Working on a course

Am invited/asked/ barged-in-through-the-door into the local film school.

Had recommended to them the topics that I’d like to handle in their directing syllabus. So we had a meeting, which included the sole current faculty member, who of course claimed that he’d covered this and that and everything. And I’m given the topics that no one wishes to tackle, not their regular faculty nor their guest faculty.

And so I’m to talk about Art Direction, the work of an Art Director,  for a full five days. I’m OK about beginning at the bottom of things and believe in Alec Guinness’s famous words ‘there are no small roles, only small actors’.

So off I go to work, searching the internet for definitions and notes. And ransacking my own experience of working with Art Directors.

Finally start putting it all down on paper, and slowly but steadily it emerges-  twelve page outline of the course, including practical sessions.

Send off the course outline to my wife and a friend, encouraging responses.

Then comes the matter of pulling it all off! Easier said than done as the course is to be done in Hindi, using only big popular Hindi films as the reference points. Still, I have a while to digest the course and then take off from there.

Lets see how it goes, I’m going about it with my usual diligence.