Writing on Film ?

Listen up, film majors.

I have a hard time respecting what you're about right now.

I have to write a paper for my Media Contexts class, and apparently they didn't get the memo that I haven't been going to class or doing the reading.

It sounds like they're getting kinda douchey at this university, don't it?

It's like, all I want to do is sit around, chill out, relaxin' out coolin' off, shootin' some b-ball outside of the school, when a couple of guys who were up to no good, started making trouble in my neighborhood. I got in one little fight and my mom got scared and said you're moving with your auntie and your uncle in Bel-Air.

This is a true story. Except in the non-rap version I ate soo many cheesesteaks!!!!!!!

Listen, fuck you, film school. I'm not even majoring in you, and you're still acting like the retarded kid in third grade who slows everybody else down. I'll admit that your fundraiser parties are fun, but only because they're the only parties this terrible school has to offer. I can't help it if my only other option is to play "follow the tube-tops" up north to find whatever shit-for-brains fraternity has Kool-Aid Vodka this week. If you think you are having fun at these parties, you are either (A.) Currently having sex with an unattractive girl who still thinks she's better than you, or (B.) Stealing so much furniture while the frat guys are having sex with ancillary tube-top freshman #3.

But this isn't about the terrible party scene at Northwestern University, or the many other terrible things about terrible shitty Crapwestern.

This is about why I would prefer to sit here in silence than write a paper for what is arguably the "most fun" class I've taken yet.

Hint: I'm not learning shit.

To quote a HOT friend "FALSE!" You are learning cool definitions and terms for media and film stuff, cool!

Yes, italics. This is true. I am learning cool terms; thank you for being so precise in your statement.

Verily, the truth is that the film classes at this school make you a worse writer. They are training you to write and spot and produce work that is so needlessly specific it could never possibly flourish under normal critical gaze. This is a problem you can run into when writing on art as well, but the difference there is that in order to understand what you're writing about in art, you have to understand philosophies and styles and influences, things that affected the conception and reception of a piece. With film (not art) there's so little history and technique to effectively work with, you're better off just stopping all the bullshitty talking and getting off your ass to go SHOOT SOMETHING. I've seen plenty of student films, and the reason they've all sucked is because someone out there is convincing these kids that it's okay to shoot a film without knowing how to tell a story. Which it can be! Film is a medium that was birthed out of gimmicks, stylish tricks, deception and the pure, visceral rush that can be produced through shocking visual entertainment. It doesn't always have to tell a story. But if you're making narrative films, and your films are worse than the terrible stories produced in a same-year writing workshop class in the English department, you are a shitty writer and should not be making films. The problem with Film majors is that they're taught every aspect of filmmaking and are told to know how to do all of them in a field where no one could possibly do that. As Zucker eloquently put it, "Filmmaking is the only art form that's also a blue collar industry," meaning I could say I work in film, and be the guy who jerks off Ron Jeremy inbetween scenes to keep him hard.

Note: JUST BECAUSE YOU SHOT A MOVIE DOES NOT MAKE YOU AN ARTIST.

I've been in two student films, taken three film classes, and sat through countless other student films in my time here at NU. I can honestly say that these have been the lowest points on the ladder for creativity. They are boring, infantile people who choose to embrace their own ignorance and jokeyness over the potential for creating something impactful and memorable.

Why does it matter the caliber of the filmstock you use and the expensiveness of your sound equipment when you're shooting two people sitting on a couch from straight on? Who cares? Why am I looking at that regardless of how much it cost? Do you really deserve a film grant if you're not even going to make a film?

Fulfill a need for me. I either want to be visually stimulated or intellectually involved. What you're producing makes me neither. A film is not a calling card in the same way a poem is not a calling card. If you are creating something and deciding not to make it something of value in some form, why the fuck are you creating it?

I have to create this paper tonight, and I don't know what I'm writing on and I don't fucking care. I'm doing it because I signed up for this class, because I wanted someone somewhere to prove to me that film class is not an oxymoron.