I mistakenly thought that when I signed up for this class called "Documentary Field Production" that I would be learning skills connected with field production in documentaries. MY BAD. Apparently the correct title for this class should have been "Wales Trip/Experimental Film".
I am SO FUCKING TIRED of working in the fucking artsy experimental realm of film making. That's good like once...but in all of the production courses I have taken in this department, only 2 have let me do what the fuck I want for my final project, and only one that featured no REAL experimental work within. Film II.
Film II we had two projects, a small short in class assignment in which you tried to appeal to senses other than sight. The film was silent, so you had to appeal to hearing, taste, smell, our touch using only visual aids. That is a decent and challenging assignment. MY final project had two basic requirements, be between 5 and 20 minutes in length, and sync sound with film at least ONCE. Again an assignment that gives me free range to do what I want while simultaneously requiring me to learn a few basic skills in shooting film, editing, sound recording and mixing.
In Optical Printing and Animation I was able to do what ever I wanted for the final project, but I was still stuck trying to do Optical Printing and experimental work in the midst of a class that really should have been TWO DIFFERENT CLASSES.
In Film I, I was forced to do a surreal project, not my cup of tea, but HEY, its only one class right? Video I was an Abstract Animation, again not my cup of tea. I want to tell a fucking story and be funny, and anytime I attempted to do so in either class it was met with disdain from HOLLY. Video II was a nightmare of a class with bullshit exercises that taught me little, bad in class exercises in which Holly herself either LOST HER FUCKING MIND or taught us skills like green screen or jib arm with the education skills of a retarded baboon.
So after taking all these bullshit experimental after experimental film courses, I felt refreshed that I was taking Advanced Television, with a teacher in the communications department I like, respect, and quite honestly teaches me something NEW and USEFUL, as well as a class with no possibility of turning into another half-assed bullshit experimental artsy film course. DOCUMENTARY.
I thought I would learn skills on how to plan, schedule, and budget a documentary film. I thought that even though I was unable to take Dyrk's Production Management course I would learn some basic pre-production skills that I missed out on. Then I thought we'd go to Wales and utilize all the planning and pre-production and maybe even some production skills we learned up to that point, and we would SHOOT A GODDAMNED DOCUMENTARY. We'd return home and start work on the post production and editing process. I thought I'd learn some skills, and I'd get something new and useful that I hadn't before, maybe shoot something straightforward for once.
I was wrong though. With only a week left until we leave for a foreign country to shoot an entire documentary, we have no plan. We've done no pre-production work beyond look at some cameras and discuss vague ideas of possible routes for topics. We've made no schedule together, Tammy is taking care of that herself, an itinerary of events that sound more like vacation than a work schedule. Everyone else either is content to go with the flow of things, or believe that we need little planning as we "won't know what we want until we are there."
I reject this idea, as the BOOK TAMMY HERSELF ASSIGNED SAYS THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE. Documentaries takes months or years of planning and pre-production. We have gone over NOTHING. The plan for the documentary is that we will look at the experience of us, as Americans, in Wales. That is pretty damn vague.
Last night I made an attempt to get some kind focus out of this thing and the group, and I was met with derision, deflection, and downright snotty attitudes that left me feeling more annoyed with this production than before I asked the question. People got defensive and took a sharp tone while telling me it would be "experiential" and about "place" and what that means. They kept saying things like they had their own solo/side project they were going to make, but that they would also work on the group project. No one seemed to get that my problem wasn't that people wanted to make side projects, but that the GROUP PROJECT HAS NO PLAN AT ALL. I tried to take it further and explain what I meant, but Meg and Scott seemed so annoyed that I would even question Tammy's wisdom that I just kind of gave up.
Why try and convince these people that are completely happy and content having the same unprepared experimental film class with vague terms and lazy assumptions OVER AND OVER AND OVER again? They like thinking that if they are making on the fly unprepared work with pretentious overtones that they may be better than others somehow. But I am at a point where I thank whatever higher power there may or may not be that I am taking these COMM TV classes, because Don and John have taught more about what it is ACTUALLY like to work in this Film, Video, and Broadcast world than Tammy or Holly combined.
I like Tammy, and I love that I am going to WALES. I am absolutely ecstatic about it, but I am nothing short of frustrated when it comes to the work we are meant to be doing on this trip.
I am SO FUCKING TIRED of working in the fucking artsy experimental realm of film making. That's good like once...but in all of the production courses I have taken in this department, only 2 have let me do what the fuck I want for my final project, and only one that featured no REAL experimental work within. Film II.
Film II we had two projects, a small short in class assignment in which you tried to appeal to senses other than sight. The film was silent, so you had to appeal to hearing, taste, smell, our touch using only visual aids. That is a decent and challenging assignment. MY final project had two basic requirements, be between 5 and 20 minutes in length, and sync sound with film at least ONCE. Again an assignment that gives me free range to do what I want while simultaneously requiring me to learn a few basic skills in shooting film, editing, sound recording and mixing.
In Optical Printing and Animation I was able to do what ever I wanted for the final project, but I was still stuck trying to do Optical Printing and experimental work in the midst of a class that really should have been TWO DIFFERENT CLASSES.
In Film I, I was forced to do a surreal project, not my cup of tea, but HEY, its only one class right? Video I was an Abstract Animation, again not my cup of tea. I want to tell a fucking story and be funny, and anytime I attempted to do so in either class it was met with disdain from HOLLY. Video II was a nightmare of a class with bullshit exercises that taught me little, bad in class exercises in which Holly herself either LOST HER FUCKING MIND or taught us skills like green screen or jib arm with the education skills of a retarded baboon.
So after taking all these bullshit experimental after experimental film courses, I felt refreshed that I was taking Advanced Television, with a teacher in the communications department I like, respect, and quite honestly teaches me something NEW and USEFUL, as well as a class with no possibility of turning into another half-assed bullshit experimental artsy film course. DOCUMENTARY.
I thought I would learn skills on how to plan, schedule, and budget a documentary film. I thought that even though I was unable to take Dyrk's Production Management course I would learn some basic pre-production skills that I missed out on. Then I thought we'd go to Wales and utilize all the planning and pre-production and maybe even some production skills we learned up to that point, and we would SHOOT A GODDAMNED DOCUMENTARY. We'd return home and start work on the post production and editing process. I thought I'd learn some skills, and I'd get something new and useful that I hadn't before, maybe shoot something straightforward for once.
I was wrong though. With only a week left until we leave for a foreign country to shoot an entire documentary, we have no plan. We've done no pre-production work beyond look at some cameras and discuss vague ideas of possible routes for topics. We've made no schedule together, Tammy is taking care of that herself, an itinerary of events that sound more like vacation than a work schedule. Everyone else either is content to go with the flow of things, or believe that we need little planning as we "won't know what we want until we are there."
I reject this idea, as the BOOK TAMMY HERSELF ASSIGNED SAYS THE COMPLETE OPPOSITE. Documentaries takes months or years of planning and pre-production. We have gone over NOTHING. The plan for the documentary is that we will look at the experience of us, as Americans, in Wales. That is pretty damn vague.
Last night I made an attempt to get some kind focus out of this thing and the group, and I was met with derision, deflection, and downright snotty attitudes that left me feeling more annoyed with this production than before I asked the question. People got defensive and took a sharp tone while telling me it would be "experiential" and about "place" and what that means. They kept saying things like they had their own solo/side project they were going to make, but that they would also work on the group project. No one seemed to get that my problem wasn't that people wanted to make side projects, but that the GROUP PROJECT HAS NO PLAN AT ALL. I tried to take it further and explain what I meant, but Meg and Scott seemed so annoyed that I would even question Tammy's wisdom that I just kind of gave up.
Why try and convince these people that are completely happy and content having the same unprepared experimental film class with vague terms and lazy assumptions OVER AND OVER AND OVER again? They like thinking that if they are making on the fly unprepared work with pretentious overtones that they may be better than others somehow. But I am at a point where I thank whatever higher power there may or may not be that I am taking these COMM TV classes, because Don and John have taught more about what it is ACTUALLY like to work in this Film, Video, and Broadcast world than Tammy or Holly combined.
I like Tammy, and I love that I am going to WALES. I am absolutely ecstatic about it, but I am nothing short of frustrated when it comes to the work we are meant to be doing on this trip.
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