Week Beginning 25/1

The Week began with a look at British social realism. I've just read a quote from Francois Truffaut who says "There is something about England that's anti-cinematic... To put it bluntly, isn't there a certain incompatibility between the terms 'cinema' and 'Britain'?... Considering the high intellectual level in England, and in the light of her great writers and poets, isn't it rather curious that in the seventy years since cinema came into being, the only two British film-makers whose works have stood the test of time are Charlie Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock?"

Certainly I feel he's being a little French about the whole thing, but he maybe has a point. Since then, you could arguably add Richard Attenborough, Ridley Scott and David Lean but the key thing about all these directors is that they made their name during their career in America. It seems as though trying to make movies outside America, and certainly trying to produce a film in the UK seems to lend itself to failure. Perhaps downbeat, and there are excpetions of course, but to me it seems that if you want to be a prolific film-maker, you have to live and work in the US. Ken Loach would be the counter-example, but in my opinion, his films don't stand in the same league as those made by the other directors above.

Tuesday was a tutorial with Adam looking at developing my TV series idea a bit further. I am happy with the way it is going, and am looking forward to taking it further, and writing part of the first episode.

In the afternoon we were given out the briefs for documentaries which we are going to be engaged in. I think the idea of doing a documentary freaks me out a bit as they are so much harder to do well than drama. Its a different kind of film-making, and frankly I don't think its what I'm going to prove to be very good at. The documentaries I prefer are those educational ones which are unashamedly trying to teach you something scientific, historical or philosophical. These rely on talking heads, with illustrations, dramatic reconstructions, anecdotal relief and usually a bit of foreign travel to spice it up. Telling a story by visual language sound to me like it will end up either being sledge-hammer style metaphor or ridiculously subtle, pretentious twaddle.

Wednesday was a class with Zam, exploring some of the locations we had discovered around Glasgow. We looked at the practicalities of filming in various places and how a different look could be got simply by filming round the corner.

Thursday was a tutorial with Richard - for which I was 10 minutes late. I got some very detailed notes and hope to make another redraft tomorrow. Very pleased with the way my script has turned out so far, though if it ever is commissioned, the producers will try to shoot me.

Friday was a screening of The Seventh Seal. I have seen this movie before and I think blogged on it, so I won't make a separate posting for it again. Suffice to say it remains one of the most insightful, thought-provoking films I have seen. There is a lot of dialogue, which Richard wouldn't like, but which I think you need when you are dealing with such philosophical ideas. The metaphors come piled one on top of another, and it would be fascinating to analyse a scene from it. All done with beautiful photography and moments of great humour, this is one of my favourite films.

The afternoon was a class with Abigail, where we all got a row for not taking our assignment seriously enough. Personally I thought the script we were working from was the most boring script I've read since the last one she gave us out. I feel it would be vastly more enjoyable and engaging for us if we were doing production breakdowns of some of the scripts we had written last year. Rather, we have been handed out a script which has been written out very poorly. It is little wonder we are less than enthused for our task when it is clear that whoever transcribed the script from which we are working was equally un-enthused. They didn't even take the time to proof read it or attempt to format it.