How to Stay Healthy at Film School
"The great equalizer is health. If you don't have it, you're screwed." ---Jami Gertz "Health food may be good for the conscience but Oreos taste a hell of a lot better." ---Robert Redford Film school or any other art-related school can create an atmosphere of intense competition and one-upmanship. It's like placing several dozen potential directors into one small community. Working directors can already be incredibly arrogant, but at least they've been around long enough to know their limits. Potential directors are still testing the limits of arrogance, so they haven't yet completely destroyed a production and burned the bridges on all their budding working relationships. There are several things you should keep in mind to stay healthy while you're attending film school: 1) Eat right: You absolutely have to make time to eat. Even if you ruthlessly pursue your vision without any luxuries, you can't function at top efficiency without eating. The quality of your food effects the quality of your activity. Sugary junk food and caffeine may get you going in an editing session for a short while, but in two hours you'll be stuck going through a crash and then be unable to sleep. Juices are good, but watch out for energy drinks: some of them contain nothing but sugar and caffeine. Lots of college students like to try being vegans or vegetarians, but you have to carefully monitor your protein intake. If you don't eat enough protein you will leave yourself lightheaded and flaky. Fast food may be cheap, but it's rarely nutritious. Stick to grilled chicken sandwiches and salads. 2) Get sleep: Caffeine may be the fuel of life (at least I think it is), but I eventually discovered that drinking two pitchers of iced tea a day left will leave your heart racing at 4am. You have to sleep. Staying up all night will accomplish very little in the short term. In the long term, you'll be so wiped out trying to get back into your normal sleep rhythm you'll be wrecked for days. The human body needs about eight hours a sleep a night and some studies say that teenagers need even more because their bodies are growing so fast. Another sleep study introduced the concept of "sleep debt". Assuming you need eight hours of sleep a night, getting only six for several weeks accumulates a sleep debt that you will eventually need to "pay" later in life. There are times in film school where you will need to shoot late or pull late nights editing, just try and limit those nights. If you can schedule yourself so you can sleep until noon the next day, you won't accumulate a "sleep debt". 3) Get exercise: Studies show that physical exercise not only stimulates the body, but stimulates the mind. If you're trying to come up with a good scene for the end of your second act, go for a walk. Stuck on which shot will open your film? Go lift some weights or go for a run. Screenwriters are especially at risk because they spend all day sitting in front of the computer. I have to make sure that I get up and move around at least once every hour. Every once in a while I forget and spend too long in the same position. I've gotten kinks in my neck and pains in my shoulder that sometimes last for days. 4) Have a Social Life: Films are about creating human experience for an audience. If you don't have any human experience, your scenes will probably fall flat when it comes to the details. Even if you don't like people, film school is about making contacts for the future. Love, as they say, is the universal language. How many movies have you seen that don't have a love story somewhere in there? You've got to experience some kind of romance if you want your love scenes to make sense. Shutting yourself in your dorm room with books 24/7 might get you straight A's, but it won't help your movie making. 5) Keep your life in balance: A college professor once told me, the habits you make by the time you're 18 to 20 are the habits you will keep for life. Too much of anything is going to throw your life out of whack: Too much partying, too many drugs--- Even too much film can warp your view. As you immerse yourself in your craft, you can push yourself further and further away from the audience that you want to entertain. (I like to call these people, film critics. Just kidding.) It's fine to love film and know film, just don't let it consume you. Stay healthy all winter http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0846/is_4_26/ai_n16882301 Sleep Deprived Teens Paying Price http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/28/earlyshow/living/parenting/main1444540.shtml Film School Confidential http://www.tomedgar.com/fsc/index.html Get Physical! Exercises for Writers http://www.geocities.com/bobrich18/stretch.html Vancouver Film School: Social Life Surveys http://www.vault.com/survey/school/college/Vancouver-Film-School-social-life-18378.html
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