I'll come back, when you you call me - no need to say goodbye

Our Director Writes:

Diary of a Mature Student: Genetically Modified Santa Time

Okay, so forget Christmas.

Let's talk about The Jacket. (Or, for the Amazon crowd, The Jacket).

I (heart) The Jacket as much as I like using the phrase "I (heart) (x)". (I like using the latter, because old people attempting to use current slang = perpetual fun).

I am unsure exactly how The Jacket managed to fuck up the simple "Make More Money Than The Film Costs" equation - given that, according to reliable sources (well, wikipedia, but it is Christmas Eve and I can't be bothered to do much in the way of research) it took approximately seven million less than it cost to make, which is something normally only reserved for films like Punisher: War Zone.

My question is; why does this make any particular sense? Let's run through the negative points first;

- The storyline is not that easy to follow unless you immediately swallow the concept of time travel via something similar to a Tulpa;

- There's a kind of icky undertone where the main characters meet once when one is very young then again where she's older, and the older versions have "The Sex", although it's only an undertone

- Some of the people involved get hit with the idiot hammer with alarming regularity.

But, seriously, the wattage of the film is strangely immense. You've got:

- Adrien Brody, just pre-King Kong but post The Pianist and The Village;

- Keira Knightley, post-Pirates of the Carribean, King Arthur and Love Actually

- Kris Kristofferson, post the entire Blade trilogy (although given the third film, well...) and pre-... um... nevermind

- Jennifer Jason Leigh, lovely in eXistenZ, also post Road to Perdition, similar to:

- Daniel Craig, post-Layer Cake and Road to Perdition, and just pre-Casino Royale;

- Hell, there's even Reliable Character Actor Brendan Coyle, who you may also remember from Downton Abbey

- And Steven Mackintosh, who's been in oh so so much.

You could base an entire publicity campaign on Brody and Knightley and sell it on that basis alone, and surely it'd take more than $21 million.

But apparently not.

There's a lesson here, kids, although I'm not sure exactly what it is beyond big stars do not necessarily a big film make. So... Draw your own conclusions.

And while you're at it, have a happy seasonal holiday.

Mix with the local gentry and don't crash Tarquin's Bentley

Our Director Writes:

Diary of a Mature Student: Seasonal Greetings Or Not

I'm renouncing narrative filmmaking.

At least for next semester.

This, to a film student, is apparently like moving from Christianity to Satanism, but, if so, sign me up with the Horned God, because fucking hell but narrative filmmaking has become irritating to do.

It's not so much the writing - although that has it's own annoying qualities - so much as recording the dialogue.

Be the first to tell me when I'm wrong, please, but dialogue recording for student films has proved - for me, if nobody else - to be the biggest ballache this side of the Alps. It's literally almost never perfect on the day, and ADR and Looping have yet to prove particularly useful, although perhaps more useful than the alternative.

The main reason for this is that we don't have sets - every location is, by definition, a found location, and if you have electricity points, then hey, you're bouncing already.

Last year, I made four short films of a fairly low quality. The first was, curiously, the best in sound terms; four conversations over a three-minute period, decent boom work. From there, it was all downhill; the second had some ADR (and, ambitiously, some foley work), but wasn't that great in sound terms. The third was a dancing film, dialogue-free, based around the cuts and the dissolves, and was pretty fun. The final one had an entire section of dialogue that was cut out, followed by a dialogue-free opening sequence that was pretty solid - nice visuals, but the rest of the film didn't materialise anywhere or anywhen. 

Of the four films, 25% had decent sound, 50% were all the better for being dialogue-free, and on the last one, the less said the better.

This year, the first film made had decent dialogue because we were, curiously enough, subbed all the best equipment for a day.

The second film, however, currently awaits editing, and I'm dreading it, because we pretty blatantly didn't have the good equipment. So continuity editing is going to be appalling, because the light changes over the course of the day, during a single conversation. The evening's filming should be fine, although it's kind of a reprise of a film from last year.

That last sentence should give you a bit of a clue about one of the major student film problems, however; time.

The filming took place over the course of a single fourteen hour day, at the end of which I was wondering why I'd thought it was a good idea in the first place, although to be fair I always ask myself that question upon making a new film.

I want to edit it, because there are some odd little moments of beauty in there. I've uploaded the footage - a process made laborious because the computer here in the Eton Crow offices with a working firewire port has a tiny hard drive and the computer with a large drive doesn't have a working firewire port, which meant transferring all the footage piecemeal from one to the other. But it's done, now, and ready, now, and I'm not ready, now, at all.

Instead, I'm ready to renounce my faith in narrative filmmaking. From now on, it's all music videos and maybe documentaries, baby, because no dialogue means no worries...

... At least, in theory...

It's good to know that you are home for Christmas - it's good to know that you are doing well

Our Director Writes:

Diary of a Mature Student: Mistletoe and Wine

In some ways, what I basically miss is The Sofa.

Way back when, in the mists of time, I used to visit friends in London fairly regularly - initially when I was still living there, then afterwards I'd travel down to see them, do the social thing. All very nice.

It was an interesting little flat - I was friends with one of the male residents (and by extension his girlfriend, later fiancé, later wife), and he was dating one of two sisters, the other of whom lived there with her soon-to-be husband.

What would happen is that, after a night with a few drinks, or a meal (with a few drinks), or just an evening in general, is that myself and my friend would sit down and watch some of the trashiest, worst films known to man.

I can't honestly remember how it began - I think, although I have no proof, that it was X-Men 2, which is in no way trashy or bad. (It is, however, pretty long for a blockbuster, superhero film. But that's another thing.) However, after that, things took an ominous turn when I discovered that Starship Troopers 2 was being released straight-to-dvd. It sounded, from the ancillary material, so bad that it kind of had to be seen.

Having seen the film all those years ago, I can't recall much, if anything, about it, because I'd had what might charitably be called A Little Too Much to drink. I remember, however, having the hiccups. This is probably not relevant.

What began with Starship Troopers 2 - a film which I may now have to watch sober, to see if any 1960s-style acid flashbacks pop up - continued as a kind of challenge; I'd thrown down a gauntlet, with that, and because my friend is oddly competitive, we started trading back and forth with films that inhabited a certain level - basically so bad but still watchable, rather than so bad as to be completely unwatchable whatsoever.

If I recall correctly, he then responded with a double whammy - Alone in the Dark, which was so bad as to be unwatchable, but then immediately made up for with Doom, which has few enough redeeming qualities but is certainly enjoyable enough if you're in the right frame of mind.

I responded to this with Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire, which is an interesting film on many counts, to which I was duly responded to with Kingdom of the Spiders, starring the truly great William Shatner.

The last two, however, were done by postal correspondance, and that saddens me a little, because I kind of miss the significance of the sofa.

Don't read too much into this, because all I mean is that that type of film watching was done just for the fun of it, not because I had to study it, or write about it, or give two tugs of a dog's tail about it in any way, shape or form.

Now, when I watch a film, I see continuity errors, plot holes, narrative function; it's like watching a magic show from behind the curtain, on occasion.

You shouldn't mistake this for any yen for a simpler time, a less complex time, a time when the rain was never cold and the summers went on forever; it'd just be nice to find films to watch just to watch, that's all.

Thankfully, I have the kind of family that insists on buying me these odd collections of B-movies - The Last Man On Earth and The Prehistoric Planet were Christmas Presents Of Choice this year, along with, during the year, The Wasp Woman, and Attack of the 50ft Woman among others.

Maybe I should just start watching them, instead of films laden with portentous significance dedicated to communicating. The films I've had to watch feel recently feel a lot like being buttonholed by someone at a party who thinks that they're talking about the most interesting thing ever, and can't wait to tell you about it.

The kind of film I'm looking for is more like a conversation with a half-drunk friend, not perfect, not insistent on anything, and certainly not looking to impress.

For any prospective film students out there - Hi! Watch your feet, try the additive dissolve, don't try the whip-pan - what I would say I've really learnt from this course so far is that watching a film is communication; the film is trying to tell you things above and beyond what's seen on the screen. The basics are that you can tell a films' budget, its' politics, its' production values, and maybe a few other things besides.

The rest - to end on a portentous single sentence - is more or less up to you.

Except I can't stand to end that way, so... Go and watch, say, The Godfather, or The Graduate, or any films listed in various categories of Best Film, or whatever.

Then go watch Starship Troopers 2.

See which one you have more fun with.

I got the Bushmills shots, cops that give me props

Our Director Writes:

Diary of a Mature Student: Two Thirds to Halfway

So I've not been writing so much recently. This is partly because, hey, life comes along and reminds you that there are more important things to do than spend your time writing, which is true, I suppose.

I thought, however, it was probably time to address a reality of the situation of being a Mature Student, i.e. the reality that you're giving up any hope of being treated normally by any social group you care to join.

Sounds harsh? Well, you're not working full time, so all your contemporaries who are look at you with a kind of morbid fascination in your eyes, and, occasionally, that little tinge of scorn or jealousy; why aren't you contributing to being a productive member of society? Why do you get to be a lazy, good-for-nothing student, a drain on the state and a problem for your parents, and I have to work a forty-hour week?

At the same time, these people are getting married, having children, and getting on the property ladder, things that aren't even remotely realistic if you want to further your education.

Meanwhile, your fellow students are asking the same questions, but from the opposite end of the spectrum; it's still why aren't they working? What's wrong with the normal world that they felt it was the decent, sane option to come here instead? What exactly am I supposed to look forward to?

This is the Spectre at the Feast theory, which has been mentioned in part before, but put in short; just by being there, a mature student sows the seeds of doubt that the real world is the promised land. Oh yes, young people, 80% of you will go on and get a good degree, and a good job, and live a good life. another 15% on top of that will get a great job and have a great life. But 5% of you will end up doing something weird, like being a nudist kayaking instructor, a tree, or a mature student. And when you do... Look kindly on the young people.

Family get a free pass to the kind of annoying in-jokes nobody should suffer after, say, their sixteenth birthday; a mixture of the friends response along with the well, why are they doing that? response. They don't always do this - I'm lucky, in that I have a very supportive family group - but the vague disdain that can crop up every now and then is a little disheartening.

Here's the simple reason; being a mature student means giving up all the conventional markers of success. I love my car, but it's ten years old, and I have to negotiate with the CD player every time I want something to play, because it's a finicky old bastard. The radio plays from both speakers, eager to please, but the CD player only plays from the right speaker, just to be contrary. The catches on the boot also like to play the odd trick, just to keep me on my toes. But it has great fuel economy and an interesting interior colour scheme, and I've grown to love it since I've had it. So that marker of success - the nice car, or, if you're single, the fast car - is gone.

Property ladder? Just... No. The only way I can afford to attend university is through the generosity and kindness of my family, including being able to live at home. Which makes another marker of success, the romantic relationship, that much more difficult, but hey, half the time you're so busy studying that the whole relationship thing is just not going to happen, whether you like it or not. This culminated last year with a relationship going from friends to let's just be friends within two days, which was a new record, and extremely confusing.

So you're probably asking yourself; why do it?

And the simple answer is; because I can't not do it.

In theory, I have been in one or another form of education for the majority of my life. After leaving school, I went to the merry-go-round of university for the first time. When I left, and found work, I took language classes at night school for two years. After that, my work started funding Open University courses, which meant that even when I was working full time, I was also studying for another qualification.

I... And this is difficult to admit... I love studying. Even more so on this course, because it teaches me something practical; I (heart)ed my previous course, don't get me wrong, but through every previous course I've largely been taught how to be a better academic, with the end result being that I'm now a better student than I ever was - or possibly could have been - when I was eighteen.

I care about results, I care about learning, and I care about my fellow students in a way I didn't before. Which is interesting, if you're into the whole argument over whether people can change or not. I - like a lot of people, I guess - kind of wish I could go back and meet myself ten years ago. Not to give them advice, although that might have been fun, or to tell them things - because god only knows they (i.e. I) wouldn't have listened - but just to listen to them, and maybe understand a bit more where I've come from.

Oh, I definitely still spend too much time pissing about on the internet and playing games with friends on Steam, and I could spend my time So! Much! More! Productively!; but I'm happy, because, for once, in my own little way, I'm starting to have a postive effect on my world and, in some cases, the world around me.

So, in a funny way, giving up all the normal societal markers of success was worth it. But... ssh. Don't tell anyone.

It's a spectacular show, because my heart pumps diesel

Our Director Writes:

Diary of a Mature Student: Ongoing

Studying this course has the odd effect of producing a sort of bi-polar dissonance, for me at least. On one hand, I have access to a huge library, the best recording kit the university is willing to lend out, and lots of people willing to help out or be involved in filmmaking.

On the other hand... Nobody seems to care about the actual course anymore.

Put it this way. It's now week three. In week one, 20% - on average - of the people signed up to classes didn't turn up for the four classes - over three days - that we have a week. By week two, this was down to 10%. But this is just the classes; three of which have mandatory screenings. My personal favourite so far happened on Monday;

- At 4pm, the stated time the screening started, there was nobody there

- At 4:15, 40% of the class were in attendence

- At 4:45, when the projector temporarily malfunctioned, 25% left, having signed the register, leaving 15% of the 'committed' students feeling silly for staying.

The week before, the last lecture of the week was structured so that the lecture directly preceded the screening, so that people would be on campus anyway for the film. During the fifteen minute break between lecture and screening - taking place in the same room - 75% of the class left. No register was taken.

There are curiously heartening moments to all this; one of the students who did stay for the screening of Citizen Kane went over to the SU shop and bought two cans of Red Bull and a fifth of vodka. I thought this was a sensible reaction to having to watch Citizen Kane again. If I hadn't been driving, I feel I would probably have done the same.

What's also heartening are the large amount of variations for excuses to cover for 'I can't be bothered to go'. One told me that he had emailed the tutors to say he had a job, and that because they had scheduled the screenings in week zero this was too late to re-arrange his work. Work he didn't have at the time of the screenings. It's fun listening to people's self-justifying white lies.

And this is what I mean by the bi-polar, because I hate complaining about the course - in fact, I'm not complaining about the course, just the lack of dedication from some of the student body therein. Which makes me feel like an elitist ass, which is not a natural reaction to actually doing what you're supposed to do. Gotta love being uncool. Then again, it is, apparently, 'hip', so they say, 'to be sqaure'.

Complaining does, of course, nothing. It's just air through the engine, at the end of the day. And there are one or two other students who dedicatedly give a fuck, which is kind of heartening.

Things are going to get better next week, anyway, so that's a plus. Not for any particularly specific reason; I can just tell that they are. For it will be a golden land, with rivers of milk and honey tequila and lime, where the sun shineth on a transfigurated course filled with caring and dedicated students, and...

Well, you have to believe this week that next week will be better, don't you? Because, otherwise, what's the point in even being here?

Next week, on the Eton Crow channel: Things Get Better.

Is it stormy where you are?

Our Director Writes:

Diary of a Mature Student: Twenty-Two weeks to go

I can tell that the courses this year are much more serious than last year, primarily because of the need. The need is an odd thing I experienced last time on the merry-go-round when suddenly you realise how serious everything is and you either need to step up, run away, or do something stupid.

In most of my life, the latter two have been my usual course of action, much to my disdain. But it's a natural reaction to the sudden fact that you actively need to give a shit in the second year, which I didn't get the first time around, instead trying a variety of jack moves and retreats that achieved absolutely nothing other than avoiding doing the work I needed to do.

I make no bones about the fact that, first time around, I Was A Straight C Student. (Capitals intentional.) I don't have a problem admitting that I peaked at that level of ability, which meant that when I got over the peak in my final year it was too late to change the overall result. It's the kind of thing you make peace with, as time goes on. It also becomes a challenge; something to beat, the whole 'we humans with our human limitations' thing.

It came as a little bit of a surprise when my marks last year average out (just) as a first, including the two marks that actually mattered towards my final grade. Sure, it was just over the tipping point, but even then I get the feeling that the extracurricular work was just about as rewarding as the grades themselves, although in theory I should have been putting the time from that work into the main work. And yet...

So the basic fight-or-flight - or, in this case, study-or-fuck-up - urge arriving at this point is no real surprise. I should have expected it, really, considering the step up in working and assessment practices between last year and this year.

That's not to say I'm not a little disappointed.

I'd kind of hoped for better.

But then there are those that argue that people don't really ever change, and that you should accept that you are who you are and you will always react the way you react, and personal evolution is, functionally, a myth. I don't believe in this - I'm a doe-eyed optimist that believes in the unlimited nature of human potential only being limited by opportunity, despite repeated provision of evidence to the contrary.

This is another interesting thing; in our year, there were a few idiots, the kind who didn't show up for classes week on week and expected to pass, or talked back to the lecturers, or caused generalised trouble of the sort that they would look back on in a few years time and... Probably not really care.

They're gone, now.

Oh, one or two of them have been seen on campus, but I've been signed up to several of the 'alternating compulsory' classes and they've not turned up for them, which means they're either remarkably lazy or they've moved on to do something different.

This is the one thing, really, that I didn't expect to actually happen. I expected to be plagued by these people for two more years. Oh, sure, people have actually dropped out - as I think I said they would at the end of last year - but it's always a surprise when the squeaky wheels disappear instead of getting the most oil.

So now I have to tamp down the ridiculous urge to do something... ridiculous, or to stress out about the courses and screw up, just because it's a part of me. But it's another part of me to believe that this part - stop me if this gets confusing - doesn't rule me. It's just something else to deal with, like my loquacious manner or ridiculously hot body. (My self-delusion, however, is getting along just fine, thank you.)

One handy side of this year is that in this semester I'm forced to group with two other people to make a film. Being handcuffed to other students is something I would normally rail against but that I now actually get - technically, if the tutors want to they can handcuff last year's A student to last year's D student to see if they bring the average grade up, but so far they've managed not to do anything quite so crass. So now I have an incentive not to pull a jack move, because if I do, other people may, if not suffer, be mildly inconvenienced.

And that would be wrong.

Let's pretend: Marshall Mathers never picked up a pen

Our Director Writes: 

Diary of a Mature Student: NewSemesterRestartGO!

And so, it all kicks off again this week, for another nine eight seven months of hard work, intensive study, and rich personal rewards.

Well, for some people, at least. 

Whether it's particularly intentional or not, a university class is like a handy microcosm of life. For every forty students, thirty will turn up on time. Twenty of those will turn up on time and, crucially, in the right place. Ten of them - conversatively - will turn up on time, in the right place, and with the course materials. Because I am old, and therefore worry about things like punctuality and preparation, I'm one of these ten, which isn't as much of a comfort as it should be. 

Still, it's nice to be back, even if it feels like I've been back since, oh, say, September, given that I've been on campus once or twice a week just to remind myself that I would be going back. This was important, given the paucity of summer work and the need to be doing something. But I feel like sometimes I'm happier if there's something to complain about - whether it's not having work to do, or whether the work I do have to do is worthwhile, or how it's organised.... Blah, blah, blah. 

A case in point; it's week zero, i.e. introduction week, and already things are being changed around. Monday's lecture is now on a Tuesday morning, Friday's lecture is now on Wednesday night - and night lectures are a special fun all to theirselves, let's be fair now - and Tuesday's lecture - well, Tuesday's lecture is still on a Tuesday. So that's nice. Heaven forfend that the published hours on the syllabus remain static, because this is a forward-thinking institution with change at it's core. Which is, naturally, another thing...

The entire campus is being rebuilt. Which is a good thing for future generations of students, because it means bugger-all to my year except disruption and other such fun concepts. I say this literally because the work being undertaken at the moment will not even be completed until after my (adopted) generation graduates. So... Good luck, future students! 

But this is all just wind through the engine, because, well, it's good to be back, and see people I haven't seen since the start of the Long Hot Summer, and it's good to be studying and doing something again, so... I figure I should stop complaining just to complain and complain about something worth complaining about, such as the repetition of the word complain...

C'mon Baby, just take my hand - we'll be able to fly

Our Director writes:

Diary of a Mature Student: T-2 weeks until kiss kiss, bang bang

... Or not.

It's fun learning new things. This weekend, I have learnt;

- That when the petrol guage on the car pings orange, you have more time than you might think to refill before everything goes wrong. You have no idea how good it was to find this out.

- It takes a surprisingly long time to paint someone's entire head white.

- A corrolary to this; you don't need to paint the entire head white, especially when you're using a hood. Just work out where the hood will land, demarcate it and only paint what you need.

- I have really, really, really good friends, as evidenced by letting me paint their head white.

It was for a good reason. Really. If you're going to make a homage to The Seventh Seal, then you need a Death / Grim Reaper. And, with luck, I will be making a scene in a few weeks that homages - and I know there should be an accent in there somewhere, bút héy - the portayal of Death within the original film.

So I thought it a good idea to get some practice at the whole facepainting thing, having never done it before. And now I know that

- Less is more
- White paint shows up nicely on camera
- A bald cap does make a person look like an advert for condoms
- and Mr Hairdryer Is Not Your Friend.

I am looking forward to going back - and if I keep repeating that, I'll start to believe it more and more, I hope - but it's a little strange. The first taste of returning to higher education was intoxicating, and strange, and amazing, because I was able to use the skills I've spent years obtaining in my job to do something I wanted to do, instead of mollycoddling recalcitrant regulatory staff.

The second year is more real, physically and mentally, because now the marks actually start to matter. In the first year, everyone's having fun because the marks are immaterial. Now, things - and people - matter. This is not a bad thing. It's just... different.

Granted, I remember my second year from my last merry-go-round with something less than fondness, because the transition from Not Having To Give A Shit to Having To Care Muchly was not handled gracefully on my part or the tutor's parts. There is a certain amount of winnowing and horse trading that goes on between year one and two; people drop out, switch courses, switch modules, switch paths etc, in the hope that by year three they know exactly that the hell they want out of the place. So Year Two is just as transitional as any other year - in Year One you transition into education, in Year Two you transition into seriousness, and in Year Three you start to transition out into The Real World.

Which is not a fun place, script kiddies, mark my words...

She was the roughest, toughest frail

Our Director Writes:

Diary of a Mature Student: Year Two @ T-3 weeks, +/-

When I was +/- 16 years old, a parental unit gave me a copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. At the time, I thought this was a rare moment of intuition, in giving me something that would show me journalism wasn't just people in offices writing articles; sometimes, it seemed, the journalist became part of the story, or, in extreme cases, was the story.


Later, I found out that they'd picked it at random, thinking I might like it. Life is like that, sometimes.

So I find myself, on a sunny, blue-skyed autumn morning, contemplating what Thompson called - I believe - The Great Magnet. The idea is that the magnet controls the flow of our lives, and when we travel towards the magnet's attraction, things flow smoothly; if we choose - knowingly or unknowingly - to fight the attractive force of The Great Magnet, we're merely placing rocks in the stream of our lives, futilely trying to break an unbreakable pull.

The last part of that last sentence is a fairly apt summary of this summer. Granted, I didn't expect to find the perfect part-time job that utilised my skills while providing a steady income, but I applied for, oh, say, everything locally, and only received one callback. However, because of this, the garage has never been more organised, the house has 60% less clutter and crap knocking around the place, and I still feel annoyed because I appear to be defying the magnet's flow without even consciously realising it.

This has led to a fairly unique symptom that I've experienced once or twice before; suddenly, nobody responds to any attempts at contact. Emails go unanswered, phone calls too - or fobbed off, which is, curiously, worse; even unsolicited email gets in on the act too, with messages from people I'd quite happily not hear from popping up of a Thursday afternoon, bringing with them dire tidings and annoyance.

It's a fairly unique phenomnenom - and that's a word I can't spell as well as say, right there - and it's always curious when it happens, a kind of electronic susurrus. Suddenly you're on a becalmed, idyllic but irritating island where nothing, apparently, can reach you.

In some ways, it makes a kind of sense when it comes to fellow students, because the summertime is traditionally a way of getting away from everything, and emails serve as an unwelcome reminder of the existence of the place you have to go back to in, oh, say, five months. Which is partly why I didn't start emailing until a month beforehand, to minimise the tension convention of remembering you have to actually, y'know, complete another two years of this thing they call 'study' before you enter the heady world of graduate unemployment.

And if that sounds like a negative assessment, take a look at the world at the moment and you might start to think that everything has a negative assessment.

Still, of course, there are worse things to complain about than people not responding to any means of contact. So... Why worry?

Please forgive me, if I act a little strange

Our Director Writes:

Diary of a Mature Student: Another Weekend, Another Planet

So there have been a few good things about this summer, one of which is due to take place tomorrow.

But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous.

Tomorrow, you see, two good friends are (finally!) getting married. And I mean it when I say they're good friends, because as well as being friends, they're good people (by my estimation, so hey, your mileage may vary) and they're beacons of sensibility in my otherwise slightly different world.

They are also touchstones for my last time on the merry-go-round, being as we studied for the same degree at the same time - although thanks to my involuntary sabbatical year, I started with one of them and graduated with the other, their having started their studies a year apart. So it's nice to have links to the past that I treasure rather than avoid, frankly, because we all have things we've said or done that we'd rather stayed buried. Such, as they say, is life. 

The reason I'm nervous (I keep wanting to say a little nervous, but that would be an economical untruth) is because there's the vague possibility that An Ex will also be there. And let's bear in mind the crushing stupidity of this, because we're (I think) the same age, so we've both grown up, matured, moved on, got some life experience, yadda yadda ya... But it's still nervous-making, all the same, because of the uncertainty of how I'd feel around her, and possibly even how she'd feel around me. 

So here's a lesson for the students of today; relationships, like it or not, can have shelf lives. Yes, true love is possible - and part of me hopes it's even probable, given the way of the world - and you might meet the person you stay with and love for the rest of your life. 

Then again, you might not. So with the wedding - as a social engagement - upcoming, I've been devoting more thought than I would have liked to this whole thing. The conclusion I've come to is that this relationship of the past had a shelf-life of six months - a month and a half of flirtation, three months of romantic engagement, and a month and a half of disentanglement - and that this was then stretched over the course of two years, to both our detriment, because the flirtation took six months, and then once the six months of thinly-stretched romanticism was done with, I made her life difficult for another six, and she made mine difficult for another six after that, until, finally, it was over. Technically, it was over after eighteen months, but really, don't ask about the last six months, because god knows I won't talk about it.

So there's the prospect of a spade being struck into the dirt of my past, and I really really really don't want it getting in the way of anything tomorrow, so I'm just going to have to work on this one for a while, realistically - oh, say, another eighteen hours? 

Then again, I love a deadline. 

Tomorrow will be a beautiful reaffirment of the love that two people I care for have for each other. And that is that. 

So... There!

Right now you're the only thing that's making any sense

Our Director Writes:

Diary of a Mature Student: Year Two, T-Five Weeks

Technically, the university is open for business students again from today, although I'm not sure if you could tell - the only students who I've met on campus are haggard, worried-looking ones with a burning need to submit their dissertation on time. Rarely have I seen any people looking more hunted than these, waiting on the library opening hours to print and the hurrying to the media shop to bind the culmination of their work.

Looking at them, I'm thinking; this is probably me in another two years' time. I like to think that I'll have finished the dissertation before the deadline, had it proofread, got it bound and submitted it a day or two early. I like to think this, but I know it's patently not true; I'm a creature of deadlines, and always have been. I do what is arguably my 'best work' - quotes intentional - right up against the final reckoning.

This is why the summer break - the best part of five months - rankles and annoys. Don't get me wrong - I'm sure the Young People Of Today appreciate a six months on / six months off structure, because otherwise, bless them, they might start to feel a little stressed.

But when you're faced with five months with literally nothing to do, tempers can get a little frayed.

I want to be working. I don't mind if it's a bad little part-time job that pays just enough to keep my car running and pay for food. But there's nothing going out there at the moment, and it's maddening. I would understand the long break more if there was anything to do academically, but the courses that involve actually watching films don't seem to publish their viewing schedules - otherwise those pesky students might take the initiative and study the films before term starts, rather than turn up to the scheduled screenings that suit nobody other than the ones living within fifteen minutes' walk of the campus.

... Granted, this means everyone other than mature students, and even then some of them live near campus, but for the commuters... Eesh.

So this has been a Long Hot Summer, at the end of which the garage will be half as full and - shock horror - painted, the loft will be nearly empty and possibly even panelled, and, strangely, my attention span seems to be returning to the point where next year may be just that little bit less ADHD.

Let's unpack that last comment. If you know me, then you know I've always been hyperactive. A good friend summarised it in basic terms where I'm fine as long as someone gives me a metaphorical slap to bring me down to earth. So now imagine how five months without too much to do might impact psychologically.

Here's the weird thing, though - immediately upon starting a course on Film, my ability to watch an entire film began to suffer. This isn't new - previously, though, it had been related to music, in that occasionally I found it difficult to listen to a whole track on a CD while travelling, a source of no little irritation for some friends. But to be unable to comfortably sit through a film was a new one; I'd find myself wandering off, reading, playing games on my mobile phone, and occasionally fast-forwarding through to near the end, the equivalent of reading the last chapter of a book and just as asinine.

Over the last few weeks, however, this seems to have abated, to the point where I actually started actively wanting to see films again. A case in point; Centurion, which I actively went out and sought over the weekend for no discernible reason other than a respect for Neil Marshall. 

Let's reminisce for a moment. A few years ago, upon graduating from the first merry-go-round, I moved home with a degree I had struggled through and a nascent love for film that I had no idea how to practically use or train. A little lost, and a little confused, I ended up buying Dog Soldiers on DVD for no real reason other than the cover intrigued me and the premise was solid; Squaddies versus werewolves - what more do you want?

Bear in mind that at that point I hadn't seen any of the Evil Dead films - I know, philistine, right? - or any low-budget horror films in particular that I can remember. Films for me at the time were foreign cinema (don't ask) or the big-budget hollywood films that played at the mainstream cinemas, including the early experiments into second-wave superhero films by Marvel (Hulk, and Daredevil, both of which I saw in the cinema at the time, although please, please see the Directors' Cut of Daredevil if you've only seen the original release... There's an entire subplot with Coolio that was cut from the theatrical release, and less cheesy fireside lovemaking...)

Anyway. So Dog Soldiers was a bit of a revelation, in terms of film. By definition, all British films are low-budget when compared with Hollywood productions, but this film did a lot with a little to the point where instead of CGI, the werewolves looked better as practical costumes and well-edited set-pieces. This was the first true application I saw of Robert Rodriguez's 'Money Hose' theory, in that if you have a huge budget, you just turn the hose on any problems and wash them away with money, but if you have no money, you have to solve the problems creatively rather than financially.

Like I say, kind of a revelation.

If this is rambling, it's because I want to salvage something positive from a long summer of nothing but domesticity and applying for part-time work only to be knocked back in favour of under-16s who can be paid 80p less per hour on the minimum wage. Finally, I have an attention span where previously there was just ADHD.

Look out, world.

It's been a bad day - please don't take a picture

Our Director Writes:

Notes from the CD Mines, Volume 4

So an end is in sight, although what was a labour of love became a Herculean task relatively quickly.

Basically, all the easy stuff is now done. All the CDs that were sorted - i.e. in their own cases, etc - have been either sold or given to charity shops.

This leaves quite a few CDs not in their own cases.

And I know this isn't riveting stuff, but it's been kind of a strange afternoon; the re-uniting project has meant that CDs which haven't seen their cases for years - up to a decade in some cases, I suspect - are now warm and snuggly in their right place, etc etc.

It was the point at which I found an entire CD collection of Michel Thomas' teaching French that I thought things might be on the up-and-up, and now I only have about a hundred CDs to process before the end of this terrible, strange project.

Now, of course, we're into the weird territory. Or, at least, the weirder territory, because having traversed the plains of the normal, cased CDs, we're now into the realms of the uncased, the free, and the magazine promotional copies. The last of these promises to be the most annoying, primarily because they may have rare tracks or versions of tracks, but iTunes will probably refuse to legislate their existence. Still, if this is the worst thing about today, then today is a good day.

I know this is not exactly a fascinating topic - especially for a film student - but it is kind of pertinent, as we're talking a massive switchover from harcopy to digital copy on every single piece of music I own. The only reason I'm doing this with the CDs and not the DVDs is because it's free to do with the CDs; if owning a DVD meant having access to a digital copy, you can bet most of my DVDs would be gone now too, because, hey, the future is now, apparently.

On a film-related note; I keep hearing good things about Inception. Hearing good things about a film is not exactly a rarity, thanks to hype and press etc, but the good things I'm hearing are from film graduates and film students. Remember, however, that this in itself is not necessarily a good thing, because it's something being recommended on merits that only a select population think they know about, and I've seen many films that have been recommended by people who think they should be recommending the film.

In the old days, it was called wanting to look cool. There's probably some new youth slang for it these days that as an old, decrepit person I don't know. My bones are weak and my mind is feeble, etc, etc.

But I'm going to go and see the damn thing just because it looks interesting. This too is a double-edged sword, because it's not difficult to make something look interesting, but it is difficult to make it be interesting and because interesting is a moveable feast as far as terminology goes.

So maybe once I've digitised my life, I'll take a break from staring at a small screen to go stare at a bigger screen...

I live in a land of crass hypocrisy, we're gonna win the national lottery...

Our Director Writes:
Diary of a Mature Student: Things I Have Learnt This Summer

... E-i-addio, I don't think so (to finish the title quotation).

So yes. I may not be able to find any work, but I have learnt a few important things recently.

Things that will fit in the back of a Nissan Micra

- A tumble dryer
- A single mattress
- A king-size mattress

The last one was kind of a stretch, and involved some duct tape, but nobody was hurt in the making of that film, so hey.

My music collection was bigger than I ever thought.

Put it this way. Before I even began this lunatic crusade to digitise my music collection, I sold around somewhere between fifty to a hundred CDs to my local CEX, forever earning their enmity primarily because that meant they had to check each and every one before they could admit it, and all for about thirty pounds worth of exchange value.

Since then, I discovered a further two boxes of CDs, which have comprised the majority of this digitising effort. The albums I'm going to try to sell - although the social contract means I should probably not use my local CEX anymore, primarily because they have my address and will probably send around ninja assassins if I turn up with another bag full of CDs and no intention of spending my money in their actual, y'know, shop - and the singles are going to charity shops. (I know, I know, lucky them.)

But put it this way. Looking through my music collection, I note that it appears that in the past I bought [or received as a journalist] an album or a single every one-and-one third weeks for the past fourteen years.

And what bugs me is that I don't quite know why it mattered so much back in the day to own so much music. Don't get me wrong, it was a long, torrid, sweaty, passionate and at times angry affair, and I still love music, but forty CDs a year for over a decade?

Hmm.

Even my DVD collection isn't that obsessive.

Naturally, everyone has their passion, from geologists to fashion designers. But for someone who only wrote about music semi-professionally for a third of the time period they were obtaining CDs for, that's... Well... That's not bad.

See, I'm kind of proud to have found proof of a passion for something, because the six years prior to my re-attaining Student Status were good years, but quiet, professional, and perhaps even slightly grey years nonetheless. So at least this helps prove that prior to that I had something that mattered, something to follow, and something to do.

That's why Student Status makes me happier now than it did that mythical First Time Around. The first time, I was doing it because it was the expected next progressional step; preschool, school, sixth form, university, job. The university was a waystation in my life - a lot like I see happening to the current crop of students - between the end of school and the beginning of The Working Years, during which one is supposed to 'find oneself' and work out exactly what sort of a human being you are in order to better fit into the wider world.

That kind of didn't happen for me the first time around, much to my chagrin.

This time round, it's a better fit but a different time, because I'm happy with the where and the what but not necessarily with the when, but hey, you can't change the when so why worry, as they apparently say.

So it's a positive experience, digitising all my music, because it proves to me that there was a time when I had that kind of misguided passion and that need to follow something, and sport never did it in the way that music could, so music was the world for those pretty years 95-05. So don't get me started on Britpop.

No, really. Don't get me started.

I was with him, he had seven jack-and-cokes in him

Our Editor Writes:

Diary of a Mature Student: The New Digital Revolution continues

So after discovering how easy it is to buy music online, the time now comes to upload all of the old music into one place and then give away the CDs.

(I would sell them, but who'd want them?)

So I now find my music collection providing a fascinating window into the past.

[Do you want to import Touched into your iTunes library?]

The past is, as we know, a distant country, and they do things differently there. It was a time, apparently, when a CD single - with two tracks on - could be legitimately sold for £4.49 on 'import'.

Don't misunderstand me, I remember vinyl (kind of) and cassette tapes (yep) and minidiscs (...) and then CDs.

But when did I buy / receive (bless Student Journalism) so many of the damn things?

Today's efforts, so far, have yielded 120 albums (mostly singles, however) uploaded. Of which one has proved to be so obscure as to now be known by iTunes -

[Would you like to import the CD The Everlasting into your iTunes library?]

- and of which at least forty so far have necessitated me ferreting out the artwork myself and asking iTunes to pretty please accept it.

And when it's done, the CDs go - to charity shops, I should think, because selling this many to CEX would be sisyphean, to say the least - ~And there'll be that little bit more weight off of my metaphorical back.

I say it again; I envy the digital download generation, because physical media will have a new kind of cachét that it rarely did before. Alright, there were special editions and limited editions and promos, but once you remove the necessity of the physical element of a piece of music, or a movie, or a book, then its' presence becomes, by default, something interesting. And won't that be nice?

Of course, being old-school with regards to media, I'm going to have to back all this up somewhere in case something happens - nothing like good-old-fashioned paranoia - but...

... It's a little strange.

It's strange because music mattered to me so much ten or so years ago that owning these CDs was like a prerequisite for existence. Compared to the modern world, actually listening to them - physically finding the CD, putting it in a player, waiting for it to load, finding the track you want - would take longer than loading up this computer and going to Youtube or spotify. (This is primarily because my laissez-faire attitude to CDs being in their right cases meaning finding the right CD could take hours if not days, to be fair - it's an admission of untidiness rather than a boast of speedy ability.)

[Would you like to import the CD Big Night Out into your iTunes library?]

If you're reading this now and you're, well, under 20 years old or so, try and understand just how far things have come in the last ten years. When I was at university for the first time, mp3 players were just starting, and they were a pain in the arse. Technically, I'm from the pre-iPod generation, which is kind of nice, but it was CDs all the way. Now, you can torrent hundreds - if not thousands - of mp3s overnight, but...

[Would you like to import the CD See this through and leave into your iTunes library?]

... I'm going to deploy the excuse the previous generation applied to CDs instead of vinyl. Downloading is - and it pains me to use this word because it sounds so oddly patronising - soulless.

I get it. I really do. I was on Napster back in the day, with all the old p2p networking and such meaning free music. And then, like that, I stopped, partly because Napster stopped but also partly because I thought it was the right thing to do.

And I know this sounds like preaching, and that taking any sort of moral stance is frowned upon in the world of downloading, but... I just don't get it.

Then again, I worry about The Law - capitals intentional - because of the way I was brought up. Like everyone else, I happily mock the You wouldn't steal a car anti-piracy adverts because they're so histrionic - but, sadly, they're true. I wouldn't steal a car. I wouldn't steal anything. This is primarily because of the belief that if I did, there would be a policeman waiting behind me at just that moment, rather than some sort of social commentary.

I'm surrounded by torrenters - and I get it, because being a student means, functionally, having no money. But the scales aren't balanced - back in the day (another phrase I don't really like using) file-sharing, p2p and torrents were in their infancy, so I really didn't have the option of Mass Downloading. If I were a student today - more accurately, if I were an 18-year-old student today - I would be downloading things, I suspect, like a hyperactive bastard.

[Do you want to import the CD Under Rug Swept into your iTunes library?]

But I'm not. So I don't. This is because I'm really, really old-fashioned. I know what an album on CD looks like and how much they cost to buy, and in my head I equate downloading with going into a shop, picking up the CD and leaving without paying. You may see it differently, and, if so, more power to you - there's always the Bruce Sterling way of looking at it, whereby music is, now, functionally data, and data wants to be free. And there are plenty of arguments to state that people wouldn't hear a musician's work if they couldn't get it for free. And there's spotify, and youtube, and all manner of places that show stuff for free. (Or, at least, for advertising revenue, a portion of which is then fed back to the record company.)

So please, go ahead and download. I'll not tell you not to, and I'm not taking the moral high ground, but if it's all the same to you, I won't do it...

... And in return, I have days of uploading ahead of me. And fairly soon, a nearby charity shop will most likely curse the day I walked in and dumped a bag full of CDs on them. And eventually, the songs I like out of all of this uploading will find their way to my iPod, and my past will catch up with me. In a good way, I hope, and I kind of hope my iPod has enough room for all this history. But for now...

[Do you want to import the CD For Your Ears Only into your iTunes library?]

Helter Skelter in the Summer Swelter

Our Director Writes:

Diary of a Mature Student: So here we are and here we are and here we go...

You see what happens, Larry? You see what happens when you mention a movie? This is what happens, Larry. Okay?

The summer period is a weird time to be a mature student. Not that there's a good time to be a mature student, unless you like everyone looking at you like you're crazy, but hey, that's par for the course. But being unable to find work and having a lot of time on your hands means, well, that you notice a lot more things than you otherwise normally might.

Let's take a step back away from the mature student thing for a moment.

Diary of a Mature Person -

Wait. That doesn't work either, for obvious reasons.

Diary of a Pre-digital generation remnant, summertime.

Here's the thing. I envy the current generation because they don't have to carry around so much shit.

I'm happy to admit that I'm a pop culture whore commentator. Less so these last few years due to a general slowing down and growing up, but between, say, '96 and '06 I followed music, films and books with a passion, which meant, for the most part, buying the fucking things. It's not the buying I resent - so don't get me started on torrenters, we'll be here all day - it's more that now, slowly approaching my third decade, I have boxes and boxes and boxes and even more boxes of irrelevant shit.

Don't get me wrong - not only was it very relevant to me at the time, but I still like to go through what can wistfully be called a library (in that I have more CDs than my current university library and more books than the English section). I like owning or having owned some of this stuff.

The stuff I don't like owning or having owned mas made its' way, therefore, to a series of charity shops, or to the dump, or has been sold via Amazon or, occasionally, eBay, an experience that taught me never to offer international postage again.

Something like ten dustbin bags' worth went to charity shops, although that includes clothes, so there may be some unlucky bastards wandering round in some of my fashion faux-pas-s from the last ten years or so. Another ten bags worth went to the dump to be recycled into something more useful, like tennis shoes or compost. Oh, and I have reserved a special place for the unique kind of torment that is CEX.

Let's talk about CEX for a moment. I've sold them hundreds of pounds worth of CDs and DVDs over the last month or so, and they'll go on to offer them for, on average, four times what they pay for them. This isn't such a bad ratio; value has a curious differential when it comes to entertainment property, because as soon as you buy a DVD the value decreases, followed by a further decrease if you watch the goddamn thing, and an even sharper decrease if it's a popular dvd, because everyone wants to sell theirs too. It is not, as they say, a sellers' market.

But on the five or so occasions I've done this, it's never been exactly what you might call a perfect experience. Sure, I've sold 90% of what I've taken in, the rest being just to weird, American or otherwise ineligible for their mystical buyer-seller bond to take. But their staff appears to be made up entirely of disinterested teenagers - which I know automatically makes me sound old, but, alas, it's true - and for an exchange company, they don't actually seem that happy to be buying goods even considering they only need to sell a quarter of what they buy to even out their profit margin.

This is turning into a bit of a rant. I like CEX, and I like it even more that I've probably done all of the selling I'm going to do to them which means, functionally, that I won't have to deal with them again for a l-o-n-g time.

At the same time, my town always had another exchange shop for games. No, they weren't perfect - their range of titles relied entirely upon a dedicated but elusive band of people willing to sell on the latest games or on being able to buy the games on import and sell them on for a profit - but they were 'local', 'independent', and all these other nice little buzzwords people use when they didn't want to give money to the local Faceless Multi-store Corporate Conglomerate (tm).

That shop closed down a fortnight ago. Their lease was approaching, and with a remarkable prescience they decided that everything's moving towards digital downloads anyway so what's the point in keeping a bricks-and-mortar shop to sell physical units when fairly soon they might be obsolete?

A month and a half ago, my local bookshop closed down as well. They were 'independent' etcetera etcetera, but they also had a place in my heart because I worked there as a Saturday Assistant for a year. Granted, when I started it was pre-minimum wage, which meant that at £2.65 an hour I had to work for two and a half hours just to buy a book. But it was a good place - a nice place, although that's a wallpaper word - to be. They're gone now, although thanks to the manager giving me an 'ex-staff-member' discount on top of the 50% closing-down sale I now have journals for the next two academic years, which will remind me of the place whenever I make notes.

However, Yes, I think I had a Point somewhere when I started all this.

So even after an exhaustive purge of CDs, books, and DVDs, I still have box upon box of them in storage. The next project, in theory, is to digitize my entire cd collection, which may take the better part of a year and require a lot of data storage, and also may require the ability on my part to care about most of the music in the collection, which may be in short supply.

But if I were, say, an 18-or-19 year old now, I could in theory get all the music and movies I needed without ever having to own something I could physically hold in my hands. Sure, for mainstream culture iTunes takes care of music and movies. Even Kindle etc are now moving in on books, meaning you will be able to carry them around in one place rather than in hundreds of bound pulped-wood dead-tree copies.

And, contrary to what the majority of the generation before me thinks - and that the generation after will probably not have to think about much, if at all - this is a good thing. I would love to have every single one of my books in one place, alphabetized, ready at the touch of a touchscreen, or my entire music collection on one drive somewhere, or any movie I wanted without having to put disc to drive. And it will happen, in the next ten years or so.

As a film student, I like the idea of being able to carry around my body of work in one place rather than having to whip out DVDs to show people. Hell, if I could afford an iPad, I'd be able to bore no end of people with my work, showing them my films on a decent sized screen. One day, I suspect, I will. Look forward to that day, huh?

For now, however, I'm content to try an experiment. Confession time; I've never bought anything particularly substantial digitally before. An episode of Ashes to Ashes and two or three songs on iTunes notwithstanding, I've only really dipped my toe in the waters of Legal Digital Downloading.

So now it's time to take the plunge. (Although it's not exactly plunge-y, but hey.) It's time to purchase an album digitally.

Yeah baby.

So here's the deal.

Dog Soldiers is a good film, bordering on a great film. And before you ask, yes, it does feel a little odd doing the Amazon Associates linking thing, but since nobody reads this, and nobody's going to link through, I don't feel so bad.

Back In The Day, the Dog Soldiers soundtrack was oddly rare on CD. In fact, to buy it in America (Dog Soldiers) will set you back $75 - $120 dollars, which seems a bit punitive. If memory serves, pre-download, the CD would have set you back £32-£64 over here, which is, again, somewhat punitive.

Now, it'll cost you £7.49 to download. So I'm going to try it out. Cross your fingers, for I am old, and these concepts are new.

In fact, as a student, it curiously only costs me £7.12. Which is nice.

... And it appears to be as simple as that.

Suddenly, I'm impressed. And it only cost £7.12 to impress me.

Does that make me cheap?

"He's a bit... Billy Graham, you know?"

Our Editor Writes:

On making a successful trailer

Not that we here at the 'Crow know too much about this - our previous efforts have involved wooden swords, parasols, and lots of running - but let's talk about trailer music for a moment, shall we?

I like the idea of The Adjustment Bureau. I really do - the whole 'rebelling against a destiny not planned by you' aspect. It's not an easy sell to the general public, necessarily - quasi-science fiction based on Philip K Dick rarely goes well (see A Scanner Darkly, for instance, or the troubles Blade Runner had in getting through production and out the other side, not least of which were monotone voice-overs). So, the film's destiny - even starring Matt Damon, Emily Blunt and Terence Stamp et al - is nebulous at best. Is it a love story? Or maybe science fiction? Or a contemporary science fiction love story? Something tells me that by the end love will have conquered the evil machinations of the Planners, but hey, I'm cynical like that.

Or is it the story of a mutant changed into an indestructible killing machine by the US government?

Funny thing, trailer music.

Go back to The Adjustment Bureau's trailers page. Watch the trailer from 1:23 onwards.

Now go here, and watch the trailer from the start.

Kind of similar, no?

Then again, both films feature protagonists confronted by shadowy conspiracies and who have to beat the conspiracy to find out the truth about their lives, their destiny and the woman they love.

It's just that one of them has an indestructible skeleton. So hey.

I know there's only so much music to go around, and that if a tune fits, work it... But seriously, do Universal want their viewers to subconsciously think of OTT fighting mutants instead of A Love Story That Defies Destiny?

Oh, it's on like Donkey Kong...

Our Editor Writes:


So, yes, by now you've probably realised that we sent our director to Film School.

I say 'probably realised', of course, as if there's anyone reading this. If there is, of course; hello! Thanks for stopping by. Pull up a chair and get comfortable, there's about forty or so plus entries to go through related to our slightly odd - charitably, 'idiosyncratic' - film company.


But I thought it a good idea to note that our director - such as he is - is, in fact, right. It's cheaper to pay his tuition fees than to hire him a camera and editing suite. Bear in mind that here in the Eton Crow offices we have two macs, one with final cut (express) and one with - Oh Lord - iMovie, and one or two consumer / low grade camcorders.


You can think of us as charmingly retro, or you can think of us as lo-fi, but in reality, we're cheap and we're proud. Well, I say proud. Kind of proud. The kind of proud that you can only really have when you don't have any other options.

But here's the thing. We have a sponsor. Not in the televangelical sense - but we have someone sufficiently interested in our Director to sponsor him while he does the learning thing and posting strange little blog entries with musical lyrics for post titles about being An Old Man Among Young People. This sponsor - hell, it's always going to be italicised - seems to believe that our Director has some potential of some sort, which is nice.

So here's a little secret. Right now, Eton Crow - as you've no doubt worked out, you smart cookie - isn't exactly a 'film company'. It's me and the director, and hey, I have a day job, so... I get to spend the occasional bit of time - evenings and weekends - reviewing the director's tapes. Don't get me wrong, he has to edit them himself 99% of the time, because, hey, he's being graded on them, but shit, even if Eton Crow is Me and Him and Him and Me (and we are all together), I do like to keep my hand in.

We do actually have stuff to show you, in case you were wondering if we're just an odd bunch of people talking about studying and filmmaking. So I figure it's time to show our working. Here's an example, in three parts;

The band are called Kamikaze Practice, as you can probably tell. This is only a part of why they're interesting, though. See, our director loves William Gibson (hell, let's test this Amazon Associates thing out; books like Pattern Recognition and Spook Country lay around our office whether I like it or not).

So the thing about Kamikaze Practice is that - according to our reputable sources, at least - they no longer exist. They glimmered brightly as a band since sometime towards the autumn of last year, played a few gigs, recorded a few songs, played the gig you see above and then broke up due to (a) musical differences and (b) one of their number apparently having other commitments, which we won't mention here.

This might explain why we never heard back from the band's singer about the videos that were edited and uploaded over the course of a month. (Well, the uploading took a week, primarily because our office broadband is capped at something like 2mb on a good fucking day, so that was a fun wait).

In Gibson terms, releasing a video of a band that's already broken up and reformed as someone else by the time the video was edited is, well, it's up there. W-a-y up high.

So while it's annoying that the video doesn't have the same meaning as, say, a video of a new band on to big things, it's still, to his mind, pretty cool.

To me, it's annoying. But I'm just the editor - i.e. the one who keeps the computers happy - so what would I know?

The director, by the way, is on a short holiday at the moment, but hey, he never reads any of the entries he posts anyway, so he probably won't even notice this one...

... But enjoy the videos. And if you like them, bear in mind that this may be the only exigent proof that the band in them ever existed...

And oh God, I hope I'm not stuck with this one

Our Director Writes:

Diary of a Mature Student: Summer Daze

All the things I know right now, if I'd only know them then...

Currently, I have two things: a newly-working scanner and an extensive photograph collection.

I mean, yes, I've got my hands, got my feet, got my heart, got my soul and, yes, my freedom, but right now the extensive photograph collection is proving interesting, to say the least.

At a conservative estimate, there are photograph wallets stretching back at least twelve years in here. Some of them relate to previous scanning attempts, but since the majority of them were probably lost in the Great Computer Fuckup of '09, it's worth scanning them all in again.

Memories, so big you can get lost in them...

For instance, there are quite a few photographs, pertinently, of the end of my first year last time around on the degree merry-go-round. Even though experience tells me otherwise, I desperately want to call them Class of Cirrhosis '99, being as most of them have an alcoholic drink in there somewhere. This isn't exactly unfair, because at least one of them did end up with cirrhosis of the liver, and I did hang around with a boozy bunch, the whereabouts of precisely one - the sensible one - I can trace now, ten years on, and only then because (a) sensible and (b) memorable surname.

Of the others, I know at least one dropped out and off the radar, and the others, no clue. That was, to be fair, a particularly weird social group, based entirely around hanging around the union bar. Not even the union union bar, considering we were something like seven tube stops from the main campus; no, this was a satellite union bar, for all those who didn't fancy the journey to the main union bar. You can possibly imagine the quality and style of people this attracted. The word 'calibre' springs to mind, but only in the case of 'small'.

I think these photos are of the last night on campus before going home for the summer. I say this only because at the end of the roll there are some shots of London by Night circa '99, where myself and two friends-at-the-time drove into the heart of London and out again, watching the sun go down. It was just about as cool as it sounds - so your mileage may vary - but it's also a timely reminder that, for me at least, friendships seem to have varying half-lives.

... Oh god. I've just reached the Polaroids from an old Joycam (tm) - a polaroid camera that too teeny, tiny photos - and I've just had to clean up what I'm hoping was dried coffee from the front of all of them, because if it was dried blood... Well... fuck.

Still, some cold water later, all good. This is a very, very strange experience, though, all tangled up in weird skeins of emotions long forgotten or long-hoped-forgotten.

Here's something. Go here for a moment and read up. (See? Educational and informative.) I've said it before, but none of you believed it then, so I'll say it again; working with Young People every day is a strange struggle not to Cassandra them into catatonia.

Students of 2010, I offer you one essential piece of advice:

Don't buy so much stupid shit!

This is less of a problem for you now than it was for my generation, such as I have one. Put it this way; look at your iTunes or your WMA files. If you've bought or downloaded your music from legitimate or illegitimate websites, then you have one distinct advantage on my generation, i.e. not having to own the bastard things physically.

Picture this, if you will. For me, first, there were cassette tapes; the advantage of these was being able to record whatever you wanted on to the blank ones (and I still have a soft spot in my heart for mixtapes) but the disadvantages were easy of breaking and the need to rewind them manually, like videotapes, to the point you wanted. Then came CDs; no recording what you liked - yet - but no rewinding, either, what with the whole 'track' thing. Then there were minidiscs, but the less said about them the better, although in passing it's worth noting that they combined the worst aspects of tapes - having, at least to begin with, to record songs in real time - with the worst aspects of CDs, i.e. they were a bugger to record over.

Then came .mp3s, and suddenly, slowly, a shift began towards a world where the physical form of the media didn't actually matter any more.

Which means that the five hundred odd CDs and DVDs are now a massive pain in the arse to store, but not as bad as the cassette tapes, floppy discs and goddamn video tapes currently clogging up the garage. Add to this the books I read for pleasure plus the books I read to study and hey, you can see my problem.

I tried to alleviate this last year. Ten dustbin bags of clothes, CDs, books and videos went to the charity shops. Another ten went to the local municipal dump. Curiously, this only seemed to make things worse. Suddenly, the upstairs storage was filled with boxes from the downstairs storage, and the downstairs storage couldn't even be gotten into without crampons and hefty climbing boots.

Like I say, this is less of a problem for The Current Generation, raised as they were on .mp3s, torrents, filesharing, and anything other than having to actually pay for the damn thing. And, without condoning criminal activity, good for them, because it means that, in ten years time, they won't be spending hours of their lives going over everything they every bought and trying to work out why they bought it in the first place...