The End of the Road

Well, I graduated from the University of Pittsburgh yesterday. The ceremony wasn't anything special - long, with a middling speaker and a not-very-attentive audience - but it's a huge milestone. I'm done with college, even if I'm not yet ready to face the "real world," and have some big decisions to make. I'm still not sure it's completely sunk in, but I can still reflect on my time at college.

I went into the University of Pittsburgh hoping to be a film major, with my dreams of being the next David Lean. I had an interesting class watching Sergio Leone and Dario Argento flicks in my first time, and a few other nice ones. Then sophomore year, I took an avante garde class that really put me off. Combined with a useless Photoshop class at Pittsburgh Filmmakers, an impossible class/work schedule in general and something like a nervous breakdown, and I changed course and became a History major.

The strongest memory of my time as a film student was standing at a bus stop in a blizzard, trying to balance a box with a camera, a light adjusting board, a tripod and a book I'd just ordered off Amazon at the same time. Then I drop the book into the snow, ruining it, and drop everything else too. And while I'm bending down to try and pick it all up... a bus drives past and ignores me, leaving me stranded there for another hour. All for a video that, it turns out, didn't develop because I was sold a defective film cartridge. Ah, memories.

Do I regret changing my major, not following my dreams more thoroughly? Not really. I've always had intellectual reservations about getting involved in film rather than doing something practical, but I might have overlooked that if it hadn't been for my classes. I enjoyed talking about film until I was asked to analyze the Freudian significance of thirty minutes of flashing red-and-white lights. I enjoyed shooting stuff, until I kept getting broken cameras and defective cartridges. I enjoyed editing footage, until I had to spend twelve hours developing, transfering and editing an emergency project two days after the final class. (I'll admit I never enjoyed developing the film stock - God bless digital photography!) I know real filmmakers go through far worse, so it's good they weeded me out early.

I still love writing about films, as this blog demonstrates. My attempt at writing for the Pitt News didn't work out for various reasons, and there doesn't seem much demand for film critics right now. If I could land a gig somewhere writing about film, that would be awesome, but I'm not holding my breath when it's hard enough to find a "real job."

A plus side is that, for the next few weeks at least, I'll have plenty of time for movies and blogging. I watched Paul Verhoeven's Black Book over the weekend, and time and Netflix allowing, you can expect reviews of Executive Action, Friendly Persuasion, Mildred Pierce and The Prisoner of Shark Island in the next week. Don't touch that dial.