Analog

I went to film school on the cusp of the digital revolution. The internet existed, but sites like Google and Facebook did not. Everywhere I went, there were free CD-ROMs in cardboard sleeves that offered a thousand free hours of America On-Line (AOL) just for signing up. They made terrible stocking stuffers. 

If I recall, my Frankenstein PC had a Pentium II processor with 1 GB of RAM. To render a video file was usually an overnight process. I also had a special video card that allowed me to hook a VCR up to my computer. It cost me eight hundred bucks.

My camera was a SONY VX-1000. At the time, it was damn near top of the line in terms of pro-sumer electronics. It used Mini-DV tapes, which I have since found to be a terrible format--but back in film school, this thing was badass. It had zebra stripes on the screen to tell you if something was overexposed, as well as built-in neutral density filters to correct it. 

I could only afford this equipment because I worked for the telephone company when I first started going to film school. I worked as a service technician during the day, and then I took classes at night. In the meantime, I set myself up with some decent equipment so that I could make movies whenever I wanted instead of having to check out equipment from the "film cage" every time. I lived about forty minutes away on the red line, so I seldom made impromptu trips downtown.  

At a certain point in the curriculum, the next class for me to take was a six-credit whopper that was only offered during the day. Tech I, as it was called at the time (although I think the actual name of the course was Production I, but close enough) met four days a week for two and a half hours a day on the tenth floor of an old building downtown. One time I got to class early and threw paper airplanes out a screenless window for what seemed like miles. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I had reached a point where I had to decide between continuing to work for the phone company or go to film school full time. This would have to mean taking out student loans as well, as I knew that I could not afford to live in Chicago otherwise. I did have some savings, but I spent a lot of it on video equipment. Ultimately, I quit my job. To date, it remains one of the highest-paying positions that I have ever had--which is kind of sad, frankly. I chose film school over the blue collar life of my parents, because that I had already seen. 

In Tech I, everyone had to load a Bolex camera in the dark. It was an A or an F kind of thing. There were a lot of assignments like that. Maybe not the A's so much, but it could be pretty easy to get an F. Lens flares are one example, which is to say that JJ Abrams never would have made it. I think this was a way of weeding out the people who were there for fun versus those who were there to learn. By the third year or so, us learners were pretty much all that was left. 

Tech I taught the basics of 16mm film production, while also providing hands-on experience. Loading that camera in total darkness was a great exercise, but I can't say that it has ever come in all that handy. I wonder if the students there still use those old cameras, left over from making newsreels during the Second World War. The front had what we called a fully manual zoom, in that it required that the user rotates a turret with three different lenses on it: one wide angle, one standard, and one telephoto. On most of these old cameras, at least one of the lenses was messed up in one way or another. 

While some of the skills that I gained in film school have little value outside of the motion picture industry--or in some cases, history books--understanding the principles behind them I believe to be invaluable.