Grumpy Film School Rant

It’s impossible to say one way or another, but as I was watching through some really old student films of ours (meaning, my classmates and fellow students), it occurred to me, that had this been the digital age, we probably would still be slugging along at making movies. These days, a digital camera and an editing set up is less than $2000 (depending on how top-of-the-line you’re talking about). When I started, that was the price of a robust hard drive. You can’t even give away enough storage space to people now. It’s ridiculously cheap. But let’s get to the reality of making movies…

In my era, you did have to have a certain level of professionalism to get noticed. With the introduction of YouTube, it changed the game. Most people think the war between production started with the ability to make video look like film, the reality being able to broadcast shit gave us no reason to strive for quality. Not to say some people don’t, just that the ability to shock or gain attention through stupidity meant that the audience changed it’s way to digest. So it would seem.

You only have to look to both Paris Hilton & Kim Kardashian to realize the decline. Both with sex tapes. Both “mysteriously released” by someone. Both gained famed afterwards. What would possibly encourage others to spend money, energy and time to learn a craft? What we underestimated (and Mike Judge’s “Idiocracy” so brutally predicted) was that we were satiated with talking about trash rather than condemn and bury. This goes hand in hand with shame. No one feels it anymore. People people get defensive when they’re judged. Now, I realize being judged isn’t a good thing. But we all do it under the guise of NOT doing it. I’m damn near under law to judge, as a juror. But, judging no longer means a standard. I could tell my neighbor his garbage is making the neighborhood look bad, but he’s get defensive and tell me I park my car like an asshole. Unfortunately, this is the world we created for ourselves.

And, to boot, we’ve made it so standard now, people don’t even realize if they’re even being shamed.

A society with a high level of shame (while somewhat deviant) tends to police itself.

My point being, in the 15 years now that I’ve been away looking for beauty, craft and art…I’ve somehow missed out on the moment people stopped caring. We cared deeply back then. I would like to think it’s a generational thing. Meaning the generation before us probably saw us the same way. But that’s unlikely, in my case. I studied my predecessors and am in awe of them. The movie industry would’ve been a hard one to crack back in the 50’s-60’s but at least there was some kind of a path. And it didn’t go through bad behavior captured on digital cameras. People are so scared of being left behind, they don’t realize catching the trend always is a drag.