Leading or Following - Reconsidering Film School (part4)
Language and Learning
[part 4 of a 5-part musing on the idea of Film School and its
relationship to industry learning and art. Its not intended as a set
of fully formed or precisely structured arguments but rather a set of
musings on what the ideals and implications of Film School should could
and might be...?]When we boil down to the very essence of Education and Art there are, in truth, only two things that a Film School can teach - everything else is just the trappings and trimmings. Moreover both are things that are extremely difficult to garner outside of formal learning and a dedicated institution. (Ironically however I would venture that these two things are very often either neglected or curtailed by many film school curricula).
The first and foremost is Cinema Literacy. Watching a lot of films and reading a few books is all well and good but a litany of shot framings and what they are supposed to mean is not Cinema Literacy. Such distillations of cinema language are the equivalent of my 2 year old daughter reciting the alphabet. The basis of literacy certainly, but until she can read (and more importantly Write) a novel its not a true sophisticated literacy. Its simply regurgitation.
Cinema Language is more intricate, more sophisticated, more complex and varied than any written form known to human kind. Its a vibrant and endlessly dynamic mediascape of runic audio-visual hieroglyphs where subtle serifs are the nuanced inflections that fundamentally alter meaning. Moreover it is a language that grows and evolves with every new cinematic work, with every new technology, with every new viewing medium.
So to suggest that you can begin to attain a comprehensive literacy of contemporary cinema from watching a lots of movies and reading books is either grossly naïve or profoundly arrogant...
Of course there will always those aiming for lowest-common-denominator filmmaking. In which case ignorance is bliss. But for the purposes of my soap-boxing Im going to pretentiously assume a more broadly held desire by aspiring filmmakers to be fucking exception rather than putridly banal.
The central and fundamental element Film School can (and should) teach is Cinema Literacy. All the technical skills in the world are merely the means to enact Cinema Literacy. Film School provides the most viable crucible to teach how to speak and write with all the sophistication of the cinema language. Film School is uniquely placed - if its outside and looking beyond industry, if its embedded in a concerted environment for engagement with cinema process - to build a more rich and dense vocabulary of cinema language than could ever by obtained outside of formal learning. Learning the words that make up the language of cinema is one thing, stringing them together into articulate and engaging audio-visual sentences of profound viewer engagement is quite another. Thats cinema literacy.
But still there is another step that true cinema literacy delivers...
Good cinema happens when the filmmaker can exploit the detailed audio visual language of the cinema - But GREAT cinema happens when the filmmaker invents their own language for the cinematic experience itself.
All the truly great works of cinema, over the century of cinema history, have in some way invented new cinema language. From Meliese and the cinema of the fantastical effect, to Cecil B DeMille and inscription of a true Epic cinema vocabulary, on to Kubrick who with every film he made invented entirely new cinema words subsequently used and exploited by all filmmakers to follow.
Its this possibility for true cinema literacy that is the potential beating heart Film School offers. Film School should, and can, be the most effective cauldron for smelting language into new cinematic words, new phrases, new inflections and dialects.
Film School cant teach talent and raw skills are just not enough. But what Film School can teach (or, more correctly, provide a dynamic environment for the exploration of) that cant be effectively learned on your own, is Cinema Literacy; The vast combination of knowledge, skill, experience, instinct, understanding and energy that when forged together by a distinct and focused environment produces a linguistic platform far exceeding the sum of its parts.
But there is one other unique offering Film School has, one it shares as the true pedagogical promise of all education institutions. Whilst a Film School on the surface may portend teaching camera, sound, editing and writing, these are all micro-level implementations of the one true thing Film School should and can teach... How to Learn, the art of learning itself.
The the overarching single thing any education can, should and must deliver for a student is a tangible and consummate ability to Learn. Students must be taught the process and art of learning itself, how to acquire, absorb, process and, most importantly, apply new skills, knowledge and ideas. Its here that I find flaw in the way many Film Schools position their learning.
Far too often the focus can fall to software-use rather than creative process, camera operating rather than the art of cinematography, emphasis on the here and now rather than the broader concepts of creative process that expand beyond the here and now. And its the misguided idea of what the industry wants is what drives this lowest-common denominator approach to skills.
A Film School focused on serving the needs of the industry rather than leading it largely sets itself up to become an institution that will fail to teach students How to Learn. It may well build skills to guarantee an immediate job, but it stands a good chance of failing to equip students for life-long learning, self-improvement, dynamic flexibility in creative application.
When a school aims to serve the industry it invariably bogs itself down in brand-loyalty, proprietary technologies, specific applications and inflexible models of production. We see film schools training Final Cut Pro/Avid Users (who know every software menu and function) Rather than real Editors (who can manipulate narrative, meaning and ideas regardless of which system they sit in front of - both now and 20 years form now.)
The Film School intent upon serving the industry effectively embodies a ideology of teaching the right way to make a film. To serve the industry is to declare that there is a right and accepted way to make cinema. And if it doesn't meet with current practice it must be wrong, incorrect, not-viable.
This idea of an acceptable way and an unacceptable way to make cinema is plainly farcical in a contemporary cinema landscape where we are making cinema (moving image media) in ways, means and modes never seen before, in diversity not seen before, in scale and flexibility weve not seen before, delivering via mediums weve not known before. Machinima and real-time environments, compositing and motion graphics, 3D environments, interactive forms, online streaming media, mobile devices, gaming, download and on and on and on.
When a Film School focuses on Leading the industry rather than Serving it, it aligns its priorities in a fundamentally different polar pattern. It frees itself from slavishly adhering to malformed ideas of industry standards. Software brands and camera types take second place to Assembly, Form and Process. It dispenses with the idea of a right way to create cinema and instead intrinsically aligns itself with an exploration of the many ways to create cinema and moreover shifts focus to the analytical process to work out the Best way to make cinema commensurate with the needs of the creator and the creation.
The Film School focused on Leading the industry is one focused first and foremost on teaching students How to Learn. As a result it positions itself to be able to build skills and knowledge of cinematic processes that transcend the here and now, that can grow beyond the here and now and inform cinema production regardless of how modes, means and methods change over time.
To do this a Film School education must primarily provide an Environment not a Curriculum. The Curriculum dictates What to learn but the Environment dictates and shapes the learning process itself. Its the environment that makes Film School unique; an environment of experiential learning, collaborative learning, an environment where mistakes are not just allowed but encouraged. A Film School focused on making highly polished festival successful, industry-approved, films is one that is failing its students. A student learns infinitely more form making films that are ambitious and fall short than those that are conservative and succeed. Polished films are low hanging fruit. Films that dare to fail, that reach far beyond ability have the potential to teach infinitely more and have a far more profound impact on the pedagogical journey of the student.
All this is not to suggest that an education from a Film School aiming to lead and challenge the industry, rather than serve it, is divorced from technical craft and grounded production process mechanisms. It is a great myth to suggest that the two are mutually exclusive.
Posted at 12:00AM Sep 15, 2008
by Mike Jones in media education |
