And the stars look very different today

DoaMS: For the love of study

So here's a thing that, although it's difficult to admit, is actually fairly obvious from previous blog postings; for various reasons, most of which have been complained about or repeatedly mentioned, up until very recently I wasn't actually particularly looking forward to my last year as a mature student before returning, further educated, to the Real World (tm).

Some of these reasons - leaving last year utterly burnt out, having my work plagiarised, fun stuff like that - were valid. Some of the others - general malaise, resenting the mechanics of the course, feeling lost in the interpersonal department politics - were less valid, mostly because they wouldn't even be relevant if I weren't in the position I'm now in, which is, shockingly, a good one.

Here's the thing; because I put in a lot of enthusiasm and hard work into the first two years - which, in part, lead to the aforementioned burnout, but let's leave that by the wayside - as I walk in the valley of the shadow of the final year, it actually looks pretty good. I have a GPA - to go all American and whatnot for a moment - that makes a solid foundation for my final year's work, to the point where I will hopefully actually be able to discard some of my crappier grades when it comes down to the final scoreline.

The one thing that was bugging me more than it really should have was the Advanced Filmmaking course, necessitating as it does having an actual film to make, from idea all the way to DVD, and now I have something which makes me realise that a key part of my working practice is to be Stubborn And Argumentative.

Let's elucidate; I have a film I want to make which I get the feeling nobody else will like, or which might get labelled as pretentious, or 'arty', or... whatever. If it were to have a label, it would be labelled 'Cheap Science Fiction', i.e. big concepts, no budget. But out of all of the scripts I've been working on over the summer, it's the only one that feels right somehow.

I have no idea how I'm going to sell it to the course tutor.

And there are so many problems that need sorting with the script and how to actually realise it as a film.

And that's how, it turns out, I like it.

So I've gone from not looking forward to actively interested in terms of next year's work. Hell, I've even renewed my NUS card early - although, to be honest, with a picture of Peter Gunn rather than myself, for no other reason than I can - whereas last year that was left to the last minute. Then again, last year I used a photo of myself from last century's student living, which was... weird. So maybe this is a step forward.

In every Practical Film book - and every self-made director's biography - there's a telling phrase or sentence which always (always) involves one iteration or another of the belief that you don't need to go to film school to be a filmmaker. And that's very true - Sam Raimi, Robert Rodriguez et al were out making films on whatever camera presented itself when they were very, very young.

And good for them.

But film school - weird as it has been in places - has been a pretty positive experience for me. Sure, there's been summers filled with big nothing - which I'm sure have earned me the enmity of my sponsors, for good or ill, but when you get knocked back for minimum wage jobs consistently, it gets harder and harder to actually want to apply for the local supermarket or outlet store or pub. Because, frankly, this summer followed exactly the same model as last year - apply for minimum-or-low wage job for the summer, get turned down, repeat ad nauseam. It's a little bizarre. But not doing this is perceived as doing nothing, and doing nothing is just not done.

So instead, this summer has been devoted to various grounding exercises - to use the language of the magic books I read oh-so-long-ago - to try to find the right mental space to approach next year. And they seem to be working, because, hey, I'm not complaining, and that's a step up from the last ten or so posts.

So let's end this on a positive note - it's around, I think, six weeks until term starts again. And right now that's starting to feel like a good thing.