The Cheese Stands Alone

Just a quickie - I’m realising that information and opinions do not need to be stockpiled for an epic post every fortnight.

I went to speak to the 4th year film students at Ryerson today (the school from which I graduated ((btw, if you use parentheses within parentheses, is the general rule to double up?)) )

I have maintained in quarterly contact with one of the more dedicated film professors there, a good man who seems to genuinely believe in each and every annual mob of green elitist cinephiles ejected from a canon into his lap.

I have done this once before, last year, prior to the CFC. I went in alone to talk about the festival circuit (when I’m called in as the expert, beware) as it was the time of year where the students were thinking of circulating their 4th year thesis films. It wasn’t a chat about writing or the industry, per se, but more about how to make the most of your ‘baby’. I hate speaking in public (one of the great lessons from the CFC was how to speak in front of a room without looking like I just came from Bikram yoga), but it went well, in my opinion.

Fast forward to this year. I went in with two of my fellow Ryerson classmates - one a producer, and one a director (who happened to be in my CFC year). The producer graduated from the Centre a year earlier. Nice folks - but thankfully, neither can be classified as comfortable speakers either. Our agenda, walking in as three Ryerson and CFC alumni, was to discuss the film centre. And, in front of a group of 18 disinterested university students (how did YOU act when you had a guest speaker?), we spoke at quasi-considerable length about the benefits of the Centre.

Now, let it be said here: The last thing I was interested in was a propagandistic rah-rah reach-around for the benefit of the CFC. I was hoping to give some candid and potentially insightful views on the state of the Writer's lab as I understand it, and on the direction in which it is going (HINT: a key word there). So, we broke it down. First, the director will talk, then the writer, then the producer, with a Q&A to follow. Frankly, I can't believe I was allowed to go second.

So: The director gave her spiel. Then, up was Budd. A quick overview of the application process, followed by a bit of a day to day, something cheesy about the ‘community’ we built, and finally, I hammered home the importance of not overvaluing the production exercises - you’re there for your features. Fairly concise (unlike this blog, I kept my unnecessary verbosity to a minimum), and passed it on to the producer. I kept most of the specifics for the question period following.

Producer spoke - and more words fell out of him in this 5-min. introduction that I’ve heard from him in the five years I’ve been his acquaintance. A man of few words, to be sure. But anyway, the kids woke up and did their clapping, and then it was Question Time.

Now, quickly: This is the reason I came. While I hate speeches, I do enjoy providing feedback and had every intention of giving them any answer they wanted (not that I really have many, but if they were wondering the over/under on the years before the CFC become the KFC, or Klymkiw Film Centre, I would have said 4.5).

The questions rolled in, and what followed really amazed me. Not ONE of these film-school kids cared about being a writer. None. No questions posed about our fine craft whatsoever. They had many queries about the Directors and Producers lab, and even an Editors question, but that’s it. The closest thing was this: “Can the directors write their own Universal Shorts?”

I cleaned the vomit off my shoes and bit my tongue while the writer-director to my left answered.

On one hand, I wasn’t sure whether to be happy (less competition coming down the pipe) or sad, but ultimately, I chose sad. When I was at Ryerson, I knew that I wanted to be a writer - only because I sucked royally at everything else (except producing - although I’m not sure I did it right). There were lots of wannabe directors in the class (and even more writer/directors, or 'auteurs', as they'll insist you call them), some DP's, and a few of us scribey hopefully and our notebooks of stoned ramblings. But two years later? Zilch in the graduating class.

As I’m typing this, I’m still numb about the fact that none of these kids, with stars in their eyes and Hollywood peeking up just behind Gould St., had any interest in writing. I'll chalk some of it up to the unrealistic naivety that Ryerson gives you about being a working director.

Is being a writer really that bad? I don’t think so. In fact, I know there are many reasons why I wish to write my days away. And I’ll list them in the Love-Fest, coming soon…