First thoughts on that course I'm doing
Jan. 15th, 2011 11:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charameiI mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I'm doing a course on set design for film and TV. There are several reasons:
So if somebody said to you, what sort of degree do you associate with film set design, would you really think 'Fine Art'? Because I wouldn't, and yet over half the class has that background. When you actually come to think about it it kind of makes sense, but it's a bit odd. We've also got two architects and a graphic designer, and a couple of other semi-related things like photography. Being one of only two people in the class who actually has a job, I'm fairly sure I'm one of the oldest there. That's an odd feeling when you're 24...
I'm quite certain that I'm the least experienced designer in the class, but I was rather surprised that I seem to be the only one with a decent grounding in practicalities and dramatic theory. At one point I had to explain the concept of suspension of disbelief to somebody. It's a basic dramatic concept that I learned in GCSE Drama, if not Year 9 Drama. Less relevant to a designer than it is to a writer or actor, but far from outside their remit. More to the point, how do you get to this level of interest in a dramatic art without hearing about it?
And then we had two instances of 'well, it's a very good design, but where do the cameras go?' and one of 'you can't put dry ice there; you've got an A-list celebrity in with it and they'll pitch a fit'. (Having both got my cameras arranged passably well and considered and rejected dry ice before I even started drawing, my feelings on this can be summed up as 'Live long and prosper, bitches'.)
Our teacher is patronising. She clearly knows what she's talking about and explains things simply and well, but the way she talks to the foreign students sets my teeth on edge. She also gave me the dirtiest look when I asked her a question out of turn. (In fact, I think I spoke the most in the entire class, which is bizarre. I didn't say much; it's just that apparently I'm the only person there who's got the intellectual confidence to volunteer answers to questions. I feel like a teacher's pet.) I could feel the edge of her patronisation directed at me, especially early in the day before she realised that I do, in fact, have areas of competency that vaguely overlap here. Basically, at present I respect her as a professional but not so much as a person.
Well. That's better than the other way around, and definitely better than Certain Teachers whom I neither respected in any capacity nor liked. We'll get there.
- I'm determined to get out of the house more. Not because I'm lonely - I'm not - but because I'm fed up being the awkward shy one who hovers around gatherings never saying a word, and the only way to develop social confidence is to get out and meet people.
- I'm still vaguely considering trying to get a job in the industry, and I have no practical experience whatsoever.
- Even if I never do anything about getting that job, knowing how to design a set for atmosphere and character would be a useful skill to have as a writer of any stripe. Also, model-making could be handy for more complex scenes.
- I'm interested.
- Drawing? Hah! I laugh in the face of visual representation! And straight lines, and scale, and people who are not the shape of potatoes with mittens for hands!
- Very little practical experience, and none of it more recent than AS level. Unless you count drawing up groundplans for stories so the rooms don't all move around, that is.
So if somebody said to you, what sort of degree do you associate with film set design, would you really think 'Fine Art'? Because I wouldn't, and yet over half the class has that background. When you actually come to think about it it kind of makes sense, but it's a bit odd. We've also got two architects and a graphic designer, and a couple of other semi-related things like photography. Being one of only two people in the class who actually has a job, I'm fairly sure I'm one of the oldest there. That's an odd feeling when you're 24...
I'm quite certain that I'm the least experienced designer in the class, but I was rather surprised that I seem to be the only one with a decent grounding in practicalities and dramatic theory. At one point I had to explain the concept of suspension of disbelief to somebody. It's a basic dramatic concept that I learned in GCSE Drama, if not Year 9 Drama. Less relevant to a designer than it is to a writer or actor, but far from outside their remit. More to the point, how do you get to this level of interest in a dramatic art without hearing about it?
And then we had two instances of 'well, it's a very good design, but where do the cameras go?' and one of 'you can't put dry ice there; you've got an A-list celebrity in with it and they'll pitch a fit'. (Having both got my cameras arranged passably well and considered and rejected dry ice before I even started drawing, my feelings on this can be summed up as 'Live long and prosper, bitches'.)
Our teacher is patronising. She clearly knows what she's talking about and explains things simply and well, but the way she talks to the foreign students sets my teeth on edge. She also gave me the dirtiest look when I asked her a question out of turn. (In fact, I think I spoke the most in the entire class, which is bizarre. I didn't say much; it's just that apparently I'm the only person there who's got the intellectual confidence to volunteer answers to questions. I feel like a teacher's pet.) I could feel the edge of her patronisation directed at me, especially early in the day before she realised that I do, in fact, have areas of competency that vaguely overlap here. Basically, at present I respect her as a professional but not so much as a person.
Well. That's better than the other way around, and definitely better than Certain Teachers whom I neither respected in any capacity nor liked. We'll get there.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-16 03:04 am (UTC)