Week Beginning 26/1

Monday afternoon was a class in Sound, generally revising what we had previously looked at with Simon. My experience of this class was rather negatively coloured by the fact that Simon pocketed my flat keys after using the screwdriver on my keyring to adjust a mixer. He went home with them, and I didn't realise until I was standing outside my flat at half past ten that evening. Fortunately a flatmate let me in, but it wasn't till mid afternoon on Wednesday that I managed to retrieve them!

Monday evening was the now famous Corrie Party, where we all squashed into Gavin's room to watch a double episode of Coronation Street. I still don't enjoy the show (though I appreciate the care taken in writing it). But I can feel the compelling nature of it. Strangely it is addictive without being enjoyable.

Tuesday afternoon was Screenwriting, where we bandied about our darkest secrets. From my own perspective, this seems to be of very limited value. A dark secret is either an incident (something we have done of which we are ashamed) or a feeling from deep inside which we hardly admit to ourselves. I presume this latter was what Richard was driving at. But I found that once I began to tap into this vulnerable layer of my psyche, it was impossible to properly express it in words. The same intangible feeling could be - with equal truth - notionally expressed as "All I want is a hug", "I want to be adored by everyone" or even "I want to be worshipped like a god". The spin that is inevitably put on the emotion by transforming it into words can alter the "secret" into the most innocuous or the most wicked of desires.

I had an interesting chat with Phil as to why it should be specifically "dark" secrets that Richard felt best presented human truth to us. He suggested that as all human beings are sinners, all human beings can identify, in some measure, with sin. I think there is probably a lot of truth in that, but that raises another obvious issue. As film makers and screenwriters, should we present humanity's worst aspects to itself, and say "Look: this is what we are." I think - and most of this thinking I'm doing on the spot - that it depends in what follows. "Look: this is what we are - and that's OK" seems to me to be the haze with which the majority of films are infused. It seems to me that "Look: this is what we are - but we should be radically different" seems to me to be a better approach. In the desire to avoid being moral fables, I can't help but think that a lot of film is pushing society in quite the opposite direction. I think there are far deeper and more universal truths than merely dark secrets. They - you could say - are the shadows. But shadows can only exist when there is light.

I found myself amazed in Richards class to hear him casually say that he didn't believe in evil. I could understand such a soundbite coming from an utter materialist, who believed there was nothing more to life than charged particles and energy waves coming together in random patterns. But a materialist would have to discount storytelling as being meaningless, with no survival benefit whatsoever. So I'm not sure where Richard is coming from on that one. Speaking for myself I see good and evil as very obvious forces in this world. It seems to me that the Holocaust was an evil thing, inspired and driven by men bent on evil purposes. I do not say these men were any worse than the rest of us - we are all capable of equal moral blindness. But that does not remove the fact that ultimately the act of killing 6 million human beings was objectively evil.

Philosophy over.

Wednesday was a class on Coronation Street. Again I gained insight into the world of the soap opera, and although I can appreciate that immediately current affairs (such as referencing Gordon Brown, who may or may not be dead by time of broadcast) may throw up impossible difficulties, it seems odd to me that the show would not allow itself to politicise itself slightly. There are whole ranges of political comment (or at least generally topical issues) which can be made without referencing the news of the day. And why not get one of the characters standing for election as an Independent or whatever. So much possibilities for stories, but I suppose I'm moving it away from where it is, to being a show I'd be more interested in watching!

Thursday was a lecture on early cinema, particularly looking at editing techniques. We watched an inspiring documentary on film making (which served to remind me again that we've only had about four editing classes since we started the course). Then we looked at the conflict between the studios and the stars (Florence Laurence is a wonderful name!)

On Thursday afternoon I had a tutorial with Adam regarding my pitch for a TV series. If I'd realised when he set the task that we were going to be taking it this far, I'd have taken it so much more seriously. I had thought it was just a practise at pitching. Now I understand its full blown development! Crazy.

Friday was a screening of City Lights.