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Going to Film School in Ealing Studios is a very exciting prospect at first, you feel as if you will be jumping right into the heart of the film industry.
In reality, the routine of the everyday quickly diminishes this excitement. To be honest I just feel I am going to school and no longer notice the huge sound stage doors as I walk to class. I have already become blasé!

The school is a school - you go to class, you sit in seminar discussions and you get to go out and make films...OK that last bit is not much like other schools.
At break we all mill around the main entrance for a cigarette. I don't smoke so I mill around looking like a bit of a dick, nevertheless I cleverly substitute my lack of tobacco dependance with tasty snacks- which means I now behave much as a smoker who had just given up smoking would - that is, substituting my nicotine cravings with food. I am putting on weight as a result, but alas, this is what I must do to fit in.

So far everything has been a bit of a blur, going to class again after so long is STRANGE. I am older now, I don't want to do shots in the pub at 5.00pm. Indeed, I realized just how much I had changed when confronted today with the prospect of shots and delivering a knee-jerk response: "you must be joking, at this hour? I haven't yet had tea"

OK, so I'm old and boring. That's one thing I've learned this week (but I secretly knew it already). Another novelty of starting school has been using my brain again. Let's be honest, anyone who used to work with me will know that once I knew I was leaving, my brain switched into standby/repeat for my final six months in the office. I leave school every day literally unable to talk to anyone, I flee to a quiet corner of Starbucks and nurse my shell shock with caffeinated drinks.

Another thing about going back to school is all the new people. They are everywhere and from everywhere. I love the diversity of the school, it brings all different perspectives to film making - we write short story scenarios in class and the diverse imaginative workings are really interesting...what is also amazing are the real life stories we have that we can all use and draw from.

That's it for now. MUST. SLEEP.

FILM SCHOOL!

DAY ONE

After long introductory speeches by the end of which you only hear the groans and yawns of a desperate audience, we were catapulted into the basics of film making.

"Go and make a film" they told us, having shown us how to assemble a camera, met only with expressions of confusion or horror among the class, I'm not sure which...

Given ten minutes to doodle a storyboard, we split into teams with the hope of deciphering our primitive stick-men and making something amazing. Camera carefully assembled, actors in place, it was time for action.

Surreal is not the word, so suddenly are you plunged into the world of film making and all the quirks and problems it produces. But after twenty five minutes I had made 'something'.

With trepidation I went, memory cards in hand, to the editing suite to see what on earth I had produced. After a crash course in editing (the collective expression of confusion and horror was again ever present) we made our films.

And then to bed.

nearly the end...

My final months at my previous job were marked by days of tortuous expectation, pencil constantly poised to gauge my eyes from their sockets at any moment.

I am sure you can picture well my grief-stricken state when the day of departure finally came, alas I battled on and after at least ten minutes, my grief was assuaged and replaced with expectant joy as I looked ahead to film school! at last!