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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
