Cool School

So i've had this idea floating around in my head for a number of months about starting a school. Originally I wanted to expand the cinema program into something else, something like what I experienced at the cinema school in Cuba last year. After some thought and discussion, I realized that creating an affiliation to the university (or any other old-time institution) would probably end up being quite limiting.

My idea was to have a cinema school that focuses heavily on theory, practice and production. Theory would mean every student would have to be familiarized with the core concepts of film studies, going back to the early days of theory in the 1920s, but also reaching further back to include more general art theories too.

The practice would mean a few things: not only practicing one's craft, but also thinking about methods. There would be a class to help the student find their optimal working style. Some people can work hours and hours two days before a project is due, others need to mull over a projects for weeks, work on it in stages and then produce something complete. I was never taught how to learn or how to work efficiently, and although this might seem obvious to some people, I don't really think it's a given for everyone. Besides, sharing ideas about methods would undoubtedly be interesting or inspiring for others. The idea would be to get a collaborative feeling going between students. Taking the shift away from individual genius and making people with great ideas work together to make them powerful. Practice would also mean trial and error. Hopefully, the school would have enough resources for students to dabble in all kinds of things, developing their overall creativity. Practice would also involve a certain level of administrative arts, or business. Maybe, learning about contracts, rights, and other practical industry knowledge I'm not familiar with. (Note to self: find someone businessy to figure this out.)

Production was originally supposed to be a production company; in the same way that some universities have Presses to print their scholarly activities, this school would have a production unit composed of a network of individuals in and out of the school. After thinking about this for a while and talking to some other people, I thought if the school expands beyond cinema into music or performing arts generally, then maybe the production company shouldn't be limited to film. Maybe the school could have one big project per year, alternating between a film, a live music show, an opera, a dance or whatever. That would give the other areas several years to work on developing their projects. I'm unsure if this is possible, for a production company to produce many different kinds of works, but maybe it could be the first.

Thinking about this some more, and watching several TED talks, made me think that having an official 'institution' might not be a good idea. Institutions have a history of being very rigid and probably thwarting creativity. I watched one talk that was discussing how big internet successes are mostly ones that are flexible, accessible projects -- think flickr, youtube. Ones where people can contribute what they want, when they want. This is now my biggest mental challenge: figuring out how to have a flexible, inviting, creatively thriving "school" that has enough structure to produce things like films and operas which demand huge commitments. The challenge for me is uncertainty. How to deal with the uncertainty of who is in the school, working, learning, producing, at any given time? How to deal with the uncertainty of their compatibility? How to deal with the uncertainty of the attractiveness of this flexibility outside of the school (and indirectly, its legitimacy)?

The school in Cuba functions with visiting lecturer workshops. They have a core group of professors, but they bring in many top quality individuals from the industry (not only teachers, editors, producers, writers). This seems like a great idea. It would certainly add to the interest of the school, and create links between the school and the industry.. I think if the basis of the school, it's more fundamental principle is collaboration, then it might have a shot.

The trouble right now is, there's no real urgency for this kind of school. I know a bunch of talented creative people in all kinds of artistic field who are frustrated by the lack of creative locus in the city, but I don't know many of them with enough gusto to want commit to this crazy idea flowering in my head.

I want thinkers. I need thinkers right now. People who want to develop this, or at least watch a whole bunch of TED talks about talk about them.