Lessons from a week

The week long session with the Direction students of the Indian Film and Television Institute of India in Meerut ended on Friday.

I was rather physically exhausted by the end of the week, and feeling a bit drained in my mind too. But the students were more than excited, they were like energised by the last few days. When we finished, one of them came running to the car, no not to say bye but to say what will happen to us now, you can’t go. I had to speak like Arnold and say I will be back.

The management had much the same attitude- you can’t leave until you finalise when you’re coming next. I was paid promptly, quite unlike the reputation that private institutions enjoy.

So let me try and understand why all this was happening. OK, I was an alien out there- quite literally coming from another planet in terms of knowledge and exposure. But at another level, I was my parent’s son, repeating what they had done in other contexts- help students understand new concepts in my line of work.

I actually taught in the most un-classroom like situation- with only five students and bad accoustics, I opted to have all of us sit together in an informal sort of circle, with seating altering when we were screening something. This sort of eased my life- didn’t have to stand or speak loudly. To the students an easy conversational manner made them understand subjects a bit more easily. I guess that was important as I mostly ended up teaching/ talking about areas that we hadn’t planned on having in class. But once you see a knowledge gap, you have to help to fill it! Or at least that’s the position I take.

The basics of the course was anyway laid out in my course structure and notes. I was using the classes to help the students understand the concepts laid out in those notes.

Then came the highlight of the course, for the students- the filmmaking. On the last two days, they wrote, directed and edited little sketches on one outdoor and one indoor location. I realised how much of a revision it had been for me, to go back to my roots in classical filmmaking, not merely the just-do-it style we practised in Kenya. I kind of feel refreshed with my filmmaking basics once again.

Will I do it again- for a while yes, but I yearn for filmmaking far too quickly, so maybe have to work out ways to integrate it all in my working life.