We talked about the various film and movie making courses that were running locally. In particular, there’s a group who meet most Sunday afternoons (they’re not full time professionals yet and this is their free time) who are joining together to make a film.

Together they’ve devised the film plan and jointly they’ve now decided upon the foundation of the script. When it’s all ready they’ll sort out who will be in the crew and who will be in the cast. They’ll all be involved throughout all of the film. This is film school on a Sunday afternoon basis, as opposed to a year (or two) at a film school or a weekend with a film school expert, like Dov S S Simons or Elliot Grove.

It is great that people want to learn the ropes and see what the whole movie making process is about. With the purpose of techniques they may well see their way forward as producer, director, crew member, script writer or as an actor.

The world famous actress (oh why do we always call them actors these days to be politically correct?) told me she just wanted to go to auditions, get parts and then rehearse and finally, perform: be it on television, stage play or film making.

It was refreshing to hear that people like to be skilled in their own area of expertise and not spend most of their time crossing the barriers when they don’t need to. Some actors like to offer their advice on the lighting, the sound and the type of camera being used. Some crew always know how to act out a scene better than the actor!

Having the options are fine. It’s how you use them that counts.

No, I’m not going to utter the actress’s name as I might want to offer her a part one day and I wouldn’t want to compromise our conversations, past and future. I don’t need the $250 so bad I need call the local newspaper to tell them my story for today. Principals do count, you know. If we all had a few more then maybe those poor stories none of us are interested in (ha, ha) wouldn’t appear in newspapers, magazines and on the internet, but they do so often make good films, don’t they?