July 23, 2004
It BOILed down to this: the HOT topic of the day was film school. Today’s plan was to take Katherine to the Arboretum–and draw stuff that we saw there, plants, people, whatever. But it was (may I quote “Damn Yankees”?) just “TOO DARN HOT“. What? Seattle over 100 degrees? Yep. So we SIMMERED and STEWED, and in the end decided to reduce our plans to just the necessaries.
Katherine, my 19 year old daughter, is looking at film school for 2005 or 2006. SFI, Seattle Film Institute, offers a 40 week intensive course where the student comes out the other end of their studies with a portfolio of projects after a comprehensive dive into what goes into being a filmmaker. Right now her target is to be an editor, though of course that could change after this total immersion course. We had an appointment at 1PM today with David Shulman who I would say is an entirely warm hearted, passionate individual, and who talks, ALOT. I’m glad he did, we learned ALOT about the program. I can see why the film school has succeeded to it’s current state over the last 10 years. It is located in a gray house on Capitol Hill, with another gray two story building behind it. The back building houses a lab/studio/equipment room and the offices. The front house has the editing room and a newly remodeled classroom. I say newly remodeled, but it’s nothing fancy. This facility is about pure practicality. It’s not impressive on it’s surface at all.
But what IS impressive is the work I saw coming out of the students. This is where it becomes remarkable. We attended a screening of 10 years worth of student work, followed by a feature film that one of the faculty just completed. The student work ranged from old-timey Chaplinesque slapstick comedy to a fast-moving farce called “Rent’s Due” set in a Laundromat where the dryers were apartments and schools, offices, etc, and the people were climbing in and out of the dryers, multiple children piling out one by one like so many clowns from a little teeny car, there was an eviction, a chase scene, and of course the eventual resolution. (I had to say that so as not to give too much away. You may actually be seeing this one someday.)
I don’t care if the facility is non-existent, if this school can make this kind of work happen, they are doing it right.
No pictures today. And it’s still HOT.
Yours, Lynette
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