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...
Tuesday, 13 October 2009
Thursday, 8 October 2009
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...
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...
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
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...
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...
Monday, 21 September 2009
"... 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?
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?
Thursday, 17 September 2009
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...
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...
Saturday, 29 August 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, 26 August 2009
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.
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.
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