Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Signs of the Apocalypse?

I posted my final course grades two days ago, and I haven't had a single complaint, nor even a question directed my way about a borderline B that "should have been A."

Maybe I'm just getting better at communicating my expectations nd my students' status throughout the semester.

Monday, December 11, 2006

End of the Fall

The fall semester is coming to a close, and though I've enjoyed my classes, I'm definitely ready for a mental break, not to mention the fact that I find it really difficult to get any creative work done when I'm doing class prep every day.

I'm eager to get to work on my next film, a short documentary I've been circling for a while. And now that I've won a small grant to help pay for it, I'm kind of committed. So I need to get started on that (in truth, I HAVE started -- I shot a couple of interviews back in the summer).

In other news, I had an interesting conversation with the Dean of Arts & Sciences today. He doesn't know me (and I know this because I had to reintroduce myself to him), but after we spoke for a bit, he mentioned that he knew I hadn't gotten the sabbatical I applied for, but that I was very close to getting it and that I should definitely apply again. He said that he doesn't remember the ones who "aren't close."

I took this as a positive sign -- the dean, who doesn't really know me, recalled my name from having signed off on the sabbatical committee's recommendations, and he must have thought my proposal had some merit (it did -- but try to get a university committee to pay an artist to work on his or her work; no small task, believe me).

I'm excited about working on this film, even if I won't have a sabbatical to do it. It's a short film, and a documentary to boot, so there's really no marketability here (and it's a self-focused, navel-gazing film, too). In other words, I'm making it for myself, with no commercial agenda. I hope to get it into festivals, but I'm basically trying to make an entertaining film, and I'm not worrying about anything else.

That's kind of refreshing.