the theory and study classes.

For the filming course, though, I have crazy enthusiasm and then some, because I've been using these godawful handicams for so long that to get my hands on something - relatively, because they don't trust the first years with the good stuff - decent is like a quantum leap. For instance, did you know that cameras can pan and tilt?

I apparently didn't, according to my previous year's work. Now I can't get enough of it.

This is, technically, a problem. But one worth solving. And aren't those the best?

I'm not sure if this old man can do both...

Our Director Writes:

Diary of a Mature Student, week 2.65

Of course, sometimes there are days when everything seems, well, right, somehow.

These are the sorts of days when you drag your mature student ass into university early. You get half an hour's peace on a computer in the library before a bank of young women set up opposite you and talk non-stop, but that's okay, being as if the ipod's on low enough, you won't get yelled at by a library maven, so you can complete your assignment to the strains of Johnny Cash.

The Judge said 'Son, what is your alibi? If you were somewhere else, then you don't have to die'
I said not a word, though it meant my life - I'd been in the arms of my best friend's wife.

So the assignment just seems to fly by, and suddenly there's a second wind allowing you to keep studying, to attempt to simmer down lots of study into a few pages of notes.

Then suddenly it's midday, and then there's lunch, and then an editing class followed by a really good lecture.

I have to be honest.

I've not always been a writer for Eton Crow.

Way back when, I used to write a column on blog.co.uk. Okay, column isn't entirely accurate, but it's not entirely inaccurate, either. I used to write about music, and I used to receive promo records, but I knocked that on the head because it felt dishonest, somehow. So here's the admission nobody in particular's been waiting for; I used to be Stompy Robot, and now when I look back at the column I wrote about advice for new students, I think it's kind of, well... Interesting...

I know, I know, too many ellipses. And yet...

... I find it interesting. Of the students I've met, they all seem to have their own laptops, and the newest mobile phones, and mp3 players and all this newfangled stuff that makes me think, well, how the hell did we manage back in the last century?

I'm serious. I know how old this makes me sound, but when I started my first degree in 1999, I considered myself lucky to have a TV with a video player build in. The nearest computers were in a searing hot (all year round) basement and there were sixteen computers for the approximately 400 students living there.

Not that people used them much, of course, because the internet was boring as shit way back then. Seriously, the most interesting thing I did was play Popex and check my hotmail. Oh, and, occasionally, yes, write essays.

The most sophisticated consoles were the N64 (Oh, for a game of Goldeneye) and the PS1. DVDs weren't massively available. You just had to put up with videos, which meant using the campus video library - not wonderful, but not too bad either - or buying videos at exorbitant rates, which wasn't really an option for a student.

So the next time, young people, that you're torrenting a film or whatever and you think that's difficult, put it this way; would you rather have watched it on a video tape that many, many other students had worn thin over the years with no guarantee it would actually work?

Young people these days, blah, blah, blah. Of course, in ten years' time when we're all watching films on individualised goggles with terabytes of internal memory and accessing alternate realities and locative art, you'll look back on these days and think... Yes, I remember the days when I actually had to click a mouse...

The Judge said, 'Son, what is your alibi?

Our Director writes:

Diary of a Mature Student, Week One Point Five

I thought you might like to read a bit more about a typical day-in-the-life of a mature student, since posting has kind of slowed down recently. So let's start with last Tuesday, which was fairly typical.

6:30am
Wake up. Prepare breakfast and packed lunch. Do various necessary household things.

7:15am
Leave house while still under cover of darkness. Begin journey by car.

7:32am
Turn left, where possible.

8:00am
Arrive at city park and ride scheme. Wait for bus.

8:10
Continue journey by bus.

8:30
Arrive at university. Proceed to library, and find it devoid of students. Enjoy peace and quiet but a nagging feeling that everything's gone a bit I am Legend until other people turn up.

Attempt to locate several books, with a success rate of approximately 60%.

9:30
Leave library for first lecture. Cram into 'intimate setting' of the lecture room. Resist urge to sit in the centre of the front row like several other mature students who are present. Begin to wonder if this is any indication that I am a bad person.

11:30
Lecture finishes.

11:45
Lunch.

12:30
Return to library or, if needed, computer room. Continue studying until eyes cannot focus.

12:45 just kidding 14:00
Attempt to locate academic advisor's office.

14:20
Locate advisor's office. Attempt to locate any indication of advisor's office hours.

14:30
Find sheet advising of office hours in a (possibly deliberately) obscure location.
Discover advisor's office hours are two hours on a Monday, or, as we prefer to think of it, the only day there are currently no lectures, and thus, no reason to attend on campus.

Decide advisor is a Machiavellian schemer, or simply doesn't like undergraduates*.

15:30
Begin journey home.

16:30
Arrive at destination.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*This may actually have more truth to it than the faculty would like to admit. Consider that in our orientation and in our first lecture we were cheerfully informed that one in ten of us are statistically likely to undergo some trial, hardship, illness or other problem that forces us to drop out after the first year. On this course, that means approximately 20-25 students are statistically likely to just disappear in around eight months time.

This means over a faculty of twelve advisors that each will have at least two students who may not come back. And, like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, you can't tell which ones it'll be. So you can go to all the effort of, oh, say, learning their names, or you can wait and see who makes the grade and who doesn't and work from there.

Of course, this is a highly cynical and totally untrue observation of the situation. I've already expressed my opinions on the very concept of Office Hours, so there's no point revisiting it.

But look at it this way; even if I were a young person, and lived on campus, the likelihood that I would go in just to see my advisor on a day when nothing else was going on is kind of slim. When you factor in a two-and-a-half hour round trip just for a ten-minute meeting, then, well, no. Probably not going to happen.

This means that, at least until next semester, it's incredibly unlikely that I'll even meet my advisor, as she doesn't teach any of the first semester classes and I won't be in during her office hours.

If all of this sounds like I have a serious down on the joyful academic process, please reconsider, because I don't. I just can't. I'm incredibly lucky; I get to go back to university to retrain in a field I love and so far, it's working out really well. The youth of today tolerate me, and, in some cases, may even like me (although this is yet to be scientifically verified). The lecture program is great, the studies are too. I study what I study, I love my classes, I've possibly even got a crazy teacher who wear's dark glasses, things are getting great, and... They're only getting better.

Just don't expect your average mature student to unquestioningly accept academic protocols, that's all...

Melody pure and sweet, singing

It was the best of plans, it was the worst of plans. But in the end, we gave our writer an expense account.

A tiny expense account.

Even so, to weeks later, we're getting odd things in the post.

Here at Eton Crow, we're currently working on a project, which is always nice. It began, quite simply, as two people sitting down and drinking themselves blind while reminiscing about their past, and all the good and interesting and boring and banal things that have happened.

Around the beginning of the second draft, suddnely, ghosts were involved. This was more, in fact, due to our editor discovering that the 'ghost' effect is - if the subject is standing perfectly still - remarkably easy, in theory, to do.

Instead, we kicked the script back to our writer, who now assures us he can cut down on the number of people involved and retain the quality and prestige we're famous for...

"... You don't need to be here anymore."

Our Director Writes:

Diary of a Mature Student, Part -0.5

Still, technically, not a typo. This is, apparently, 'Week Zero', which is a polite way of saying get your fucking act in gear, lectures start next week and it's not up to us to sort you out, young person. Or, in my case, mature young person.

Words have difficulty describing how strange it is being surrounded by people born in the 1990s; it's the first time I've honestly felt generational, in that I'm able to define my generation against the current generation in a way I was never able to with the previous generation. Plus, none of them get my topical references, which, as Jamie Madrox notes, is kinda hellish.

I got all retrospective last week and decided to email two of my previous lecturers who fostered my current subject interest, and was extremely gratified to get a response from both wishing me well and noting how good it was that someone remembered their teachers from a while ago. I don't really know where the impulse came from; if I had to guess, I'd say that I needed to reconnect with my previous academic life before I embark on the new one, with a touch of retroactive continuity. Because if there's one thing I have, that the present crop of students don't have so much of, it's a past...

At least the enrolment procedure is just as much fun as it always was. Timetabling choices are extremely odd - at least, to me, coming from a background of organising things. For instance, on one day, all the students are told to be in one place at one time only to be told 'this talk lasts for an hour, after which you can piss off for two hours before the next thing happens.' This didn't make that much sense, at least, not only to me but to others; why not summon us an hour and a half later and not have us milling around for two hours? On another day, one meeting was held in the morning and students were then encouraged to meet their advisor in the afternoon, with no explanation as to what to do in the three hour gap in-between.

It all reeks of power games, oddly, on the part of the faculty. Not to blot my copybook before I've even started, but if I'd summoned my student body for a 9am meeting, I'd arrange my office hours - just for that day, mind, not for much more - to begin approximately half-an-hour after the meeting finished while the students were still (A) there and (B) had an attention span.

Making your student body wait for several hours because you're being inflexible - for whatever reason, but come on, it's week zero; what exactly are you doing if your second-and-third year students aren't even around and your freshers don't get any work set for another seven days? Why not just pretend for three days that the students - homogenous body of young people as they are - actually matter, instead of making them wait because you can?

Don't misunderstand me; if the faculty have lots to do, with many meetings to attend, forms to fill in, paperwork to read and people to meet, then timetabling is a necessary evil. This is more a mature student problem than anything else, of course, because freshers tend to live on or near campus and can head home for a beer and a session on Xbox live, as I understand the young people of today call it. But if your journey home is more of a commute, and there's nothing else to do on campus, that three hour wait suddenly becomes that much more depressing.

I mean, what are you supposed to do? Study?

But it's made in a Hollywood basement...

Our Director Writes:

Diary of a Mature Student, Part -1

And no, that's not technically a typo.

Here at Eton Crow, we all have Day Jobs. This is largely for the comedy potential of allowing people to advise us not to give them up when they've seen one of our films, but also because, well, cashy money.

That was the case for me, up until around seven months ago. My employer decided that, economically speaking, empty offices are cheaper to maintain than staffed ones, even if they're tied into a lease that lasts another two to three years and, because of the economic climate, no-one can afford to rent the empty office. This is, strictly speaking, true; they're now only paying for the lease rather than for the electricity, utilities and salary costs of employing everyone. Which is, yes, nice.

Now I'm lucky, because I have a parental unit who has always encouraged me to go to Film School. Of course, it felt a lot like it was in the 'You should totally do that! I don't expect you to actually do it, but you should!" Sort of a way, so there was actual shock when it came up as a realistic option, which is always fun for the first thirty seconds.

Fortunately, because my employer gave me approximately eight months notice that I was about to become a shiftless, unemployed bum, I was able to negotiate the... interesting... UCAS system in good time, so as the slowly soul-destroying wait ground down my will to live over those eight months, I could bear in mind that some universities wanted me to pay them lots of money in return for an education.

Mature students are different, basically. There are two flavours; the first didn't have the chance - for whatever reason - to go when they were younger, and the second flavour are the ones who want to go back to the academic lifestyle and, plus points, hang out with 'young people'.

But it's a fine line between recognising that a sector of your student population may have different issues to the majority and, alternatively, stigmatizing them. It's possible that stigmatizing is too strong a word, but mature students are treated differently; in your average university handbook, they have their own subsection in the section dealing with students with dyslexia or students with disabilities.

Dyslexia and Disabilities are genuine problems that deserve special attention regarding their needs.

Being old is not.

I'm a mature student of the second flavour. I've had one go-around on the degree ferris wheel, and I enjoyed approximately 25% of the experience, with the remaining 75% being made up of arrogant lecturers, resits, money worries, heartache and pixie-dust. But I've worked in a remarkably boring but vital field for the past six years, and now, when the opportunity presented itself to retrain in a field I genuinely have a passion for, I've taken it.

I'm not alone, either.

With the economy in the state it apparently is, lots of people - in the 'oh, fuck, I'm redundant' frame of mind - are going back to university in the increasingly vain hope that in three years' time there will be shining magical jobs in the land of ambrosia rather than now, where there aren't.

I'd like to be one of the first people to acknowledge how this could be unfair on 'young people'. I don't know if there are actually quotas for the amount of mature students a university can take on, but given that approximately 40,000 school leavers this year can't get a place, you have to wonder how this works out, with the older and technically wiser prospective students muscling in on a young person's game.

But, well, fuck it. What can I do? What are older people supposed to do instead of going back to the warm, pink fuzzy world of academia instead of the harsh reality of jobcentreplus?

And, trust me, it is a harsh reality.

So anyway; I decided to go and have a look around the campus that will be a home of sorts for at least the next three years this week.

I'd forgotten, it turns out, what a university in a coma looks like.

This will come as no surprise, but a university outside of term-time is pretty much empty. On my first go-around, I tended to stay near campus during the summer holidays rather than move home, so I saw what a campus in the summer holidays can look like. But my previous alma mater spent it's summers gently teasing the cash out of the pockets of summer school students and foreign students, and it had a healthy research community, so there were people around a lot of the time.

The campus of my new place, by contrast, was kind of a ghost town at the start of this week. Oh, sure, people were crewing the shops here and there and two or three students were wandering around looking purposeful. But the building for my subject was deserted to the point where I could wander round checking out the rooms, etc, and it was kind of eerie.

The main campus had slightly more people traffic, but the only truly living places were the cafeteria area - two or three tables occupied - and the book shop, which was gearing up for next week (week zero, hence the title above) with a fervent gleam in the eyes of the staff akin to a band of soldiers preparing for a siege movie.

Into all this, the mature student strides, outwardly confident - 'I've done this degree lark before!' - but inwardly shitting bricks in case anything's changed or the youth group of today refuse to accept them into the pack, instead ostracising them from the campfire at the centre and dooming them to a life of ill-accepted presence. Not that likely, but still; my only real worry comes from being perceived as The Spectre At The Feast, because of the way degrees are sold to young people; 'study for an extra three years and employers will beat down your door, wrestle with each other for the privilege of employing you and stuff your pockets with wads of cash until you can't carry anymore', which is, of course, so much bullshit. But then I'll be there, almost saying; 'Well, kids, if you pass your degree, you can get an entry level job that has no prospects of a raise, promotion or change, then, when you finally get fired, you can go back and do this all again.' Then again... Maybe my case is kind of unique. I would really hope so.

It's going to be interesting being a student again. I hope to keep this updated in the manner of 'Dispatches from the younger side'. We'll have to see...

Holding on to the cracks in our foundations

The Eton Crow blog is now - we think - on Stumbleupon.

This may literally double our readers - given that we only have one confirmed reader at the time of going to press, we kind of hope we might get a few others.

The Demo Reel - twenty-seven minutes of joy that we love but that probably makes no sense to anyone who hasn't:

(A) Got the love for samurai films

(B) Got the tolerance to sit through three minutes of badly pastiched samurai film action

(C) Likes efforts at Craxploitation and can put up with Benny Hill references

(D) Got the love for Disco and a man constantly adjusting his fake mustache on camera

(E) Got any love for a mockumentary about a film that, to all intents and purposes, doesn't exist

(F) Played Final Fantasy (FFX, specifically)

(G) Seen this

(H) Got any love in their soul for a first attempt at filmmaking, bad lighting, odd sound choices, ninjas and all.

It's kind of difficult right now, because there's a kind of tense euphoria at having finished the damn thing, coupled with a feeling of let-down because we've finished the damn thing.

Basically, we here at Eton Crow like to be working. When the work's done, we feel kind of redundant. Plus, there's a constancy of feeling that if we went back, ripped the whole thing apart and put it together again, that it could somehow be better. So we have to actually restrain our editor from doing this, because if he did, we'd never see him again.

Looking in the tape chest, we actually have something like thirty hours of tapes and footage. If we let our editor loose, he could probably make a full-length film from what we've got on tape.

Of course, it would make no sense whatsoever. But when has that ever been a problem?

So, the demo reel is finished. It's kind of old school - basically because we can't afford the new school - the DVD case is just Text On A Background, and the dvd is, naturally, a DVDR. We've sent out seven and given out a further two, but so far, only one person has actually admitted to having received it, which is a little troubling.

Well, such, as our director says, is life.

We'll fast forward to a few years later

Our director writes:

There's a question anyone in any particular field dreads. Kind of. It's the equivalent of, having been cornered into admitting that you speak a language, being asked to 'say something in (X)'.

And suddenly, all the words disappear from your brain and you're left stumbling for my wife's pear is not yet ripe.

As soon as I admit that I'm a wannabe filmmaker (unless you take the advice of Robert Rodriguez, in which case, I AM A FILMMAKER! - except, kind of and kind of not) - there's the inevitable question;

What's your favourite film, then?

And there's the sudden mental blank, right there, right then.

Except that, it turns out, it's a question of confidence. There are approximately three stages of evolution in this conversational gambit;

Stage One

Go completely mentally blank and either choose something banal or embarrassing; you may be shocked to know you had a hitherto unknown love for Josie and the Pussycats, to your eternal chagrin. You will probably then be reminded of this every time you meet that person and/or anyone else they've met, at which point you'll have to grin and bear it instead of, for a purely hypothetical instance, emigrating to Khartoum to start up a hermitage.

Stage Two

Confidence begins to grow, but so does the need to impress; so suddenly you find yourself picking something wilfully obscure in the desperate hope that the other person doesn't know it and will drop to their knees, the light of salvation in their eyes, and proclaim you the most knowledgeable film buff ever.

This can include foreign films - if you're stuck for a lazy analogy, there's always Nanni Moretti, because you can then immediately start an argument about him being "The Italian Woody Allen" and you can argue whatever side you want because no-one will care. If you want something incredibly obscure - to a British audience, at least - there's always Утомлённые солнцем, which is actually a good film with a tense, taught structure and a prominent third-act reveal before a gut-punch of an ending.

Alternatively, just choose Day Watch and pray the other person hasn't read Sergey Lukyanenko's work and isn't looking for a semantic argument about whether the second film should have adapted the first book's second section or the second book's first.

Stage Three

This can only happen when confidence has been attained and you can actually state with pride that you have a favourite film, as opposed to some sort of faithless love for all film.

After years of wandering the Favourite Film desert, I actually realised that it doesn't matter as long as you can justify your love. I've been through several. The first one I actually felt comfortable justifying was this; but then, kind of a given.

Then, for a while, there was this, which was kind of cool at the time.

Then, I realised, you have to stop giving a fuck about what other people think and, most importantly, stop trying to look cool. Nobody really cares, unless you admit to liking a film that's so offensive that you may as well have walked into the room naked with a chicken on your head to cause less offence.

I currently have two favourite films. That's just how I roll. The first would be this: In Bruges. It's not perfect, but it's kind of close, and I have a whole hash of personal reasons for liking it beyond the fact that it's clever and funny and features a cocaine-snorting racist demi-mondain.

But the real favourite - deep down, all the way - is this.

And because it's the real deal, I don't have to justify it.

That's confidence, baby.

Will you do the fandango?

One point of interest that came to our attention recently is that for a small company, we've filmed in a lot of places.

This is kind of unusual, because starting-out filmmakers tend to find somewhere pretty and nearby and work with it as much as they can until they know all it's nooks and crannies intimately.

Not us.

Looking at our Demo Reel today, we realised that it was filmed on location in:

- Plymouth

- Tring

- Berkhamsted

- Northwood Hills

- Golders Green

- Letchworth

- Wiggington

- Some unnamed place in bloody Wiltshire

- Kerry (Ireland)

- Dagenham

- Bow (London)

and Aylesbury.

Four of these locations were chosen because we were following the talent, baby. Our 'Star' - mentioned in a previous post as possibly being the only person to read this, so hello again, Fuckface! - moved around a lot, and so Eton Crow moved with him.

So, if nothing else, we've managed to get in some travel...

Very Superstitious

If you described our director as a paranoid man - and he found out - he'd shrug his shoulders and admit that he'd always thought you thought that. He's paranoid like that.

Actually, in this case, it's not so much paranoia as a bizarre form of over-awareness; he's almost empathic in worrying constantly about anyone else involved with any given project, because while he's doing it out of love, they're doing it as a favour to him.

That's right, Eton Crow haven't yet reached the stage of paying our actors (in anything other than [a] the coin of the soul and [b] a dvd as a reward for any given performance). This isn't related to the concept of economics sullying creative freedom, it's because we have no money.

Working with our friends, of course, is an entirely different and much more difficult animal. A paid actor can tell you to go fuck yourself, and leave, and then be brought up on whatever contract they signed for breaching it (unless you'd been treating them unreasonably, of course).

A Friend, doing it out of friendship, will, when they reach their breaking point, tell you to go fuck yourself in - hopefully - a very polite manner, and then they can leave as and when they want, because there's no tie other than loyalty - and when you've been under the sun for four hours with someone alternately bossing you around and asking you to wait for camera setups, loyalty gets progressively thinner and thinner.

A good director works around this, by providing food, support and encouragement (in that order of importance - free food has been scientifically proven to be the most important thing on any given set, sometimes.) But even the most willing friend finds themselves tested by sunstroke, long hours, and generalised irritation.

It's our director's contention that it cuts both ways, too. It's along the same principles as to why a person borrows money from a bank rather than from their friends; being beholden to an institution is different to being beholden to a person whose friendship and respect you actually desire (and, in some cases, need).

But, perhaps, enough of this maudlin talk.

Intermission!



You want to know why we're feeling a bit maudlin at the moment?

Eton Crow has suffered it's first 'dead film'.

Having successfully completed our 2009 Demo Reel, we here at the EC offices were feeling a bit brash - one might even say, 'cocky' - and decided to try to make an honest-to-deity proper 'short film'. And oh, it might have been epic in scale - sex (implied), violence, buddy comedy.

We worked on the script for several weeks. Note, this implies two 'firsts' on our part - one, actually having a script, and two, working on it rather than just running with the first draft.

We did some preliminary filming - just the previously-mentioned conversation, plus some driving footage and a couple of dream sequences.

But now, looking at the requirements of the script and the fact that the first round of filming has apparently already broken one of our actors, we've had to decide to put it on the also aforementioned indefinite hiatus, with the emphasis on indefinite, because to make it work we have to go back, gut the script, rewrite, and find enough people to actually film the goddamn thing, and, right now, that's not going to happen.

Of course, such is life.

On the bright side, the 2009 demo reel - filmed in May - is finally and properly finished, and is being burnt to DVDs to be sent to various people even as we speak, so that's halfway to good news.

Plus, we do have other good news, but we're saving that for later.

As blind as any traveller you could meet

There's a piece of advice that almost every short film book or website gives you.

Don't film a dream sequence.

So here in the Eton Crow offices, we took this seriously.

For our latest short film, we didn't film a dream sequence.

We filmed two.

This isn't bloodymindedness... Wait. It's not just bloodymindedness. Yes, there's a certain element of stubborn here. But we decided to go ahead and film the sequences because they look good and because they're not pretentious - there's an actual point to their existing.

They're not the stereotypical, clown-flipping-pancakes, girl-in-dress-contemplating-candle surreal bullshit dream sequences that directors use to get all the visual cues they want to on screen.

They're just a man, dreaming of a beach. No clowns. No pancakes.

We promise.

Hank Williams hasn't answered yet

Creative differences are a wonderful thing.

Our director loves driving footage. He believes in it's usefulness as a bridging segment, allowing for enhanced suspension of disbelief instead of characters magically zapping from place to place. It's cheap to do, and it can be very pretty depending on where it's filmed.

Our editor hates driving footage. Sure, it might look pretty and be cheap, but it's incredibly irritating to edit - or, more accurately, to make it look even remotely interesting, unless you're Nanni Moretti or Jim Jarmusch. Sure, driving down a 1/10 gradient country road in the middle of a very pretty forest is lovely - but it's not that interesting unless you do all sorts of things to it.

While we have a mantra, we here at Eton Crow also have a few things we believe in - mostly, truth, justice and the American wei, but also in trying to make things look good while using the limited equipment we have.

This means some judicious colour shifting, slowdown, useful transitions - but mostly, in the case of driving footage, speeding everything up to make it look that more interesting. Yes, linking sections are wonderful, but you have to keep feeding the viewer that sugar, baby, or they'll get bored.

Anyway, let's take a moment out to celebrate the fact that at least one person is now reading our blog - our main 'actor' has let us know that he's keeping track of what we post here, which is sweet, really. So not only can we not say anything offensive about him, we should also say hi -

- Hi, fuckface!

- and then get on with things as normal.

We, all of us, have our Demons

Let's talk about two of the most difficult words in the filmmaker's lexicon.

Indefinite Hiatus.

Here at Eton Crow, we do actually have our own mantra. Well, kind of. It's not like it's copywrited or anything, and it's not particualrly profound, unless you're, I don't know, stoned.

But it's a simple mantra, and it runs like this:

Real Life comes first.

It's kind of simple, really.

We don't have a budget. Nor do we have professional actors or crew or decent equipment. But we do have a lot of enthusiasm, in a kind of what kind of lame power is enthusiasm way.

The funny thing is, enthusiasm can get you a long way. Not all the way, and certainly not alone, but a fair amount, anyway.

But when real life comes first, enthusiasm is only so much use.

Put it this way. If you consider that money won is twice as sweet as money earned, then it follows that arranging a time when everybody's available and having it all work out is much more sweet than bullying everyone into fitting your arrangements. Our director maintains it's also a good way to give yourself a coronary incident, but we don't listen to him all that much.

When everyone's where you want them to be because they want to be there, that's the sweet spot, right there, baby.

Our mantra is kind of a home truth of no-budget filmmaking, because all we have here is our creativity and some not-very-good cameras, and a lot of heart.

Maybe one day we'll get some better cameras.

The 'Dennis Norden' School of Editing

For all you young folk out there, this is Denis Norden, who presented a series of bloopers shows on ITV.

As we said in our previous post, the Eton Crow editor is a law unto himself. This is not an exaggeration. Having handed over what one of our stars termed our 'acres of footage' on Sunday night, hehas spent the last week putting together a usable cut of a four and a half minute conversation.

The key word here is 'usable'. As we previously said, we here at Eton Crow are not professionals. If it's just as much of a shock now as it was then, seek therapy.

But, as we say, if you're planning to make a film, keep the word 'usable' in mind at all times. Of the total three hours of footage, approximately a third of this was usable. The rest was not, because of a variety of reasons, but primarily the following two;

(I) Outtakes - the finished conversation is four-and-a-half minutes long, while the finished outtake reel is only thirty seconds shorter. In these four minutes you can experience bongo drumming, random comedy quotations, occasional flatulence, strange sounds from off-set and general larking about.

(II) Framing. We love our actors here at EC, but even they will admit that while they have flashes of genius and talent, they are also not professionals. And so, at least half an hour was spent on the day finding imaginative places to hide the script so that it was in view of the actors but out of view of the camera.

This was a partial success.

Our director was also experimenting with multiple running cameras on the day - which is partially why we had enough usable footage - and this was a qualified win. Qualified, because, from some angles, the script hiding process was not so much successful as crashingly obvious.

This is why our editor has been locked up for the last week, intermittently watching Peter Gabriel videos (although, oddly, not the one you might expect.

One conversation, four and a half minutes (including a minute-long sight gag), four days of editing. Welcome to our world! Our director now has The Fear about shooting the fight sequences to come...

On the value of serendipity

It's probably a good time to make a fairly candid admission; we here at Eton Crow are not professional filmmakers.

It's a shock, I know. Trained operators are standing by on the helpline to help you cope with this sudden revelation.

But we really love what we do. This must be true, because people who didn't love it wouldn't volunteer to dress up as ninjas, samurai, toxic journalists, mariachi, seventies disco proprietors or heavy metal enthusiasts without feeling some love.

Here's the thing, though; it wouldn't work without one thing. The necessary soundtrack. Without the proper sounds, our short films - such as they are - would just be the sound and fury of foolish but enthusiastic people, signifying nothing.

And this is why we'd like to talk about serendipity. Our director was, and is, a member of Barbelith. Whatever the current status of that forum - with a lot of respect, it's kind of glacial at the moment - a while ago, it was a fairly amazing place to be. He's really hesitant to talk about it in terms of 'in it's prime', but our director does get a little misty-eyed and nostalgic about Barbelith circa 2004 - 2007.

The big thing about the (B), we're assured, was the people who hung around there. One of whom, Eton Crow is proud to work with, and whom we should have talked about before.

It's a little humbling, because we should have talked about him before, given that he's scored three of our trailers, one of our short films, and is currently scoring another. But it was the music we heard tonight that made us realise that we'd been neglecting our duties, because of it's sheerly amazing nature. It was the kind of soundtrack that re-affirms your faith in filmmaking, and, no, this is not hyperbole, nor is it praise for praises' sake.

Who is this person, you ask?

Why, we could tell you. But instead, we're going to ask you to visit his music sites at http://grantimatter.com/ and http://guildofscientifictroubadours.com, and, if you find them interesting, then move on to http://www.flyingfists.org.

This is a plug overdue by a long, long time, for which we hope Mr G can forgive us. But, enjoy!

Not with a bang but with a box of cheese sticks

And so, it is with some happiness that we can announce that we've started filming the second Eton Crow filming project, and our first 'proper' short film - with a script and a plot and everything! - in the hope that we'll have it all done by the end of August.

However, this has, for us, illuminated a curious insight into one of the more curious aspects of filmmaking; sometimes, the least complicated section of a script will take the most time to film.

For instance; when we originally filmed the demo reel, we managed to film three ninjas assaulting a man who's saved by a mariachi in approximately three hours, even managing to include a Seventh Seal reference. We even managed to film a jidaigeki - or, more accurately, Chambara - trailer, sword-fights, love interests, flashbacks and all, within four hours.

Yesterday, filming a conversation lasting approximately three minutes took up approximately four hours. A conversation between two men, sat down, without anything else happening other than them talking.

It's mostly down to our director's mildly OCD nature when it comes to filming - the actual conversation was repeated four times, and there was a lot of time built in for corpsing and other such issues that come up on occasion. (It turns out that if you want to keep your actors serious, showing them this before shooting had begun was not necessarily the smartest of ideas. You live, you learn.)

So now, the actors have been given the rest of the week to recuperate while our editor - who is a law unto himself - tries to piece together a single conversation of approximately two to three minutes out of an hour and a half's footage.

Happy days!

And yet, you can't plan for everything.

Hopefully, we'll be doing some more filming on Sunday.

I say hopefully, because of the following factors;

(I) The 'Leading Actor' - such as he is - will probably still be drunk from the night before. This is not a slight upon his character, or an indication of dipsomania; it's just very likely.

(II) The 'Supporting Actor' may either have to drop out, or may suffer some sort of stress-related cardimyopathy on set, because of outside factors.

(III) The 'Director' - again, such as he is - will be trying to corral everyone into a location that we may only have for a very short period of time, without (I) throwing up somewhere. Again.

Don't get us started on the lighting, the sound issues, or the organising of the beautiful extras, because once started, it may never stop, and we're sure you all have buses or trains to catch.

Here's the thing - as was laid out to (II), earlier. Filming is something our director finds very important, but he has a valid perspective on it; film is a personal thing for him, but 'personal isn't the same as important'. Put simply, if it all went vertical tomorrow, and nobody could make it to the filming date because of personal issues, then we walk and replan, reschedule and redo.

The funny thing, of course, is that being drunk - or hungover - will actually be perfectly in character for (I) on the day, and that's some lateral symmetry you don't see every day...

It's boring, it's boring, it might put you to sleep

I love the fact that Eton Crow has developed three followers on Twitter even though we haven't posted anything yet.

Well, that's not quite true. We've posted exactly one tweet, just prior to our last filming date. I can only assume that we're piquing people's curiousity precisely by not posting anything; it's like anti-publicity, and we're driving people wild by not telling them anything.

Such is, as they say, life.

Anyway, yes, we're still here, and still here too, if you still get off on being recursive. Yes, the website really, really sucks at the moment, but that's because although we're many things, we're not website editors. This too shall pass.

Anyway, a recommendation for you today;

First Love, by Emmy the Great, just because of the lyrical work. See what you think.

You were just like a verse that I didn't want to learn

I feel I've learnt some important lessons over the last few weeks.

(I)

- If you're at a training session, and the trainer is bald and camp, and then offers you three post-it notes to express your feelings on - one word per note - then the following options are not necessarily viable;

"Right", "Said" and "Fred"
"I'm", "Too" and "Sexy"
And even, at a stretch, "Richard", "Fair" and "Brass".

(II)

- Just because the anti-Swine Flu posters in the loos at work state that "The Power is in your Hands", I cannot refer to my penis as "The Power" in mixed conversation.

(III)

- While your mileage may vary on Baz Luhrmann, Sunscreen really is the answer.

From a parallel universe police cell somewhere

So you've got the people.

And you've got the locations.

And you've got the props, the craft services, the transport and the equipment.

And, granted, five and a half of the above things fit in one car.

What else could go wrong?

One thing to remember that's served me well; always notify the local police before doing anything that could be construed as 'suspicious'.

So it was that I rang the local constabulary and established where we were, how long we'd be there, and that we had permission to be there in the first place. Because, well, as previous posts will attest, ninjas. We received some exceedingly curious looks from the occasional passer-by, but not much more than that; one pair came back to have a second look at one point, because, well, ninjas, but I'm not writing this having been bailed on charges of tresspass and causing a public disturbance, so something must have gone okay.

At one point, a gentleman rich in years walking his dog wandered through one of our setups.

"I'm not getting in the way of anything, am I, lads?"

"No, no, you're alright."

A moment later and he had wandered off, without ever wondering why a man in a feather boa and army greatcoat was standing round the corner of one of the buildings.

Anyway; just so you know, Eton Crow has a website. Granted, all there is there is a link to here, so things may get recursive for a little while, but still, it's a start.

A revelation of sorts

Anyway, the point of all these recent posts has been to provide a sort of in media res introduction to Eton Crow as it is. I mean, we thought about just writing a Hi, We're Eton Crow and this is what we do! kind of an introduction, but then someone reminded us how important foreplay is, and so, a week on, here we are.

So, hello! My name is Lewis, and I'm the blogger for Eton Crow. It'I mean, as jobs go, it's pretty thankless, but then so many jobs are. If you're reading this - and if you're not, we're into Shrodinger's Reader territory, so beware of waveform collapses - then welcome.

There's not much point in being anything other than frank. We here at Eton Crow make films; short films and trailers at the moment because, well, we haven't got any money. Continuing on the theme of frankness, our films at the moment are probably not going to win any awards. So it's fortunate, really, that we don't actually care so much about recognition because, well, it's pretty unlikely we'll ever really get any, so... Why worry?

You probably won't believe what I'm about to say - even I have some trouble believing it myself - but it turns out there are other reasons to make films than money, power, success, respect, the adoration of people of your gender of choice... Sorry, where was I? I kind of drifted off there. Anyway, it turns out, another reason for making films - or at least making an attempt at making films - is because it's actually something you enjoy doing.

Take our first excursion into the shallow end of the swimming pool of film. As my previous posts will attest, I didn't actually think I'd get away with half the stuff that took place last weekend. Instead, I expected a mass walkout, or to be tarred and feathered, or otherwise beaten around the head with a wooden bokken for what I was asking people to do. Instead, they all seemed to enjoy the day, and while I'm prepared to believe that everyone there last Saturday could be a particularly eloquent and gifted liar, it is in theory true that they're not, and they actually did enjoy the day. I find it much easier to believe the former theory, paranoiac as it may be.

Put it this way. You're someone's friend. They call you up and ask for a favour, which can be outlined as follows.

"Hi, I'm trying to produce a film. How do you fancy spending a whole day in full sunlight - without sun cream, because the director refused to believe the weather would be good? You can spend the first four hours trying not to cripple someone else with a wooden sword and being chivvied around various places, then, after a break for lunch, you can dress as a ninja in a public place and then be chased around by a man in a 1950s army greatcoat replete with feather boa.

How does pickup at 8:00am sound?"

Based on this, I was expecting to be laughed at, beaten with sticks and cast out into the wilderness. And yet, instead, everyone turned up (!) on time and went through the whole day with the minimum of complaints.

Oh, sure, the footage we're editing together at the moment won't win any awards. But, dammit, we had a lot of fun making it, and, curiously right now, that seems to matter more than anything else...

Talk is not necessarily cheap

This weekend has yielded some interesting conversations, too.

*

I'll get four pairs of the long socks, please - the 4 for £10?

Certainly. What do you need them for?

Oh, you wouldn't believe me if I told you.

Go on, try me.

Um... Okay. Ninjas.

*pause*

Oh, ninjas, is it? Well, I've got some tutus round the back if that'd help.


*

I still haven't worked out how exactly tutus relate to ninjas. I'm kind of assuming it's a 'oh, you're taking the mickey, I can do that too' sort of a conversation. But, curiously, I wasn't taking the mickey.

See, there were some problems. I needed ninjas - ask yourself, who doesn't at some stage in their life? - and, as I've mentioned before, a fairly integral part of the ninja ethos is the face mask. However, 'ninja mask' tends not to bring up many results on the online auction sites, unless I'm missing something.

Anyway. As is the way, a tip for anyone planning anything involving ninjas; I'm sure I've mentioned this several times, but if you buy anything ninja-related on a popular auction site, then always check to see if there's a size specification first, otherwise, hilarity ensues.

It is the way of things

Apparently, there's an important lesson to be learnt.

If you spend all your time planning for everything - every, single, thing you can think of - to go wrong, then you will be truly confounded by the idea that everything can conceivably go right.

If you read the previous entries, there's a fairly obvious negative streak running through things; a pessimistic chocolate streak mixed into the ice-cream of cautious optimism. It's very, very easy to be pessimistic because it's very easy to believe that whatever can go wrong, will go wrong, and will do so bone-crunchingly hard.

I have to, however, accord praise wherein praise is due, because I was proved wrong; every person involved could not have been more helpful and amazingly willing to put up with the depradations and strange requests made of them. It's tempting to go back and retroactively edit the post containing my concerns about them, but I'd rather leave it as it stands and apologise about it here.

So, to the people who I had unwarranted concerns about, sorry; bear in mind that my cynicism was founded in the belief that finding six people willing to give up a day and travel to a small town to be ordered around by someone with only the bare bones of an idea and a lot of enthusiasm to flesh them out.

Elements of personal interaction

Of course, a film is nothing without it's actors.

Unless you're Philip Glass, of course.

You can claim that Koyaanisquatsi is visual art, or a revolutionary juxtaposition of images and sound, but, at the heart of it, I choose to believe that Glass was simply sensible enough to realise that working with actors was a very simple way to make a very complicated process even more so.

In fact, the process of working with actors appears to get conversely simpler and simpler the higher-up you go - because when you're dealing with a Star, who commands millions of dollars and their own trailer, you're not always dealing with them; you're dealing with their agents, and your assistants are dealing with their assistants, etc, etc, because once you're up in the stratosphere you don't necessarily have to actually do all that much. Just, oh, make the most important decisions on a day to day basis.

When the people you're working with have day jobs, and reservations about being dressed as giant pimps in the middle of a quiet suburban town, and curious things called - I believe - 'morals', then life becomes that much more difficult.

A star will do something because, at the end of the day, they're being paid to do it. Artistic integrity is one thing, but when you do something for a decent paycheque, your motivation is that much less grey.

A friend will do something out of one of several motive forces. One, they're doing it because they genuinely want to - which branches out into subsets of motives, because why oh why would they actually want to do whatever it is you're asking of them? Two, they're doing it as a favour, or because they owe you a favour, or some essential mechanism of exchange is involved somewhere.

Or, three, you're bribing them. Money, power, sexual favours, whatever; people experience a curious form of cognitive dissonance when it comes to helping out with filmmaking.

Much less likely, but fun when it happens, is that they actually like the idea of being on film and enjoy the concept of helping a wannabe director out. Which is sweet, but a little disturbing.

Let's put it this way. I have four - maybe five - people who are willing to help me.

The first is a mixture of one and two; they are travelling a long way to help me, but they're doing so because there's a complicated mixture of favour and counter-favour between us. There was an attempt to include elements of three in the transaction, but this has - hopefully - petered out. Secretly, person one also has elements of four, but hides them from the world at large.

Person two is coming because of a genuine belief in number four, and this scares me a little bit - they're expecting the process to be fun. Oh how I wish this was the case. Maybe it will be, and I'll be pleasantly surprised. But person two is, curiously, a genuinely good person who wants to help out. Which is also scary.

Person three is, I believe, genuinely curious about the whole thing. Other than healthy curiousity, their motives are also relatively altruistic.

And person four is doing it because I'm doing something for them in return. I'm not sure who gets the better deal, but needs must, I suspect.

Person five is ephemeral, and may not even turn up. Which is a relief, because otherwise I'd be worried that I had a perfect cast who'll all turn up on the day on time bright and shiny as a button, ready to help out. And this could not happen, because the universe wouldn't let it.

In case you're wondering what all this is in aid of, I confess; I'm nervous as hell. I have people travelling out to help me with something that is, in all likelihood, not going to ever be as sexy as I would like it to be, and they're all seemingly so helpful that I feel humbled by their very willingness.

Still, at this time in two days, it'll all be over, I feel.

Of course, it's never that easy.

I am a short filmmaker in the same way that a teenager with a band poster and a cheap electric guitar is a musician, to be honest. Given enough practice, and the right opportunities, that teenager might eventually crank out a passable version of Smells Like Teen Spirit's opening chords.

Given the chance that everything might actually work, I have a chance of putting together a half-decent short film.

Unfortunately, today, two days before filming is due to start, things have already determinedly decided not to go to plan. Which is, curiously, exactly how I thought they would.

When you plan for things not to go to plan, should you be surprised when they don't?

Don't answer that.

Anyway, this is just preamble, because, like I say, there are two days to go before anything resembling filming takes place.

It's just a shame about the balaclavas, really.

At the end of the day, you get what you pay for. When you can't afford to pay very much, what you get isn't necessarily going to be of particularly high quality. Of course, a balaclava for £1.43 is a tempting prospect when you have ninjas on the shooting schedule.

However, nowhere on the listing did anybody mention that size of the balaclava in question. So when I received them today, and discovered that they are, in fact, designed for an 8-year old motorcycle enthusiast, it was a small shock.

But aspiring to be a short filmmaker means rolling with the punches, so when the three - hopefully - people - hopefully again - turn up on Saturday, I hope to have something that will make them look vaguely ninja-like. Because, if not, things stand a chance of getting vaguely surreal.

This is before we even get into the semantics of ordering something 'In Stock' pre-9am on a Tuesday morning and then getting an email stating it will, most hopefully, be dispatched three days later.

Pleasant surprises, however, include the bokken - including a warning stating that misuse can lead to injury or even death, but then, as a giant wooden sword, it's kind of an occupational hazard - and the feather boa, which was suitably feathery and boa-y.

Pimps, mariachis and ninjas with curious headgear; welcome to my world.

Ways to get noticed

If you ever want to get people interested in you, there's a simple way to go about it. Become a short film-maker. Trust me, there's no way any conversation with an authority figure over my recent spate of prop-shopping could ever go well. For instance:

AF: Mr Crow, if you have a minute, we'd like to discuss some of your recent online purchases.

EC: Okay, sure, go ahead!

Authority figure (AF): Thank you. Okay, firstly, can you explain the need for three balaclavas and three pairs of black gloves?

EC: Sure. They're for the ninjas.

AF: [makes notes] Thank you. And the wooden swords?

EC: Yes, they're for the samurai, as was that ugly-ass ring and the sakura pendant.

AF: Thank you. And the five gold teeth and two feather boas?

EC: Certainly, they're for the pimp.

AF: And the flat cap and tobacco pipe?

EC: Well, if I'm honest, they're for the philosopher.

*

None of this is hyperbole; we here at Eton Crow believe in the kind of quality that you can only get by buying cheap props on Ebay, and the kind of emotional investment that can only come from a film involving ninjas, mariachis, pimps, businessmen, and samurai.