The Architecture of Film and Video
I taught filmmaking and finalLy learned the language of my art.
Last fall, I was approached by the University of Calgary’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape. Their Master’S students were preparing their final projects, and they wanted someone to help them tell their stories. Wisely, they recognized that most of the stories we encounter these days come to us through video. So, I was hired to teach a class I titled The Architecture of Film and Video, and I began outlining a course that would teach students how to tell their stories using only their phones, editing software, and their ingenuity.
Before I could teach it, I had to test my theory: Could someone tell a compelling story with such limited resources? A few days before the class began, I gave myself a few hours to tell my own story. I used my phone to capture some B-roll and a voiceover, dug into my archive of footage I’ve shot over the years, and pulled out some old photos. Most importantly, I chose to be vulnerable and honest. The result was a video that truly captured the part of me I hoped to share with the students.
Now I had my prototype. It was created in a few hours—after twenty years of experience as a professional filmmaking—but how was I going to teach a group of aspiring architects to do the same? I wasn’t entirely sure, just like I’m never fully sure how I’m going to make a commercial or documentary before I begin. So I treated it the same way I treat every project: I walked into the first class the way I walk into the first meeting with a client—curious and full of questions. And it worked. Because it turns out, teaching is mostly ABOUT asking questions.
Like most clients, the students had big ideas and a lot of trepidation about whether they could pull them off. They were gracious with me, and by the end of that first class, I had a good sense of what they needed and where we should begin.
Like every good story, we had to start with character—something I knew instinctively but hadn’t quite named until that first class. You can’t find your story until you have compelling characters in conflict. So, we searched for the characters in their worlds. We put those characters in conflict. And if the students felt compelled by that conflict, they had found their starting point.
What I suspected on day one—and what became true in almost every project—was that the character they had the most access to, the one already in conflict just by sitting in that class trying to make a film, was themselves. It took some of them a while to realize this, but we came back to it again and again.
With their characters identified and stories evolving, we spent a few weeks learning how to show, not tell and how to use layers like B-roll, soundtracks, AND INTERVIEWS to convey subtext. Then we dove into the technical: how to frame a shot, how to capture decent audio, how to edit. Each week, I added a few more slides to my evolving deck, and within six weeks, we had a course that taught them how to make a movie.
So now they had all the information, and they’re brilliant to begin with, so we should have been off and running—but something was holding them back. It was the same thing that held me back for years, even after I was winning awards: the fear of putting my full self into the work. If you make something and it’s rejected, that hurts. But if you put yourself into something and it’s rejected, that cuts much deeper.
Fortunately, I’ve come to learn that being vulnerable and putting yourself into whatever you’re making is the only way to create something that truly resonates with others. So, the last several classes were focused on just that. The students presented their ideas to the group. We watched rough cuts together, giving them the chance to feel the audience experience their work. What they discovered in that room was that the truthful, vulnerable content worked—and the pieces that hid behind a veil fell flat: Things failed in the best way and they learned from it.
In the end, they delivered films that took big swings, were deeply personal, and were outstanding. I suspected it on day one, and now, having watched their imperfect but powerful films, I know these students are going to do amazing things after they graduate.
Going into this class, I expected to learn a lot—but I was surprised by how one simple takeaway overshadowed everything else: Put yourself into your work. Not your ego, not your identity—but your truth. This isn’t new. A thousand artists have said it before (I’ll quote a few of them below) But it took teaching filmmaking to architecture students for me to UNDERSTAND IT FULLY.
-by Eric Pauls
ARTIST quotes:“I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all my heart.” Vincent van Gogh
“The most honest form of filmmaking, is to make a film for yourself.” Peter Jackson
“If you’re always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.” Maya Angelou
“Creativity takes courage.” Henri Matisse
“Every good painter paints what he is.” Jackson Pollock
“If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.” Marc Chagall
“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” Ernest Hemingway