“In 10 years time, only 3 of you will still working in the business.”

Those words were the first thing that I can remember my film production teacher saying to our class in year one of university. I remember very clearly thinking why are you saying this to us, and worst still why are you enjoying saying this to us? My fears for the class proved to be well-founded.

At best, our weekly classes were a source of constant amusement for all the wrong reasons. At worst they were a complete waste of time largely consisting of endless war stories from our lecturer’s experience in the business. Assignments were dished out without thought or design and our production projects literally consisted of go make me a documentary or make me a short narrative film. My heart would sink, having no idea were to begin. Without stimulus or structure I waited for inspiration to descend on me from the heavens.

Critiques were a chance for him to impart his wisdom from up high and would literally turn into a game of spot the flash frame in the edit. With hindsight and experience I now realize just how little I was taught during those years.

Fortunately, my next experience after leaving university proved to be one of the most inspiring and creative periods of my life. I enrolled in a 1 year postgraduate course in physical theatre. Immediately I knew that I had made the right decision. The course was divided into units, which carefully built on the work of the previous term. Each day we developed our performing skills through a series of carefully chosen exercises and were slowly discovering different styles and forms of theatre. Before I knew it, we went from performing short improvisations in front of the rest of the class to writing and devising our own plays. Our teacher was a master and we knew it. We all instinctively knew the value of what we were being taught. He had passion, integrity and communicated his excitement and love of theatre.

Thank you Ron for all those seeds that you planted long ago.

Justin