One of the funnier aspects of being in a real bonafide film school now is that all of the teachers continuously prod students to watch more TV and movies. This is hilarious to me because I accustomed to watching hours of TV and movies every day. To watch more would almost require skipping classes. I have, therefore, been trying to cut down on my viewing so I can get more work done. I’ve recently taken to watching things a snippet at a time during meals and such, although this is not exactly the richest of viewing experiences.
Contrary to my experience, however, this demand appears to apply to most of my classmates. Apparently, many of them only watch 2, 3, or a handful of films per month. I think I would suffer severe withdrawal symptoms if I did that – at least for the first 6 months or so. That’s what happened when my family moved to an apartment that had no access to even antenna TV (although we had zillions of tapes and DVDs, so I wasn’t forced to quit cold turkey). But that’s about how long it took me to stop hurtin’ for more TV.
Ironic though it may be, the workload of really digging into making movies in film school is actually making me watch fewer movies than before. I can’t speak for my cohorts yet. Maybe I’ll ask around in another month or so and find out. But, that said, is it better or worse for film students to go entire days (or longer) without watching TV and movies? It worked better for me when I was a math student, but I was taking 3-4 different music classes every semester to keep me sane back then. Ho hum…
Quick update (as I originally wrote this over a months ago), many of my classmates say they now watch even less stuff (maybe a TV show every week or so). I’ve hit sort of a middle distance, now, where I watch 1 or 2 TV episodes a night and sometimes a movie if I can play it in the background of getting some kind of work done. Still having some difficulty maintaining a healthy balance between getting work done and reminding myself why I’m doing the work by watching stuff.
