Can it possibly be Friday already?

Monday: The first "Documentary Research & History" class. The class was mostly some theory from Scott, and an intro from Sima. Scott focused on one of his favourite topics, the Truth, and threw us all into an uncomfortable place of confronting our roles as aspiring doco makers and how that sits with ideas about truth/authenticity/fact. Far more uncomfortable for me, however, was Sima's request that we all bring a documentary idea to class next week to begin working on our treatments.

WHAT?!?! NOOOOO!!!!!!!

I was so, SO looking forward to NOT having to make decisions on that for a while. I looked at the course title and thought, "Hurrah! A whole semester of analysing, discussing and researching documentary and documentary ideas!" Admittedly it would be great to spend so much time researching one idea, but I was expecting time to look at options first!!! I wish I had known ahead of time, so that I could have looked more thoroughly at options during the holidays. Maybe I should have been doing that anyway. But anyway, I cannot possibly convey HOW BADLY I want to write one of the treatments that gets chosen to be made next semester. The idea of making a film that I know inside and out and back to front sounds awesome. Sure I could make someone else's but it could never measure up. The research would all be second-hand. No thanks. Anyway, I need a great idea/s fast. And I currently have none. Eep!

Tuesday: Film theory in the morning. Turned up to class on time and the movie was already going. Actually, it had already been going for an hour. What the?! Turned out there had been an email during the week that I had missed out on, saying that the screenings would begin at 8am from now on. I won't make that mistake again. Vertigo was thoroughly confusing after missing the first hour and if there was a point to the film I did not get it. I did find the look of the film extremely beautiful though. The discussions afterwards were good in that I could actually grasp them, and for once I had done the reading, but to be honest the information has gone in one ear and out of the other (and same with the reading, although I don't know where it exited) as I cannot actually remember what the reading was about other than "film form". What did that mean again? I guess I'll have to skim over it before moving on to the next, EVEN LONGER reading.

The afternoon was directing class with Sima. Script analysis. I quite liked the script we worked on - it didn't read like a student script for once. The script analysis questions she gave us though were confusing to me, although she kept saying they were great because they were straight forward. I prefer the questions we got last year from Athina and will probably stick with those.

Wednesday: I missed the emerging technologies class in the mornin to go to the first Faculty Academic Committee for Creative Industries and Business (FAC CIB) meeting of the year. Sigh. It was disappointing to miss emerging technologies, and although I learned a lot at the meeting, unfortunately I also came to the realisation that the issues that are brought to that committee are things that I am very unlikely to have any useful input on.

My evening was spent in Grey Lynn park, snuggled on a picnic blanket with Rayner watching Goodbye Pork Pie in the open air. Unfortunately we were late and missed the start of it, and we didn't have a great view because some people who were even later than us plonked themselves in front of us, but nevertheless I was able to follow and enjoy the film. It took a while to get used to the HORRENDOUS acting but once that was achieved I could relax. The film has some very bizarre and some very funny moments, but despite its status as a class I can't say it's a film I want to emulate.

Thursday: Directing class in the afternoon was spent on scene analysis with the same script as the previous class. was glad to spend some time on that as even though I feel I'm quite strong with script analysis and understanding scripts and characters and mood etc as a whole, I really want to improve my attention to detail and ability to convey meaning throug the minutiae. I will definitely be using scene analysis when planning the shots and design for my next shoot.

The first genre studies class was held in the evening. The genre in focus will be "science fiction". It's a pity that I will only be able to go to every second class (I have USU Exec meetings in the weeks in between) as the first class was very interesting, despite the movie ("Things To Come") being extremely dull. Initially I thought to myself, "I don't really like science fiction", but actually that's not true. I just don't like specific films or sub-genres of science fiction, particularly Star Trek and most (but not all) space travel films. I do like many though, such as The Matrix, District 9, Gattaca, and I Am Legend, which I saw for the first time recently. Here's hoping the screenings for genre studies class fall primarily under my "like" column.

After genre studies Rayner was SUPPOSED to come and pick me up straight away so that we could go to another Movies In Parks session; this time to see Sione's Wedding. Unfortunately, he forgot, and so once again we missed the beginning of the film. Sione's Wedding had definite strengths and weaknesses. On the one hand, many parts of the film were very funny and entertaining. On the other hand, most of the parts that were supposed to be touching were so over-indulgent that they ended up being slightly repulsive. The acting was good and so was the script, but just wish the director had had a bit more of a sense of subtlety sometimes!

Today (Friday): "Advert development" in the morning, with the students from the other disciplines (except the writers). The class was run by Sima, who seems to have found her groove at the front of a class, which was nice to see. She also had a lot of interesting ads to show and interesting things to say about them, which made for an enjoyable class. I'm pleased that she's writing social ads for us. As much as I would love to sell a glamorous product (especially because I really want to practise constructing great visuals) I just don't think we could achieve something at Unitec that looks anything less than cheap (*cough* HD *cough*). On the other hand, social ads seem to very achievable in the time and budget constraints, and lend themselves to the crappy look of HD, which we will be shooting on. Fingers crossed that we get great scripts that lend themselves to creativity though!