Hurry up and wait
- 5 days ago
- 3 min read
A behind the scenes look at moviemaking.
Written by Jake Ryan
There’s a common debate among college students about what the easiest major is. The answer I hear pop up the most often is a film major. Seems self explanatory. The most used joke is, “Film majors be like, ‘Man, I’m so busy, I got nothing due on Friday,’” which, based on experience, is mostly true.
The part you don’t hear about, however, is the “Friday” when everything is due. Where the six month culmination of meetings, equipment orders, fundraising, recruiting actors and crew, drawing storyboards and test shoots all culminate in 40 hours of work squeezed into one weekend. It’s finally time to make a movie.
And it sucks. But they still do it. So, why?
“I don't know what else I'd be doing,” Athan Marshall, a senior film student at Cleveland State University (CSU), said.
Marshall recently finished filming his thesis film, “Paper Kingdom,” which is currently in postproduction. Despite long hours and meetings, weekends spent filming and writing and sleepless nights, Marshall has stuck with it.
“I can only describe it as a compulsion and I enjoy it,” Marshall said. “[I] wouldn't have it any other way.”
Many people may assume that making a movie is putting a camera down, setting up a couple lights, saying action and winning an Oscar. For the longest time, I believed that to some extent as well.
That was until my freshman year when I was cast in a film student’s project. I witnessed what can only be described as filmmaking in its purest form: a Dana Dolly shot. A camera setup that involves two giant metal poles that form a track for the camera to move on. It took nearly 30 minutes to set up this shot, all while I waited patiently, sitting on a staircase on my mark. After all the time spent setting up, testing the shot out, running through the actions and finally getting ready to film, the actual take lasted about 10 seconds. I walked down the stairs out of frame and that was it. On to the next shot. My mind had been blown.
Film majors and art students in general take an approach I like to call, “passion over all else,” when it comes to their work. Most people try to separate their work from the rest of their life. Sleep in on the weekends, stay inside when it’s 20 degrees out with a 21 degree wind chill, you know, normal things.
Instead, those students who have chosen to follow the arts are consumed in their work. To a film major, having a movie night is like a study session. Inspiration fuels all their endeavors, so what better way to do research, then watching examples of the best in your field? Who else does that by choice?
Maybe I’m just calling myself out for being lazy, but I have never once in my life as a public relations major been like, “Man, I can’t wait to read a crisis management case study analysis and then spend my weekend writing one.” It just wouldn’t happen.
“So many hours were spent trying to figure out the script, storyboarding, shortlisting and just straight up worrying about all the issues that might arise on set,” Adam Michaslski, another senior film student at CSU, said. “So yeah, I have no idea how many hours it took. It was a lot.”
Michalski also recently finished production on his thesis project. Despite the stress, Michalski’s spirit wasn’t broken.
“I do it because I love it. Making movies just genuinely brings me a lot of joy, especially when everyone on set is having a good time too,” Michalski said. “It’s a lot of hard work, but if you really put forth the effort and dedicate yourself to it, the end result can be pretty special. There simply ain’t no other feeling like it.”
All this to say, film majors work pretty hard.
The photos below are provided by Jake Ryan. Click or hover over each image to see a description.
