Today I was the guest speaker at the Upper Arlington High School’s film class. The teacher invited me to speak to the kids and do a demo. I made up a DVD of things to show and went on in.
Last week I had issued a press release about getting ACCIDENTAL ART into the Beverly Hills Shorts Film Festival and one of the newspapers sent out a reporter to follow me to the class and do the interview right after. Then a photographer came up to our studio to do some pictures for the article.
I showed the trailer for HORRORS OF WAR, and then claimed “This is a movie that will never win an Oscar ™”. Next I showed one of the webdocs on ADR. I passed around the DVD covers from around the world.
I was asked about my opinion of the future of cinema and I said that 3D will make a huge dent in things because AVATAR made so much money. Studio execs that are no inherently creative people see AVATAR in 3D = $$$, so expect a lot more movies to go spectacle and 3D in the hopes of generating more money and less soul. I also think YouTube, Cable TV channels, Internet, Video on Demand, and multimedia are merging into one single entity at some point. How to make money at it is a largely undiscovered realm so far.
I like teaching. I enjoy sharing what I know. So many of my peers view it as creating competition or something they would never do for free without being paid, but I do it because I love it.
Why do I get invited to do these things? What makes me the focal point of such requests? Why would someone want me to talk about filmmaking to kids?
I have no idea. If you are reading this and you feel I do not warrant such requests, then let the schools know and let them know why you would be more qualified or at the least why you feel I am NOT qualified. I didn’t solicit these kinds of speaking events. They fall into my lap and I do think I have something to offer, but it’s neither better or worse than anyone else.
