This time of the year, graduating film students are busy working on their theses, including me, of course. At the beginning of the semester, even during thesis proposal phase, I wasn’t too hyped up about it. I think I was even more excited when I helped out on a handful of thesis short films when I was a freshman, than when I’m actually doing it myself now that I’m a senior. I’ve shared something about this already, in this entry, where I said I sort of lost a passion in creating moving pictures.
Needless to say, right now, almost all of my film friends are busy with their own theses. Sigh. You know, there’s something uniquely engaging in film students’ theses. I’m not sure how thesis are exactly done in other courses, but I assume it’s largely an individual or a pair effort. In film, however, unless you’re doing an animation, an experimental of some sort or a written thesis, you will barely survive if you work alone or by pair, even. A graduating film student actually works on a number of theses, in varying degrees, for his fellow film friends. Well, unless you’re an absolute altruist, there’s this slight expectation that your film friends and other friends will help you out in your own thesis, as your production manager, your director of photography, your casting director, assistant director, production assistant, even as talent. Most of the time, all the work is pro bono, but it’s not the material return that’s important. Shooting film students’ thesis can be quite fun, aside from being stressful.
law student, leftist, national democratic, film school graduate, photography hobbyist