To Begin

Let's start with a brief overview of what this blog is about. I'm currently working as a projectionist but digital technology and computer automation are slowly taking away most parts of the job I enjoy. Some days I feel I'm just waiting for things to break so I'll have something to fix. Films don't need to be made up or broken down anymore. There's no careful lacing, no splicing joints in the dark. When I inspect a lamp these days I have to take a laptop with me. Admittedly I also have to wear kevlar which makes it feel a bit like I'm setting up for some extreme Call of Duty session - which is kind of cool - but overall things are getting dull, so it's time to move on before we're finally forced out.

The plan is to move right the way from the Finished Product end of the film industry, right back to where it all begins. To do that I'll have to go back to school because a degree in Artificial Intelligence and an average hundred films a year watched at the cinema probably aren't good enough qualifications on their own. In case you were wondering, my favourite of those four hundred-odd films I've seen since I started was Pixar's Up, and the one I spent all two hours thinking "I'm gonna leave now. I'm gonna walk out. I can't take much more of this. Although... maybe it'll get better soon?" was 10,000 BC. It got better neither soon nor ever.

I love film, I really do, I've got a little fake oscar trophy somewhere to prove it. I can tell you why I like what I like, why Brick is such a good film and why 10,000 BC was so terrible. I can deconstruct the final product, maybe not with as much finesse as I'd like, but I can take it apart and discuss the pieces. What I can't do is put it all together in the first place. This blog is here to show my research into production, my preparation for the course and finally to accompany the work I'll have prepared for the interview.

If I get accepted, this blog will continue all through the summer and perhaps carry on after the course begins, if I don't get accepted I suspect I'll lose enthusiasm, but for now I'm just going to focus on what will be needed for my portfolio and the interview. I don't have a showreel, or any scripts written. I don't have a background in creative or design subjects. What I have is a handful of flash fiction pieces posted on 365tomorrows and some experience at co-ordinating the approaching zombie apocalypse. What I plan on producing over the next few weeks is the script for a short film adapted from one of those fiction pieces I wrote, and to then draw a storyboard for it.

My experience of film and moving image is mostly feature films and TV series. Serieses. Serii. Whatever the plural is, I've watched a whole bunch of them. Anyway, the course I'm hoping to attend - NUCA's Film and Moving Image Production BA - focuses a lot on short films, so along with the scriptwriting and storyboarding research I'll need to watch a load of short films, encompassing short fiction, documentaries, music videos and adverts. Perhaps it's because programming was really quite dull and I regretted my course choice first time round, but it's a confusing sensation for me to actually be looking forward to all this work I have to do.