a good quote

There seems no doubt that a group can make or break its members, and that it's more powerful than the individuals in it. A great group can propel its members forward so that they achieve amazing things. Many teachers don't seem to think that manipulating a group is their responsibility at all. If they're working with a destructive, bored group they just blame the students for being 'dull', or uninterested. It's essential for the teacher to blame himself if the group aren't in a good state.

Normal schooling is intensely competitive, and the students are supposed to try and outdo each other. If I explain to a group that they're to work for the other members, that each individual is to be interested in the progress of the other members, they're amazed, yet obviously if a group supports its own members strongly, it'll be a better group to work in.

This comes from Keith Johnstone's book Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre. He's an acting teacher and that's what the book is mostly about, but earlier in his life he'd been an elementary school teacher (8 to 10 year olds). He's British and he was teaching school in the 50s and acting in the 60s and 70s. (Maybe later, but the book was copyright 1979.) What I find interesting is how much he seems to be describing the American educational system. And America generally, really. We are so competitive, so individualistic. I can and will make it on my own. I can't win unless you lose. And yet to me his point seems so obvious. If we work together we will achieve so much more than if we rely only on ourselves.

I think that's one of the things that draws me to filmmaking. It's a team sport. you can't really do it alone. And in my experience the ideas that start out just in my head end up so much better after the collaborative group gets involved.

Am I old or am I experienced?

You know we have been watching films this week. Yesterday was Frankenstein and I was a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (both 1931 and pre-code). Tomorrow we're watching Angels with Dirty Faces (1938, so post-code) and then talking about all three. They were interesting/entertaining enough. It was a little difficult to watch Frankenstein mostly because I've recently seen the National Theater Live broadcasted stage version of Frankenstein which was based on the original source material and not on the movie and so wildly different. And so I watched the whole thing constantly comparing the two. But if you think about the three eras - when the book was written, when the film was made, and when the stage play was made - it is an interesting comparison. You learn a lot about people by what they find horrific. Mostly though I'm falling farther and farther behind in my reading for that class because it's just not as interesting to me as trying to prep for tomorrow's shoot, or trying to work my head around new story ideas for screenwriting.

Why study film history at all

They weren't working in a vacuum and neither are we. I am on a path whether I want to be or not. It's hard to go forward without knowing where you're coming from. All of the visual language that we understand today without even knowing that we know it was either developed or exploited by the people who came before.

The classes I have the most and the least experience in

On Wednesdays I have 2 classes. In the morning Film Production 1 and in the afternoon Acting for Directors. In both classes it's just the 5 of us. (#6, a guy named Brian, bailed at the last minute so really just the 5 of us.) One would think the production class will be the one we bond most in because film production is what we're here for. I don't think that's going to be true though. I think Acting is where we'll end up becoming friends (or not, but I think yes).

For production we're starting out with actual film, which is very cool as I've not shot film before. Not moving film anyway. Though so far my still film background is helping in that we were discussing how it works physically: emulsion and the chemical reaction of silver halide to the sun and that sort of stuff. It all made sense to me from what I already knew. Have to write a treatment for our first project to turn in on Monday. I think I have an idea so I just need to write it up. Will try to get that done before the weekend. I don't mind leaving myself reading to do on the plane, but I'd rather not have the pressure of getting writing done while I'm otherwise stressed.

And then acting. I'm not sure what to say about acting. We did exercises. He talked a lot, but he's kind of funny so that's all right. At the end we did a sort of scene. That would have been more painful if there was any expectation on me to be a good actor. But there's not so the fact that I sucked was fine. 10 years ago that would have been the most anxiety producing class ever, but now it's just fun. He was very surprised when there was only the 5 of us there. We really are the smallest class they've ever had. But after he thought about it he was pleased because we'll be able to do more things with a smaller group because you don't have to wait so long for everyone to have a turn at whatever.

Tonight for my Masterworks class I'll be watching Birth of a Nation by D.W.Griffith (1915). I understand why it's important; it's one of the first films to do narrative storytelling in the way we now understand it for film. Or probably more accurate to say we understand narrative storytelling because of this film. I don't anticipate enjoying the story though. It is at it's core a white supremacist propaganda film.