What Cinema Can Teach Us

With the grade and sound mix progressing nicely on my latest short ‘The Man Who Stopped’ I recently got into a weighty discussion about all thing film with some of my colleagues. At some point someone said ‘Cinema can teach you things’. I couldn’t agree more. My mum took me to see Gandhi when I was eight years old. I loved going to the cinema and had begged her to take me. Next to us in the queue to go in was a nun. She saw me and shook her head. ‘He’ll never sit through this film, it’s over three hours long’. ‘I can assure you he’ll sit through the entire film’, my Mum responded defiantly.  And I did sit through the entire film. I didn’t move from my seat once. The nun sitting a few spaces away was very impressed. What was even more impressive was the strength my mum employed keeping me from getting up to go to the loo. No one even noticed her pinning me to my seat. Cinema taught me two valuable lessons that day. Always go to the loo before watching a film. And keep away from nuns in cinemas.