Well, I survived the students! There were 2 classes with about 35 students each. Greg came with me because he could bring a different slant to doc making since he's out doing the shooting. or as he said, he goes out fishing, catches a bunch of different kinds of fish of varying quality and brings them home for me to make a meal out of it all.
This wasn't a how-to class...it was about the aesthetics of film. What surprised me was that they were studying "Napolean Dynamite" and the geek archtype and how once nerds were shunned and now they are seen as the smart money-makers, a la Bill Gates. The last day of class they are going to watch scenes from films that the teacher felt like they should see, so he was going to show them part of "Citizen Kane". Whaa?
Boy, times have changed from when I was in school and CK was the Holy Grail!
Most insightful question: "At which point does a documentary become propaganda". My smart-assed answer was that propaganda was a film made from a viewpoint I didn't agree with, and they laughed. But really, you could spend a whole quarter examining that.
Sorta dumb question (I hate to call any question dumb) Why didn't we get real Italians to read S&V's letters instead of Turturro and Shalhoub with their "fake accents"? (This came from a Jamaican woman!)
One woman, from Uruguay, didn't know the outcome of the case and was crying uncontrollably at the end of the film. (Has this become a spoiler?) She really loved it, in fact there was very favorable response all around. When I mentioned that our last film, "The Internationale" was being released on DVD next week, they applauded!
This nice interlude away from our normal work routine took the sting out of the news I heard when I called my partner to report on the repsonse form the class and he told me that we had been rejected by POV. Oh well...
Thanks for all the vibes sent my way. It was quite fun and not scary at all!