Student Films

[John Simpson]

I have just been acting in a student film which was a real eye opening experience. Having seeing other student films selected for showing in Film Festivals I was expecting a highly polished production. I asked one ofthe Directors if there was one of their previous films on the internet that I could watch, and he said and he said there was but he was not proud of it and he did not want me to see it and this film, I was in, was going to be better! Anyway later I did find his film on YouTube, it was a 45 minute driving fim, I could see why he was not proud of it, that film would not have a chance of being selected for a film Festival. This experience was helpful to me, showing that, all student films are not highly polished slick productions, and run of the mill club films are equal to them. Of course if the majority of films we see can be the cream of the crop, the ones selected to be shown at festivals, not the general graduate films - but for me this experience was good because it taught me that many film school graduate are mere mortals like me!