When you think about a film student what comes to mind is probably some cool person who is really into classic and indie movies and only listens to movie soundtracks and is probably the third coolest person in the room. While some of that is true being a film student is not all fun and games and MCU binges. Studying film is tons of work and you slowly being to go crazy when you stop watching films (yes films, not movies) for entertainment, but analysis. Yes, we have to analyze films! It changes how we watch films when you watch The Godfather three times to understand the overarching themes and then write an essay about it.
Or even worse when you have to analyze a single scene in a film. Imagine re-watching the same three-minute clip of one film for three hours to finally get the bigger idea and write a paper about your interpretation of the said scene. It's a lot. Watching films for homework sound great until you realize that you have to pay attention to what's going on or you are going to be lost in the discussions about it the next day in class. That's not all about the homework however, my first film class we had to annotate Jaws and The Cove for homework, the whole movie. For the lucky souls, who never had to write one, an annotation is a writer commenting about what is going on in the film and explaining their thoughts and feelings on the film. Jaws, for example, is a two-hour film and to write an annotation took me for four hours to write and some of my classmates did it in six hours.
Just because you are a film student doesn't mean the struggles are only in classes, but no socially too. You are the one friend everyone goes to for film suggestions, but sometimes they end up not even taking your suggestion and watching a Marvel movie instead. It's not fair especially when you watch the cinematic genius like Sebastion Schipper who directed a two-hour one-take film with a cast that speaks Spanish, German, and English all in one film. (It's called Victoria it came out in 2015 if anyone is interested in it) It's even worse when you and your non-film student friends all agree on a film to watch and all they comment on is the basic plot and acting, while all you can talk about is the score and how well Edgar Wright's transitions are between scene to scene, and they didn't even notice. When you learn all the ins and outs of the filmmaking process and you try to explain to your friends and they are don't care honestly hurts. Especially when you try to explain why star power (the well-known names in the industry boost interest and acclaim of a film) to your boyfriend, and he says he doesn't need to know why this is a thing and continues to play an Adam Sandler movie is probably one of the worse things about being a film student. As much as I love studying film it can be a real pain in ass.
