Today I got my Minor mark, a paltry 57, which to a certain extent I expected, given the many pitfalls that were evident in my short film that I handed in just before Christmas. On the positive side, it is actually quite a good mark for a film that was still only an idea 2 weeks before the shoot date. I feel the lack conference with my marking lecturers in the run up to the filming and subsequently the hand-in did not aid this. This course seems to be all about meeting criteria, so if you get an idea and the course leaders give you advise as to how you change it, it generally is advice on how you can get a higher mark, not necessarily make a better film. It is through a stubbornness of my own that I did not go to the course leaders for this reason, feeling I did not want to choose between a better film or better grades, but in the end I succeeded in neither.
I have just come back from a month's holiday in Australia, visiting my grandparents of which my grandfather isn't very well and is on a downward slope life-wise. Apart from this, the month was a good time to step back from this hectic year, but coming back it feels like it has broken the momentum that I had been building up in the period running up to Christmas. I have a couple of Minors to edit in these coming weeks so that should do something towards finding that momentum again.
The main aim, however, is to start the Dissertation. Writing those first words will be key, a proverbial flood gate to my literary torrent, but for now the levy is holding the waters back. I don't what it will take to make me start writing, I think I just have to force myself into it, set a time and day and just WRITE.
As for my Major film, that too is in limbo. At the moment I am waiting for the permission from the Gym and the owner of whom I want to base the documentary on. See inspiration for story here:
If that falls through, I have no idea what I am going to do, I have had the idea for a very ambitious drama for a long time, but felt that it would need longer than the allotted ten minutes that we get for our Major Drama. I guess this will have to be my back up.
As is, there are a lot of variables as to whether this term will be a success or a failure. Only time will tell.
