Leading or Following - Reconsidering Film School (part5)
Cinema IS Technology.
[part 5 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...?]Cinema does not and cannot exist for either the creator or the viewer without the technical apparatus of its construction and delivery. As such any filmmaker who thinks of themselves as a non-technical filmmaker is simply deluded.
The difference however in the approach of the Industry Leading Film School as opposed to the Industry Serving Film School is that the former rejects ideas of industry standard tools - invariably a specific brand deemed acceptable in exclusivity - and instead embraces diversity and flexibility in understanding the technical underpinnings of all tools. This is something Ive written about many times before; most particularly the essay HOLISTIC THINKING - INTEGRATED MAKING. A manifesto of sorts, the key items of which reflected upon how to ensure students were not software users but real and empowered artisans. Fundamental therefore is the idea of Software Agnosticism and the Philosophy of the Tools.
One of the great tragedies of media making education over the past decade has been the supplanting of real knowledge, skills and core competencies with software specific, brand allied pseudo-skills. An editor, skilled and knowledgeable in the craft, technology and artistry of editing as a process, should be more than capable of sitting down in front of any editing system, any editing tool, and be able to produce functional quality work. A carpenter is not rendered useless by changing to a different type of circular saw..!
Sadly however we are in an era where instead of demanding this universality as a bench mark from creative artisans we accept the corporate-driven brand allegiance of software specific skills. Software and technology Users rather than real technical creators.
Any institution that teaches software specific functions above, or worse, in place of core processes is fundamentally dis-empowering their students and directly damaging the broader creative industry, making it slavishly adherent to corporate marketing directions rather than the needs and skill demands of production. A Film School seeking to serve industry by adhering to the myth of industry standard tools is intrinsically limiting creative endeavor by insisting there is right or correct tool to be creative with.
Furthermore, any cinematic education that provides only one type, one brand, one form of tool or system of production in exclusivity rather than providing options and diversity of tools to students without hierarchy - so that they might find the right tool that suits them and their internal methodology of working - is detrimentally hobbling those students. These students are rendered under-skilled servants of a software company rather than comprehensively skilled artists and craftspersons with abilities beyond the tools.
Each and every software tool for creative cinematic production carries with it an internally logical philosophy a conceptual mode of perceiving the creative production process instilled on inception into the tool by those who made it and the direct imperatives of the corporation for which it was made. Thus a creative media maker in choosing a particular tool for production is by default buying into a tacit, if not proactive, acceptance of that tools philosophical approach. Their work with that tool is subsequently governed, influenced and shaped by that philosophy.
If however the student through their cinematic education is restrictively indoctrinated into a particular tool (and its respective philosophy), without wider consideration of a personal creative and philosophical approach, then their work will be dictatorially shaped by the tool itself rather than by their own creative imperatives. The tool will dictate what can and cant be done and how it will be done rather than the creator seeking out these pathways to suit themselves and the needs of the project.
Whilst standard technical formats provide functional benchmarks and uniformity, the idea that there are Industry Standard creative tools is fundamentally abhorrent. There is NO SUCH THING AS AN INDUSTRY STANDARD creative tool. The very concept is anti-creative. It is a prescribing that there is only one way to work and that other techno-creative approaches are of lesser value or unacceptable. It implies that a work is only acceptable if made with a particular type of technology and this is absurdly destructive and the very concept must be done away. We must ensure cinematic producers are not conforming creative vision to the needs of the tool but seeking out the tool to extol the creative needs of the production.
The only true measure of intelligence and knowledge is the ability to learn, acquire and apply new skills and knowledge. Thus an editor whose comprehension of editing process, technique and technology has been built solely through the confined prism of one particular tools presented philosophical paradigm (on the idea that its an industry standard) is fundamentally weak; dis-empowered. They are at the mercy the ever changing whims of software developers rather than a servant of the creative process where by the tools are means to an ends.
A conceptual method for implementing this approach is the idea of Technology Transparency that we have endeavored to implement into the curriculum at the International Film School Sydney - embodied in the
Technological Philosophy statement on the schools website.
The aim is to educate filmmakers whose creative vision is never limited by a lack of technical knowledge. Filmmakers for whom the tools of cinema are an invisible and transparent conduit to creativity.In other words the goal of any Film School should Not be that students are expertly proficient in the particular creative tools the school has deemed industry acceptable but rather that they possess a solid degree of technology transparency; the ability to quickly and easily adapt to any given tool they are presented with. This stems directly from the idea of Teaching students How to Learn first and foremost before any particular skill.
The more self-confident part of me would like to think that my students, at the end of their course, could sit down in front of Any given editing system on the market and given a small amount of time to orient themselves, be able to effectively produce quality work. They would be able to do this NOT because they have learned ALL the systems on the market but because they have learned the fundamentals that underpin all the NLEs on the market. That they have consummate ability to acquire, process and apply new information. With that skill they will be perpetually in-work and capably able to adapt to any future develops in cinematic process.
This kind of learning flexibility and adaptability is virtually impossible within a Film School focused on serving the industry and meeting obtuse industry standards. This kind of learning is only really possible when the Film School as institution works outside and looks beyond industry. When it frees itself from the dogma of how things have traditionally been done and instead embraces how they might be done...
Film School is an institution to be treasured and respected but it only has the opportunity to live up its potential when its unshackled from industry. When its free to challenge and explore and investigate.
Posted at 12:00AM Sep 17, 2008
by Mike Jones in media education |
