- cross-posted to:
- nottheonion@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- nottheonion@lemmy.world
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Just fail them. They shouldn’t be anywhere near a film set with the attention span of a gnat. It’s dangerous.
Yeah, maybe they’re in the wrong field
They just see the glamour and the $$$, and don’t know about the ridiculous hours and working conditions (when you’re actually working).
When I did film school, our first lecture was 9 hours long. We watched a bunch of experimental films. The second lecture was 7 hours long, watching more (but completely different) experimental films. We started with 300 students, and by the third week we were down to half that. Only a handful of us ever worked professionally and I only know two that are still working (I left a few years ago). It’s a brutal industry.
Hello fellow film industry abandoner! I never went to film school, but I did briefly join the editors union in LA prior to the industry imploding shortly after lockdowns in LA. I switched to contract commercial work and, while it’s been far more soul-sucking, at least it pays the bills. I no longer live in an industry city, so I’ve been trying to find my footing in a career that doesn’t treat (and pay) a former union editor like a youtube editor (no hate on youtube editors, that work seems extremely tedious and they deserve to be paid more). But maybe I’ll just break down and become an electrician if my client work ever slows down.
I worked in the industry for 30 years. Longer if you include the acting stuff I did as a kid. I’m too old for all the shit, especially now with AI threatening every part of the industry, but who knows I might be dragged back in. It’s happened before, but I’m happy with what I’m doing now.
Are they? Do modern writers and directors need to care about 60 year old war movies to make their art?
First of all, yes they should. But second, 60 year old war movies aren’t the only kind of film that exists…
They’re the only kind of film referenced as an example in the article.
As someone who failed a few college courses before finally getting it and moving on, yes absolutely they should be failed. Even knowing the sting of failing, I had to learn it myself that it was my fault that I failed. If they can’t pass the class, a film class, that’s on them, and they don’t deserve to move on.
When I taught briefly at a college, i wanted every student to pass my class, gave them ample opportunities, and created a lesson plan that made success easy with lots of wiggle room for the occasional bad grade or missed assignment. I still had students who failed the class and it broke my heart.
Have a 19 year old foster uh, kid, and she cant make it through an entire Instagram reel.
Thank you for being a foster parent!
+1 for fostering
Yeah, Ive got a 1 year old foster kiddo and 19 year old at the moment (extended foster care to age 23).
You are a good human. Children are challenging at the best of timea and fostered children come with their own stuff. Good. On you guys.
We looked into it when our grown kids moved out. The ministry matched us and we had a non introduction type meeting where they ministry has you at the facilities when the kids are doing activities but they don’t know there are foster parents being matches. They explained the match was with a 13 year old who’d been abused by his biological parents. We felt for the kid but as we went through the process and got more info it turned out his adoptive family had an incident with him and they had unadopted him (I didn’t even know that was a legal possibility). And then some history of hurting animals or similar, so we sadly had to back out because we had two small senior dogs. Our only relief was another respite guy had taken a shine and building a relationship with himIt happens, called a “failed adoption”. The thing about being a foster parent, we’ve done it for years, is having boundaries and understanding what youre comfortable with. My wife and I are great at handling trauma and providing a stable environment but there are times we’ve taken on kids with disabilities and its too exhausting for us but there are foster parents that specialize in that and make a better home for those kiddos.
How do you handle trauma? Any specific recommendations?
I wanted to joke about adopting me, but decided there’s a better question to ask instead :)
Consistency and structure seems to be the key. People that grew up in trauma, me included, were under constant chaos and struggle to survive. Things like dinner at 5pm, play until 6:30 then bath time, then reading a story, the bedtime at 7:30. No mater how tired I am if I committed to doing something on the weekend or take them to practice I do it. Break the rules theres a logical consequence every single time, no negotiating or “if you do that one more time you only get one piece of candy instead of three”. These children grew up with abuse, broken promises, and lack of resources. Also, getting them into trauma based therapy. Constancy and structure seems to work best which is funny coming from someone with ADHD.
Thank you for what you do, we need more people in the world like you.
My wife and I have pretty much decided on no kids. She works at a daycare so she gets plenty of time with kiddos, and doesn’t know if she wants one at home, all the time. Me, I have such a huge slew of my own problems that I really don’t think I would be capable of being a good parent. I was raised with the whole world on my plate, middle class, vacations, presents, not spoiled rotten but certainly privileged. If I can’t provide at least the kind of childhood that I had, the opportunities, the travel, I would feel guilty. And I know that I don’t have the resources for that.
So we have always left adoption or fostering on the table. Maybe as the years pass I will heal and grow and be capable of providing the steady stable environment that a child in need requires. Until then I get to be the irresponsible uncle to all my friends kids. Gonna take a 7 year old skiing later this winter lol.
“… this course covers contemporary cinema. We will start with the avengers (parts 1-23), followed by superman vs. Spiderman vs. Batman vs. Green Lantern (parts 20-50), and close with Star Wars: the Return of a Return.”
I guess that’s what the students were expecting
I meet people who can’t even watch a 21 minute TV episode. \
People train their brains to be like this.
I used to love watching movies, but I can’t sit through them anymore. I end up watching it in 15 minute sessions. Not sure if it has anything to do with my brain just getting older.
My son got a degree in being an unemployed actor, and nailed the unemployed part, the actor part not so much. So after a few years of deeply studying film, he’s gone back to college at 26, to get a degree in film studies.
He’s SHOCKED at his classmates. He just started a class where they will break down a film throughout the entire semester. They watched it in class together, and EVERY single student, except him, absolutely hated it (my son had already seen it a half dozen times before he even knew the class was showing it).
He’s getting frustrated that so much of every film class is the prof justifying the choice of film to the students. My son wants to talk about the film’s elements, but he has to sit there and listen to idiots disparage a great film because it isn’t a Marvel movie. He says the profs are getting frustrated, too.
I told him not to worry about the morons, and to just keep on digging in at a high level, and his professors will appreciate him.
Here’s the entire article text (speaking of people not having attention spans):
For years, audiences have groused that films are too long, and now, a number of film professors say their students are having trouble finishing films they are assigned to watch for class.
The Atlantic writer Rose Horowitch published a piece Friday based on surveying 20 film-studies professors who shared stories of students struggling to sit through films in class without checking their phones or answering basic questions about said films after watching them.
In an anecdote that gained attention on X, the University of Wisconsin Madison professor Jeff Smith recalled asking his students about the ending of the 1962 François Truffaut film Jules and Jim. Horowitch writes: “More than half of the class picked one of the wrong options, saying that characters hide from the Nazis (the film takes place during World War I) or get drunk with Ernest Hemingway (who does not appear in the movie).”
Professors report they have even resorted to asking students just to watch portions of films. It’s a phenomenon mirroring what is happening in high school English classes around the country, where students might just be assigned portions of books.
Though these are discouraging stories for cinephiles to hear, there’s evidence that members of Gen Z are embracing movie theaters and film culture. Some in Hollywood have dubbed them the Letterboxd generation, and they were credited with helping fuel unexpected hits last year.
As Northwestern professor Lynn Spigel told The Atlantic, “the ones who are really dedicated to learning film always were into it, and they still are.”
Precisely the sort of hot take I’d expect from The Atlantic, swirling the drain of stewardship by hiring David Brooks^.
But look, I get it. I’m a genuine film nerd today, and I kinda always have been. When I was little, I’d watch old movies and everything about them set my mind wandering. They were black and white, the pacing was stilted, shot compositions and lightning were static, the audio quality was equally too drab and too sharp at the same time. All the characters were old, boring adults who wore suits and were busy with… adult things to do. It felt like eating crusty week-old bologna. Everything about “contemporary” movies was great! Crisp colors, dynamic lightning, hyper-focused Robert McKee screenwriting that made sure your brain knew precisely what to be thinking at what moment and give you a right happy dopamine hit at the end. What’s not to love?
Bless my dad. I once told him that I thought all black and white movies were boring. I had to be something like 10 years old at the time. He told me to go to the video store up the street and rent an old black and white movie called ‘Fail Safe’ and watch that. I did. That movie left me absolutely floored. Shook. I didn’t know, couldn’t even imagine, that old movies could go so hard. That was where my interest in the medium really started.
It took a lot of time, discovery, honing of taste and learning the technical limitations of the decades to develop a palette that could appreciate classics.
I don’t fault younger people for having the same aversions I did. If I were developing film studies cirricula, I’d ensure that foundational education about expectations of the various cinematic eras was already complete before throwing students into Truffaut.
^ Who is David Brooks? This is David Brooks.
I love movies and watch them constantly, but I’d probably check out if you asked me to watch a WWI movie with pacing and conventions typical of the 60s too. Classics are important for a film class, but there’s plenty that can be learned from films made after 1970 too and they tend to be a lot more palatable.
This is honestly a terrible example to use as a general lack of interest. They’re film students, obviously something drew them there, it just wasn’t war dramas from the middle of last century.
Omg don’t get me started on Fail Safe! How hardly anyone knows about it is beyond me. Sidney Lumet, Henry Fonda, still considered obscure instead of a well known classic
It’s so obscure that producers keep trying to pass off remakes of it as original movies.
Does this mean we can see the end of the overly long film trend?
I miss films being ~80 - 90 minutes. I’ve had a long day, I don’t want to commit to three hours unless it’s something really special.
I hate short movies
Stories feel rushed and theres not enough time for good story arcs
A well constructed film does not feel rushed in a shorter run time.
I like long films, like really long ones. Ones where the length is part of the experience. For example, I loved Apocalypse Now Redux.
What I don’t like is films that are substantially longer than they need to be. I don’t want them pared down, I want them built around the format their story suits rather than padded out. I like breathing room (mostly!) but it’s a fine line to walk.
A good film opening gets on with things quickly, getting the viewer up to speed, but too often I find myself quoting Springfieldians from Marge vs. The Monorail - “GET TO THE MONEY!”
A well constructed, long, film also doesn’t feel long
True, but it’s a lot easier for me to find 90 minutes than 180 minutes on a weekday night.
That’s a completely different problem. You were arguing if a film deserves to be long (it does if it’s worth it). Now you’re arguing that you don’t have time for a long film.
Convenience isn’t an Oscar category. A good film can be short or long, it depends on many factors.
Sigh, I was trying to meet you in the middle. I’m in no mood to fight with you.Edit: It’s a new day and I see people have decided to upvote you so fuck it, arsehole mode is go.
I was agreeing that a film doesn’t have to feel long despite being long, however whether a film feels long or not has no bearing on its runtime.
Film length has no inherent bearing on whether a film is good or not, when well executed, and therefore I want more short films because I have time for them.
BECAUSE IT DOESN’T MATTER FOR QUALITY PURPOSES, as you just said.
I was not arguing about whether it “deserves” to be long. That’s an entirely different question and fuck off for trying to put words in my mouth. Couldn’t just not be a cunt, could you?
Sigh. I’m not the person you were arguing with.
I honestly love when I get really engrossed in something, credits roll and I look at the scrub bar… ”wtf that was barely more than an hour?"
Yesssssss, thank you. 1:30 is the sweet spot. It can go up to like 1:50 and i still totally dig it. Once it goes above 2 hours it starts to detract from my enjoyment of the experience instead of adding to it
My sweet spot is the 2:00 to 2:15 mark. Any less than that feels like an extended TV episode to me.
For some reason, horror movies are good at 1:30 to 1:45.
most comedy and horror films are that short.
the long films are action movies. and you’r emostly talking about comic book movies.
There’s this thing called “TV shows” for the quick hit you want.
Why would you want to watch the quality and content of a 90 minute film drastically stretched to fit a whole season?
Why would you a compelling story squished into a ninety minute marketing pitch?
Not all shows are serialized, either.
Could it be that different stories require different lengths of time to tell? No, that’d be silly. Clearly you two should keep arguing.
That would indeed be very silly
Thank you for the educational response.
One of my friends takes several days to watch a movie, no matter the length, and everyone in our friend group pokes fun at him for it.
I love movies, but to be fair, the Brutalist was tough to get through
Acting was top notch, film, setting, all of it. But yes, it was so fucking long. Clocking in around the same length as return of the king, and they even had to add an intermission. I liked it, but I do feel like there were times it could have been cut out a bit.
I love the movies so much. It’s my favorite hobby! I never would have thought they would die out slowly like newspapers, but I’m watching it in real time. Social media has fried everyone’s brains and made attention spans far too short. Every time I go to the theatre now, it’s mostly empty. It’s very sad to see.
What’s next? Philosophy students that can’t make it through Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit?
Heidigger was writing philosophy? I thought he was just a fat cat Shinra executive.
He was also a boozy beggar who could drink you under the table
Wait, was that IRL or in FFVII?
Honestly at this point I can’t tell any more
Kant is pretty hard to get through to be fair.
I know, Heidegger is very dense too. As a former Philophy major I got to pick my turf.
It is a bit curious to me that what you obviously thought you’d be interested in doesnt grab your attention.
You just Kant always get what you want.
most philosophy students don’t ever read Heidegger. And those that do aren’t doing it outside of a 300/400 level class.
In my grad program of 25 students, only 2 of us had read any Heidegger and he was not taught at all at my university.
It was kind of a double edged joke. I’m a former philosophy major and knew Heidegger was dense and not very commonly read. I’ve personally only read a chapter of his work in the context of the history of philosophy.
Off topic, you have quite a bizarre user name
i’m a nihilist about usernames.
Very important
I took an international film class and most of the movies were great but I skipped class for HAHK. We had been spoiled by watching Dabangg first which is Salman Khan’s best work. HAHK is over 3 hours of trite bullshit and I think the second half of the movie class was on 4/20.
Lagaan is the absolute best Bollywood movie imo.
Thats sad. People really got their brains rewired by big tech. Too bad they couldnt and can’t be saved.
Anyone see 1962 François Truffaut film Jules and Jim?
Never heard of it. The film kids i knew watched movies like Casablanca and citizens Kane.
No, but it sounds really cool. But it won’t be on streaming, it will probably require me going to university library to go see it.
I was a film kid and I never watch Casablanca or citizen Kane for class. They were considered too cliche and overdone. There are a lot of more interesting films than famous ones everyone has heard of.
i don’t fucking blame them, i’ll gladly watch 2 hours of my favourite youtubers talking about toasters or whatever, but so many modern movies would drive me to brain death after half an hour.
Apparently you don’t even have the attention span to read through the article
