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This topic comprises 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
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Author
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Topic: Should a projectionist go to college?
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James Faber
Film Handler
Posts: 66
From: Des Moines, Iowa , USA
Registered: Nov 2004
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posted 01-20-2005 03:18 AM
I am at the point in my where I have to decided whether I want to go to college or not, and quite frankly, I do not. I personally don't see any need at the moment, since I have the job that I want, and would prefer, if not for my entire life, at least work there for a great while. As far as learning goes, I've never been a school person - that isn't the way I learn. I go throug about a book every two days, so I don't think I've stopped learning. So, basically what I'm asking here, is if any of you went to college did you think it was a waste of time, and if not, do you wish you did(as far as your job is concerned).
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Carl Martin
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1424
From: Oakland, CA, USA
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted 01-20-2005 04:00 AM
i think you answered your own question.
i went to college, didn't really have a plan, got interested in film, and here i am making $8 an hour. really using that education.
by all means, keep learning things throughout your life. if you ever do need to learn something in a structured manner, take a community college class. and if, later, you decide to go to college for real, do so, because you want to. your work experience will probably give you a leg up. and chicks will dig you.
carl
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Monte L Fullmer
Film God
Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004
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posted 01-20-2005 05:03 AM
quote: James Faber
So, basically what I'm asking here, is if any of you went to college did you think it was a waste of time, and if not, do you wish you did(as far as your job is concerned
That really a good one with this topic. Yet, with me, I went to college just to get out of the draft (1969-71) since my draft number was somewhat low. So I went to college to get my 2-S deferment. I didn't want to goto 'Nam. Plain and simple.
While in college though, I studied what I liked to do as a hobby and that was with music. Thus, I studed music education, being I already knew the keyboards. But the real suprise is that right after I started in college, I started working at the town's local Drive-In as a trainee for the projectionist's opening that was there. .. and so goes the rest of the story 35 yrs later...(LOL).
As for college though, I can say "yes!" It was a somewhat of a waste, yet I'm still glad I went because I learned something that I wouldn't have learned elsewhere with music. Plus,the atmosphere of a large college, with different people you have never seen or been around with when you were younger, plus, different teachers and courses that high school would never even think of offering. College is a great stepping stone in GROWING UP!
Yet,I knew that I didn't wanted to be "married" to a music career, since I was only doing music as a hobby. Course, back then, who ever heard of a PC, or MAC, the internet, online courses, et.al.?
Jobwise, well...it could be a six-of-one (aka "The Prisoner"), or half-dozen of the other. If I would have continued with music and made that a career, would I be happy? Granted, the money would be great, but still...would I be happy taking the work home, whereas I can leave it at work and come home to HOME?
While staying in the motion picture field as I have done, learned on my own for nobody "professionally" taught me the ropes about the field, I felt that I really have accomplished a bunch, even though the money income had its "hills and dales". And companies that I've worked for, in a whole, treats you as "doing them a favor" to "status as a doorman." Big thing with me is that I have never been unemployed in this business, or unemployed at all. Eventually, with my term in this field, I was making the dough where I'm now successfuly comfortable, but it took all of these years to prove and sell myself to companies who wants me and my expertise-and I still goof-up once in a while (LOL).
With the company I work for now, I'm assured a steady job as long as I want, for my job is defintely secured until this, or any company goes under for some reason or changes hands. By then, I can retire and forget about all of this and call it 'experience'..lol.
You'll find out that there is ALWAYS a tradeoff in what you want and need to do. ALWAYS that balance.
True, with the comments from the others: DO keep up with the education. For you need to have the main knowledge and knowhow to SURVIVE - to keep your head above water, and stay one step ahead of the rest of the world. And the most of all is to keep your bases covered at all times.
For the world doesn't tolerate weaklings. The world will destroy those who will not survive and defend themselves.
thx-Monte
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John Pytlak
Film God
Posts: 9987
From: Rochester, NY 14650-1922
Registered: Jan 2000
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posted 01-20-2005 05:58 AM
Unfortunately, being a projectionist today is rarely a career. It IS an excellent way to work your way through college. If you like working in the film industry, your college degree (whether technical, business, or arts) will help you advance in your career, whether it's filmmaking, management, IT, engineering, etc.
I worked several jobs while getting my engineering degree, but most enjoyed my part-time work as a projectionist. My projection experience helped me get a job at Kodak. But my 35-year career at Kodak has been as an engineer, working on motion-picture projects.
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Scott Norwood
Film God
Posts: 8146
From: Boston, MA. USA (1774.21 miles northeast of Dallas)
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 01-20-2005 07:23 AM
If you have the time and cash (or can borrow the cash), I strongly recommend college. If you are not trying to prepare for a specific career, take courses that interest you and/or are taught by professors who are known to be especially good. Some of my favorite courses were in subjects that I didn't think would interest me or were completely unrelated to my major.
A good professor can make a huge difference, avoid the boring ones if at all possible. If nothing else, education (both formal and informal) will make you a better, more interesting person. One of my favorite classes (in which I did not get good grades, I might add) was art history; it was taught by someone who genuinely loved and cared about the subject and that made the topic fascinating to me, where otherwise I would have had little interest in it. The social experiences that you will have in college are also not to be ignored; you will meet many interesting people, many of whom will be of the opposite sex. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
I majored in Government, which was fascinating, but I didn't really want to make a career out of being a politician or civil servant. Now, I maintain computer networks and do occasional film stuff on the side.
You can probably work at a theatre while in college and, if you choose to study mechanical or electrical engineering, you can gain the skills needed to service projection and sound systems, if you should want to do that. Even if (when) film projection goes away, someone is going to make a killing installing and maintaining ![[dlp]](graemlins/dlp.gif) machines.
If you are on a budget or don't want to commit to a four-year degree, consider taking courses at a community college, making sure that the credits are transferrable to a four-year institution if you do well in the classes and want a four-year degree someday.
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William Hooper
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1879
From: Mobile, AL USA
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 01-20-2005 07:58 AM
quote:
I personally don't see any need at the moment, since I have the job that I want,
Ah c'mon, you know there's more than just one thing on this planet you'd enjoy. The tedious part may be just finding those other things.
Most colleges & universities have as part of marketing their goods for sale an office & service of some kind "interests counseling", "career selection", whatever for prospective students -- it's basically going in yet again with a #2 pencil to fill in circles on an interests inventory. They feed feed this mess ("Do you like math more than history? Would you prefer to watch a TV show about The History of Polypropylene or a TV show about Cooking with Sterno? Do you like fingerpainting? Would you rather work with pre-schoolers or nematodes?")into a computer & get statistical matches of people with similar interests in various professions, & throw back at you a list ranked in order of those which you match most, then less, then not much at all.
As you'd guess, it's not the all-knowing Ouija. The best matches come out at the top, those won't fit everybody who fills in the circles ("Yeah, I like nekkid people, but I don't want to be a mortician"), noise starts coming in with people who just go to work & are disengaged from their professions for example because they foreclosed on it )"My folks wanted me to be a factory electronic parts assembler, so I'm going to be an electronic parts board assembler"), some professions look good to certain personality types but are better suited to another (working on customizing cars is fun, until that 1st February when you open up the door for the umpteenth time & see a lot of crunched cars that have to be done in freezing temperatures), etc.
If the counselor is just a lazy git pulling a paycheck & only comes up with broad, uninteresting categories ("This says you'd enjoy being a laboratory scientist"), you'll have to press for example of what KIND of engineer (electronics? chemical? civil? working with road grades or designing bridge?) lab technician (medical? nuclear?) or research lab supervisor (marine biology? chemical?) or dig on your own to find out something more.
The best way to get through the college mess, since you're pursuing a particular standardized set of classes to get a particular degree to do a particular thing, is to find & meet with the group the school has for folks pursuing not just that degree, but that particular profession - the Cardiovascular Students Club, the MBA Knitting Circle, etc. All these structured things are usually not very useful on top, but the informal stuff answers questions about which instructors are awful, do I need to take History of Spartan Military Fashions, etc., & provide the tips & support to get through things like The Stupidity of Requiring Calculus for Degrees in Professions That Don't Need It At All.
You never know, projectionisting may get old fast; but while it's still almost recreational, it'll be a fun way to pay the bills while you work on something else you'll like maybe even more, & which will provide money for more sumptuous vacations.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 01-20-2005 08:06 AM
quote: John Pytlak
Unfortunately, being a projectionist today is rarely a career. It IS an excellent way to work your way through college. If you like working in the film industry, your college degree (whether technical, business, or arts) will help you advance in your career, whether it's filmmaking, management, IT, engineering, etc.
Agreed 200%. I got my first part-time projection job while still in high school. The main reason I went to university was really (being honest with myself) because my parents did and it was kind of expected. It was a combination of working as a projectionist and doing a history degree which got me interested in film archiving, and the next step from there was a postgrad qualification in film archiving (will continuing to work in the theatre business to pay for it). At the end of that there were no archive jobs around (this was 1996, Britain was only just coming out of an economic recession and the public archives were feeling the pinch), but I was offered research funding for a PhD in film history. So there then followed three more years of being a student by day and a projectionist by night and weekend, and eventually two years full-time in the business before finally getting the archivist's post I'm in now.
I'd say that both has helped each other. The research skills I learnt in various universities and colleges are something I could fall back on if the film archives here finally get into real trouble (something which, sadly, is becoming a real possibility). The projection and film handling skills kept me in a job when I needed one, and furthermore was a far nicer job to have than any of the alternatives, despite the antisocial hours. Furthermore, having the film handling experience is incredibly useful in my current post, which is a small organisation (three full-time and two part-time staff) where we all have to multi-skill to a certain extent.
As Brad says, the college education is a very important safety net to fall back on should you ever need to, or eventually want to move on. I enjoyed every minute of my time in the booth, and still project the odd show in the theatre of the university in which our archive is based every now and again, but there came a time when I knew that this wasn't all I wanted to be doing for the rest of my life.
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Thomas Procyk
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1842
From: Royal Palm Beach, FL, USA
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted 01-20-2005 10:30 AM
College isn't for everybody. You have to WANT to go into academics, which I hated as long as I can remember. And now that I look back on all those people who drilled me through my pre-teen years that I HAVE to go to college and HAVE to get a career at some big corporation or I will NOT be "successful" I want to beat them up. When I approached my school guidance councelor about the prospect of opening my own business with the money I got set aside for college and she said, "You will NEVER make any MONEY with your OWN business. You need something SOLID, like an ESTABLISHED company for your career..." ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
So I went to college. And I found it to be exactly what Bob Dylan said it would be: "...an invisible circle in which no one can think without consulting someone..." College is a business, and they're not in the business of selling education. They're in the business of numbers. Because the bigger the numbers, the more funding they get and the more money the administration will make. And anyone who believes for a moment that when they raise tuition that a good percentage goes to the professors should take a gander at the recent Faculty Protest regarding that very matter that happened here two days ago.
Anyways, the stuff I learned in college that I really cherish never came from a classroom. The experience of it all, the people, the hardships, the challenges and decisions you have to make are the things I have learned about. But ask me what I learned in Anthropology and I couldn't tell you even if you held a gun to my head. In that sense, I believe college is the biggest hole you can ever throw your money into.
Throughout my "career" in college, I've had six majors. Each one had some kind of stupid requirement or prerequisite to purposely throw people for a loop so they won't pick that major. The biggest joke here is the communications department. You have to go through so many "applications" and "approvals" before they let you learn what you really want to. (Radio, TV, Film or Journalism) My problem was, despite the fact that I've touched more actual film than all the students in the program put together, that I've had a radio show ON CAMPUS for a year, that I am a published writer... all that didn't matter. Nor did my portfolio. You see, you have to have a 3.4 GPA to get in and mine was a couple point fractions lower. So the entire department is filled with book-smart hacks with no talent. YAY!
Universities are also a brilliant model to create cheap labor for corporations or cheap recruitments for the military. You see, these big corporations pour money into universities so that they can come and do a "career expo" to lure students into working for them. You see, through college you basically PAY to be TRAINED for these jobs that these companies offer. That saves them major bucks, not having to train people on their own. Then when they come to the career expo, they can fill all those lower-level positions with aspiring young college students who think they will actually climb the corporate ladder once they get their foot in the door.
That's a very important thing to remember. Don't go after a major or a job just because it makes a lot of money. You may be well-off, but you'll be dead tired and disgusted at the end of your 9-5 day that you won't want to spend any of it. Except maybe on alcohol.
So in a nutshell, the only thing you will "learn" in college is how to navigate one of the most unnecessarily complex buraucracies on the planet (which can actually be useful in this "real world" they keep telling me about) and how to live on your own for a couple years. All for only $25,000+
I wanted to open my own theater before I got to college. Could have used the money to start it up. It would have been open for four years now. Currently, the theater that had opened in that location since is making money hand over fist. There's a college lesson for you.
I should be graduating soon. But I told myself that repeatedly for the past three years. I will more than likely have a degree in Technical Writing. YAY! That's what I've ALWAYS wanted to do. More accurately, it was the only thing left that was loosely based on what I REALLY wanted to do, which the buraucracy told me I couldn't. "In college, you can be ANYTHING you want!!" Yeah, just like Santa, they lied to me about that too. But I guess you have to lie to people if you want to be rich...
=TMP=
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