Taught another film class this past week, this one a killer. Eight straight hours of non-stop words. My throat was raw from talking, my thumb numb from pushing the button to slide up to the next graphic, my feet sore from standing.
So why do I bother…? Not fortune, for sure. I’d make more sitting in the big chair, working the phones and running a film. Nor fame. Even if enthusiasm were really riches, there are limits to working the backroom at the software store.
Then why…?
Reason #1. Good students make smarter teachers.
Happens every time I teach a class like this. A hand shoots up or a voice shuts me up. And someone asks something I’d never considered before. And in an instant my whole world lights up like Times Square on New Year’s Eve. I gain Insights I’ve never seen before, concepts I’ve never conceived before.
Good questions like that kick the rust out of the immovable parts of a brain and grease the gears to turn again.
After all, all work needs proofreaders. Mistakes slip past us because brains are hard-wired to find meaning in everything. Even phrases with missing vowls and newly minted words de void of meaning. It takes good questions to jostle the wisdom of established rules and regulations. Whole societies have been created from moments like that.
So to the tall ones in the back of the room who stumped me, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Reason #2. We teach or die.
Not personally of course, but still quite literally. Unless we teach, we risk losing an entire generation of filmmakers. We learn the rules at school, but our art and craft are hand-made and home-honed. We need each other’s wisdom to smooth the long road to success.
Filmmaking is one of the few apprenticeship systems. Think of the term, “bestboy.” It was (and still is) the smartest, hardest working kid in the long line of eager urchins hoping to learn from the gaffer (the set’s juiced old “grandfather”). Or the Guild Trainee in training to the second 2nd AD who’s in training to the 2nd AD who’s in training to the 1st AD (who has his eyes on the Production Manger).
Let’s not get too carried away here. No doubt filmmaking could survive without the last generation leading each new generation gingerly into the next. But here’s the line on it. it wouldn’t survive as well. And OUR way of working (whatever that might be) would be lost forever.
That’s why we’re compelled to write books, teach classes, train newbies. Selfishly, we’re trying to preserve our little pearls of wisdom. Altruistically, we’re doing our damndest to assure the continuity of an entire industry. Mind you, that’s the industry we’re hoping to build in our own image. Our style, our way, our wisdom.
After all, someone taught our teachers. And they made things their own before they passed their knowhow on to us. And we invested a career to make their hand-me-down wisdom our own.
Then, from time to time, every once in a lucky day, we get the honor, the pleasure, the joy of passing good bits and tasty pieces on to another generation of filmmakers. And if we’re very good at it, someday they’ll pass it on, too.
That’s the trick. We have to be really good at passing on everything we know or it will be lost forever. So our own immortality depends on trying as hard as humanly possible.
Now how cool is that…? Certainly worth the long day, sore throat, tired feet. I figure I came out way, way, way ahead.
Damn, that was a fun day.
