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It is an oft quoted fact of the film industry that it is not what you know, but who you know. It seems that whoever you speak to currently employed in the world of film, from a producer to a runner, they will quote you the same line. It isn’t what you know. It is WHO you know.
There is only once place in which this idiom is conveniently forgotten: film school. It seems that there, a place where students should be fully prepared for what they will be coming across later in their careers, a great importance is placed on the ability to analyze the films of some obscure director during the period of some time to a little bit later down the line, in essay form.
Let me take a moment to clarify what we are not talking about here. What we are NOT talking about is a ‘Media Studies’ course. If a person found themselves on such a course, they would have no right to complain about writing an essay discussing American Culture as depicted in the films of John Doe. It is right there in the title; the study of media. I’d go as far as saying that they’d be spending ninety percent of their time writing essays on films, as well as radio and print media. But I would also expect that over ninety percent of the people on these courses won’t actually go into the film industry, instead getting careers in PR and other such enterprises.
But if we aren’t talking about ‘Media Studies’, let us look at the title of what we are discussing: ‘Film and Moving Image Production’. Space, and usage of the word count, could be spent analyzing the word choice of the course, and yet I fear that this will demean you as the reader and myself as a writer. I’m sure we all understand what each of the individual words mean and that, even though the words are in a slightly different order, it depicts the production of films and other means of moving image. The title is a simple one, which is why I find it odd that certain modules appear in the syllabus. For example, ‘History of Film’, studied in the first year, seems to have just taken the word ‘film’ from the course title and run with it, never looking back to see if it is really that significant. Instead of a look at how to go about making films (or moving images), the module instead treats the student to what happened when in the history of film. This seems like a module that should be reserved for a ‘History’ course or the pre-mentioned ‘Media Studies’, not a study in the production of a movie.
However, it is the dissertation that is the king of these modules, so strikingly out-of-place that I often wonder how the course hasn’t been sued under the trade description act. Having read many books on the subject and spoken to many people currently working in the industry, I have yet to come across a single mention of the importance of essay writing in a successful film career. And don’t get me wrong, I have tried. I’ve scoured the web for some kind of mention, even the briefest of sentences, which tells me that what I really need to know how to do to be the next Spielberg is the ability to analyze the themes in the latest Lynch movie. At the time of writing, my search has been fruitless.
It seems to me that the dissertation is an old university tradition that doesn’t seem to get the hint that he isn’t really wanted, or needed, anymore, particularly on a course that is supposed to be predominantly practical. It is there to test the ability of the student to research and analyze text before presenting it in a reasoned and well-written way. In this way, it tests the research, analytical and writing skills of the person submitted the dissertation. On another course, where I’m sure these skills are prized, this is a very good way to grade a student on what they have learnt in their three year run. On a ‘Film Production’ course, these skills mean close to nothing.
Before I continue, let me first address an argument that I feel could be used against my previous statement. Yes, in the field of director, analytical skills can be of use. It is very important for a director to be able to analyze a script and break it down into what is important and what isn’t. Also, in the field of screenwriter, research skills and writing skills tend to go down well. However, my point lies in the fact that essays are being asked for, instead of scripts, and these are two totally different beasts. Someone perfectly qualified to write a screenplay may find it difficult to write their thoughts down in a ‘suitable’ essay style and would be marked down for it. Likewise, the analysis of a script and of a critical film study are different skills, and I find it very difficult to understand why a student should be marked down for not managing the latter, when it is the former that they will be required to do in the future. And what of a cinematographer, someone who will never really need these three skill later down the line? Is it fair that someone perfectly capable of lighting a scene beautifully be marked down because he doesn’t know how a more famous DOP lit his beautiful scene?
It isn’t as if dissertations are the be-all-and-end-all of third year marking. There are many courses that do away with them completely or offer students an alternative choice. Many courses acknowledge that the skills needed in a dissertation are not those needed for a later career in mathematics, events management, etc. So once again I must implore an answer to my question: why are we still being asked to take part in such out-dated, pointless folly?
There are so many other alternatives to the dissertation. In a brief five minutes brainstorm I can come up with four superior ideas, which can only leave me to surmise that whoever settled on the dissertation decision didn’t even put that much time into thinking about it.
First, the obvious: a screenplay. It remains a written document, something easy for marking and handing in. Whilst there are issues with the subjectivity of the marker in terms of story, there are things which can easily be described as right and wrong. Layout, for example, can either be done correctly or incorrectly and could be marked accordingly. Pacing, grammar, writing style could all be marked. When and how each of the characters are introduced. How clunky the dialogue is. All of these could make up what a potential screenplay writing student could be marked on.
Another option, skating along the lines of the last, is analysis of a screenplay. Whilst this comes close to an actual dissertation the key difference is that it is relevant to the course, not plucked from the annuls of university history seemingly at random. A student could get marked on their ability to recognize changes of act, break down dialogue choices and identify themes within the text.
Of course I understand that not everybody on a ‘filmmaking’ course wants to be a screenwriter or do something related to those fields. So let me move into something more practical: an exam day. For example, let us say that a student wants to be a director. They could receive a script a week before the day, a scene chosen by the staff to specifically test the skills needed later in life. On the actual day, the student is provided with actors and told to shoot the scene. They are then marked on their ability to do so; by communicating with actors, the crew, picking shots and remaining adaptable. Several tutors are there to watch them work and grade accordingly. In the perfect world, the tutors would be on set during the shooting of the major productions, but since that seems impossible, this may be the next best thing. The student could then be asked to provide a written, or a spoken, account of the decisions they chose and the reasons behind them, just in case this wasn’t obvious on the actual day.
The same principles, with slight changes, could be applied to each other the other specialties. A production design student could be given a certain budget and asked to build a set to suit certain needs. A cinematography student may be asked to light a scene in several different ways. It would even be possible for the latter to light the set of the former. There are arguments that this may be unfair, one student relying on another for their grades, but that is what the industry is like. If one person isn’t pulling their weight, other people suffer.
Another argument against the above idea is that it would require a lot of time from the tutors. Well, tough. The tutors and the course should work around us, for it is us that are paying for both to survive. If a better solution to dissertations is available, but it requires more man hours, hire more people! Besides, I’d like to hope that a tutor is going to spend at least two hours marking my paper, so it wouldn’t be so much of a stretch to use that time differently.
A radically different, and more organized, work experience scheme would also work as a superior alternative to the dissertation. In an industry that rewards actual real experience, why does a film course not have the relevant contacts to provide work placements for students? A simple marking scheme, provided to the person taking care of the student, could be used, but in my opinion the fact that the student has spent a day/week/month on a film set is vastly superior to being able to write about what emotions a film evokes.
My point, no matter how strung out it is currently seeming, is that there are other, better, options to the dissertation. Options that don’t leave me looking at the tutors as crazy people for even thinking for a moment that an essay is at all relevant on our course or in the real world. These are options that would have me thinking that perhaps this course did have my back, did care about me and wasn’t populated by a succession of wannabe filmmakers that didn’t quite make it and now feel bitter towards the younger generation for their looks and talent and starry-eyed, untainted view of the world.
But, of course, these options must remain fictional, at least until the end of my time at University. I will eventually have to re-open my half-finished (and half is being generous) dissertation and keep on trucking. Because it isn’t very often that things are changed by the one voice shouting out from the crowd. Even if everyone else agrees, if they hand in their papers on the hand-in date, then this will just come across as the bitter, ranting of someone who is just fed up of staring at a blank page and wondering ‘What is the point?!’. Which I guess is what this is.
Damn.
:(
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