Becoming a Film Teacher

Do you know that saying when “life gives you lemons, make lemonade”? Well, I think I embraced this saying after getting my work placement sorted after many months of trying. I ended up working with Larry Cowan at his production company Lamb Films. He wanted me to mainly help him with the Belfast Film Academy classes he ran each week on teaching beginner filmmaking. Ultimately Larry’s plan for me was to create a PowerPoint for him to use at the beginning of every class for the next 9 weeks and for me to ultimately take the class for a lesson one night all by myself. The teaching of any sort never interested me, nor would I say I have the best patients and qualities to be the best teacher one could however I saw this as a moment of opportunity to challenge myself and to learn something new. I will be using the Rolfe et al model of reflection to reflect on my journey in my interview preparation and the interview itself. I will be using it due to the sheer simplicity of the model. I will ask myself What? So what? What now?

   

Baby Steps

What? : After the discussion with Larry about me taking a class later in the weeks I knew I should start planning my lesson ASAP. Since film editing is my main passion in films, Larry suggested that I take the lesson on film editing and post-production and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t excited at the prospect of for once being the teacher in the class. Upon being introduced to the class as the “classroom assistant” I started paying close attention to Larry’s teaching style and time management of the topics being covered in class each week. Each week Larry sent me notes on the topics being disgusted and taught for that week and I would transfer all the relevant information to a PowerPoint and have it ready to give to Larry to present. For the first month of joining Larry and helping with the class, I had yet a date set for when I would be presenting. Instead of stressing about what I exactly would present I took these weeks as an opportunity to learn about the class and become more familiar with them. In only a few weeks the intimidation that they were all older people than me and that I was probably not suited for this job, was gone since I had gotten to know everyone in the class and more about them.

A presentation that lasts 2 hours!? 

So what?: 20th March 2023 was the day that I was scheduled to give my presentation on film editing and post-production. Each class lasted two hours with a short break in the middle. At this time, I had three weeks to prepare for the big night. I started brainstorming ideas of which elements I wanted to cover and which were most beneficial for the class to learn about. After all, this wasn’t film school; it was a night class for people who were interested in learning about the basics of making a film. In two hours, I can hardly teach them everything about film editing and post-production! Therefore, it was important I covered the points that were relevant to a beginner class, and I also wanted to get their option on which topics they would like me to cover so I asked them to email me their questions and that I’ll do my best to cover as many as possible during class. However, there was one factor of the presentation that I couldn’t find peace with, filling two hours with a presentation. As a student, I’ve had to present my fair share of presentations however most of them were to only last ten minutes and NOT two hours. Chivers and Shoolbred write ‘Time management is important for preparing and delivering good presentations, yet it is often a source of stress for students.’ [2] Whilst they do discuss this through the eyes of presenting as a student in front of your peers, I found that this can also be applied to presenting in general. Going from ten-minute presentations to a two-hour presentation is a huge jump and made me question just how all my university lecturers do this! Practice! Practice! And more practice is the answer as Chivers and Shoolbred write ‘It is also important to allow for some rehearsal time to ensure a more polished performance and greater confidence.’ [3]

Just my luck!

What now?: It’s March 20th, and it’s my time to shine or so I thought. Unfortunately, due to time limitations, Larry had to take half of my class time to teach the class about film lighting which he didn’t manage to do the previous week and so I was left with less than an hour to go over my lesson and needless to say I didn’t go through the entire PowerPoint as we ran out of time. However, I did learn quite a few things: ‘Virtues in your own teaching persona, and how to make sure that your teaching persona and your real persona neither jar nor gel too much… you need to be able to bring enough of yourself into the room in order to make the role meaningful’ [4] Have backup material in case you need to fill more time, speak at a decent pace and don’t rush through slides, Involving the class in your presentations with questions and quizzes always adds more time to the presentation so don’t forget to include that whilst rehearsing and last but not least being up in front of the class teaching certainly does bring a sense of satisfaction in knowing you are helping to teach someone something new.

References:

[1] Rolfe, G., Freshwater, D., Jasper, M. (2001) Critical reflection in nursing and the helping professions: a user’s guide. Ebrary [Online]. Available at: https://my.cumbria.ac.uk/media/MyCumbria/Documents/ReflectiveModelRolfe.pdf (Accessed 4th April 2023).

[2] Chivers, B. and Shoolbred, M. (2007) A student’s guide to presentations: making your presentation count. Ebrary [online]. Available at: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qub/detail.action?docID=420910 (Accessed 4th April 2023).

[3] Chivers, B. and Shoolbred, M. (2007) A student’s guide to presentations: making your presentation count. Ebrary [online]. Available at: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qub/detail.action?docID=420910 (Accessed 4th April 2023).

[4] Bennett, T. (2012) Teacher: mastering the art and craft of teaching. London: Continuum.

Link to Blog: https://blogs.qub.ac.uk/ael3001-2022/2023/04/04/becoming-a-film-teacher/