First week back

So the first week back on the course after New Year started with a nice 2 o'clock start just to ease us back in gently. We are beginning to look into the origins of cinema in greater depth now, still looking at the history of cinema right from the very start with the invention of the camera and the first ever films like the arrival of the train. It's interesting to hear about these early days of cinema when the inventors like the Lumiere brothers and Edison scarcely realised the gold mine they had uncovered, thinking film would just be another passing fad. The stories of the early films like the train and the kiss are also quite funny as everyone watching the train film ran out of the way, terrified they were going to be hit by it and the kiss which caused national hysteria.

Tuesday's class with Ray was quite intense as is always expected, even though we still had the later start time of 2 o'clock. Today we were starting lighting for the first time and so, after we finally discovered which room we were in, we all took a trip to the kit room to take up all the lighting equipment. As is often the case in Ray's class, it was a furious note taking session for a lot of the time whilst he demonstrated the many different varieties of lights that the academy uses. On top of which we had to learn all the new industry slang combined with the official jargon - I never knew there could be so many words about lighting. After a break we had the opportunity to have a look at the different effects that the different types had. I was chosen to be the model for part of this and so, after the camera and monitor had been set up, had to sit in a chair and have the various lights tested on me to show everyone else the effects. This was quite a good laugh as well but we soon ran out of time and had to put all the kit safely away back in the kit room before 5 o'clock. That night at Cineworld, there was an advance showing of A Prophet, a new French film. Myself and Samuel Ferguson had managed to secure tickets to this prestigious event so went up to the cinema at about half six and were greeted by a joyous Michael Maxwell taking tickets. The film itself I thought was absolutely brilliant and it's easy to see why it's already won awards and been describes as the best film of the year. I'll probably go and see it again when it actually comes out so you can maybe expect a blog on it, if not at least I'll have the ticket to prove I was at it, how sad I know.

On Wednesday we got a text in the morning to inform us of a programme meeting at one o'clock with just us first years. This was really brief but it was still quite good all the same: we were informed that although the first term is not a particularly practical term, this one should be more hands on and that a new script competition was starting where any of us could submit a 2 page script on a specific subject and have the chance of it being commissioned by the tutors. After this we had about 50 minutes to kill before our TV class with Andy at 2. When this came we were in the new and exciting AGOS Board Room which is leaps and bounds ahead of our classic AGOS 9. It felt like we were in some sort of business conference with the long table and comfy chairs. We were warned by Andy at the start that this would be a really dry and potentially difficult to grasp lesson however it turned out to be not as bad at all. We were discussing authorship with regards to television and how this came about in the sixties due to a number of different factors. After the break we then watched an episode of the critically acclaimed television drama The Street. Last summer I watched this programme and up until recently I thought it was brand new when I was watching it but it turns out that was the third series. Anyway I already knew I liked it and how brilliantly written the episodes are. This episode I hadn't seen however as it was from the first series (I think) but it was absolutely brilliant and after it literally the whole class were astonished at how good it actually was. What makes the programme is undoubtedly the good writing and what I think makes the show so successful is that the idea for every episode is incredibly simple. Everything is very low concept and realistic yet the situations that arise are always so compelling that you can't help but want to watch right to the very end. Even the basic premise for the programme that every door has a story behind it is incredibly simple yet genius.

We got a text late on Wednesday night to tell us that Adam was sick and wouldn't be able to take our class on Thursday. So we decided to make the most of the day and a few of us went to the Xscape thing at Braehead and played ten pin bowling then went to Frankie and Benny's. After that we returned to halls and I sat and did some more work on my script for Richard. Later on we decided to go the the cinema just cause we're film students and we've got an excuse to. Some of the girls went to see Nine but having already seen this on Sunday night, me and Sam went to see Daybreakers, a vampire movie which was actually pretty good I thought. Sam and Harry then successfully stole a cardboard cutout of Nowhere Boy John Lennon from the Cineworld skip and we returned to halls at high speed just managing to evade Strathclyde's finest. After everyone went their separate ways I went back to my room and did more of my script. I managed to get a ground-breaking new idea for the ending so went crazy and did absolutely loads of it then went out to the Counting House for a couple of Guinness to celebrate.

On Friday, we knew that we would be watching a silent Russian film. Black and white. Silent. Russian. 1925. Not really the most exciting combination to be honest so I wasn't overly looking forward to the screening but for some reason was pleasantly surprised. Maybe it was just the kind of mood I was in but I actually enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. The main reason we were watching it was to gain an appreciation of the early techniques of film editing - where the film makers would literally cut a piece of film to edit it. This was actually very noticeable in Battleship Potemkin and it was clear that the Russians did spend much more time editing the clips. It was obvious that there were more shots from different angles and such like which shows they used editing in a more artistic way than purely for story-telling purposes. Fair enough the overall story was probably not that brilliant or riveting and as Amélie pointed out to me about half way through, the film was made for propaganda purposes. I much preferred this to Dr. Caligari, however, maybe it was just much easier to follow or I quite liked the subject matter, who knows but I actually didn't hate this movie. And as I said after it, I probably enjoyed it more than I enjoyed Nine.