BFI Seminar

The seminar for the Film Journalism course was held over Thursday and Friday this week in Stephen Street at the BFI. It was a bit nerve-wracking as all the other students - there were 40 of us - were aged around 25-30. I was surprised to learn some people had come from the US and Canada just to attend the seminar, which is a compulsory part of the five month distance-learning course. On Thursday we had talks from the Sight & Sound editor Nick James and some of the people who write for the magazine who described how they got into fim journalism. The only woman on the panel of four writers said he had spent three years working for nothing in the offices of places like Time Out, and the others all said not to expect to earn much.

On Friday we assembled for a screening, of which we'd had advance warning about writing a synopsis, review and commentary. We had to take notes in pitch darkness and despite bearing in mind what one speaker advised about using my thumb as a guide I still had to decipher some writing which had overlapped.

Anyway, I made a start when I got home and did some more yesterday, so I've finished the synopsis and made a good start on the review. I am glad to say I have decided on the 'argument' I will take. It was quite a difficult film but after 24 hours of mulling it over I realised what the main theme was and from there it has fallen into place. It's not due in until Wednesday but I hope to finish before then.