Thanks to invitations from Yuri Makino, I have attended more than a half dozen showings of student films in the last couple of years. Yuri is associate professor in the School of Theatre, Film & TV at the College of Fine Arts at the University of Arizona. I’ve seen finished works as well as works in progress. In the latter instances the purpose of the showing was to solicit comments from teachers and fellow students. The college opens some of these showings to invited guests.
Sandwiched between my early childhood desire to be a cowboy and my later interest in being an astronaut was a fleeting desire to pursue a career as a teacher. I really enjoy the company of young people, and I’m dedicated to learning, so sitting in on the film presentations suits me well.
Yuri suggested I write this post to share my observations from these several encounters, and that is what I have set out to do.
My first impression is that the technical work by these students is excellent. Their average level of competence with lighting, composition, visual pacing, point of view in terms of camera placement, and sensitivity to visual detail is very high. My second impression is that their story-telling ability is inconsistent. This ought not surprise anyone given the enormous challenge of telling stories well, and the youthfulness of these budding artists.
Budding film makers fall prey to a number of clichés, as you might expect. Well, many famous Hollywood directors do too, so let’s be gentle with the students.
The work-in-progress showings are a step in preparing a finished piece no longer than seven minutes. Many of them were far too ambitious for this short time frame, and they left out essential information that would have enabled the viewer to get oriented around the situation and the characters. The audience is sometimes left guessing about characters, motives, and the back story.
Another trap that catches some students is to introduce irrelevant and incongruous material that seems timely and topical to the film maker, but which only distracts the viewer from the plot line. Learning that less is more is probably challenging given the marvelous capabilities of modern video production techniques. You can hang a lot of figurative chrome on a video these days without even making your mouse breathe hard.
A more conceptual shortcoming relates to the film maker’s need to, as the saying goes, declare where he or she is coming from. For example, when a character is introduced as an alcoholic, the film ought not simply ignore that behavior as it moves forward with the story line. It causes the viewer to wonder if the director/writer doesn’t consider it a problem worth resolving.
A related shortcoming is that characters in these productions tend to be all good, or all bad, or all incompetent, or whatever. In short, they suffer from being two-dimensional, and therefore caricatures.
I also observed what seems to me to be a disproportionate interest in gloom, apocalyptic visions, and anger on the part of the film makers. These themes seem to be chosen more than the law of averages would suggest. This tendency intrigues me.
I particularly admire students who take up controversial topics, and topics that involve revealing their own pain in real life. There is some outstanding work being done in such areas, and these include the Occupy Movement, graffiti outlaws, family conflicts, and addiction. In the public screenings one sees no lazy film making. I have been thoroughly impressed with the commitment these students have made.
Providing feedback to artists is a tricky business. Great artists master their medium, and then they break the rules. Without mastery, rule breaking is just anarchy. The critic serves best when he stays within the bounds of judging the artist’s level of mastery. It’s a fine line, I think.
I will close this post by saluting the film students at the U of A for their talent, energy and imagination, and by thanking Yuri for the invitations to view this excellent work.
Tucsonans can view student work at the annual I Dream in Widescreen event at the Fox Theater May 12, 2012 at 7:00 p.m.
