The art of film and film making has been a haven for creative freedom and in a constant state of evolution since the conception of the first moving picture. From Alfred Hitchcock to Wes Anderson, directors, writers, and producers have all taken their ideas and collectively synthesized them into one final work of art to be shown on the big screen. With technology being further advanced and now an almost endless bank of knowledge on the topic, since the start of film making, it is far easier for novices to pick up the trade and learn more about how to perfect their craft. Even now in colleges, film is an obtainable major of study, there are clubs that deal with the creative side of movies and shows as well as others that deal with the technicalities of developing a film set. At Florida State University, the film club has a sweeping presence over the campus and community. For those who have taken movies and the way they are made as their passion or interest, and do not have affiliation to the film school, look to the film club. The club is advertised as a “…a professional and fun experience for students to learn the process of making a film…that aims to make multiple short films each semester.” After attending a few meetings and gathering what the club really had the offer. I and other colleagues left with questions presented and unanswered. Was the film club really what they advertised themselves to be? Where does the creative freedom end and theft of ideas begin? Does working independently fulfill the club’s mission statement better than they do themselves?

            On January 17th of this year, myself and two other friends attended the opening meeting for the film club of the first semester. The flyers put up around campus and the Facebook page stated that the meetings would be held every Wednesday night at seven thirty. We arrived later than planned at seven forty-five, but the meeting had yet to start. The four officers of the club stood at the front, as a mass of thirty people or so filled the tightly compacted room. The turnout was more than they had expected, as some had to stand by the door and against the back wall to participate in the orientation. The figurehead standing at the center of the room, gathered the talkative group together, and us three sitting in the fourth and last row of chairs started to listen. The officers had assembled a PowerPoint to establish the main purpose of the club, and what the rest of the semester would entail. Much to our expectations, the mission statement of the club was on the first slide. But what had surprised us was, the following slides didn’t seem to support what the opener had promised. Not one of the four mentioned how new members could get their ideas integrated, in fact the only vocal participants of the meeting were former members who had already received what the officers called “good standing.” As we tried to understand how “good standing” worked within the club, the meeting carried on. Creative writing and ideas being one of the more important aspects to us that the club had advertised, we continued to listen to see how we could take our scripts and put them into action. To our dismay the meeting only continued with an ending slide with “homework” for the members asking us to bring ten dollars to pay dues next week and to “experience something new this week”, as if it were stolen from the script for the movie Dead Poet’s Society. Not thrilled with the first meeting, we left to grab food after and to talk about our possible future within the club. Feeling empathetic, and not ones to give up on our dream, we decided we give the club two more weeks until we decided how we would proceed.

            After a week had passed we received an email from the club’s secretary reminding us of the time and location of the next meeting. I checked in with my friends to see if they could still make the time, and we met up again that Wednesday. We made sure to be prompt with our arrival this week, to get better seats than the ones all the way in the back and to pay our dues. With the first gathering being underwhelming and only semi-informative, we had more preestablished expectations going into that night. The most important one being that they somehow mention how new members could start putting their brainchildren to work. We had gone to the same meeting area as before, the third floor of the Oglesby Union in a broom closet sized room. We had collectively noticed though, that the number of attendance had significantly dropped from around thirty kids to just about twenty, with enough seats for everyone who had showed up. This, to put lightly, had concerned us. The majority of the room now was filled with the officers and former members who, as previously mentioned, had “good standing”. Only about a third in attendance were still looking towards the club to usher them in their new-found interests. The gathering kicked off with the president talking to the group about how we would have access to their crucial set tools, such as jibs, microphones, and moving pieces that really help to capture the movie magic that creators were looking for. Now that they had started to get into the technicalities of creating our film ideas, the three of us had sat up and started to listen closer. Later on, another club affiliated representative stood up to speak to the audience about how we could hone our writing and get our scripts finalized. This was exactly what we had been looking for, for the past fourteen days. As he continued to speak on how we would analyze other scripts and then work on our own, he then began to talk about how our ideas would be used collectively among the group and that while we would be constantly generating new ideas, only the ones given to the board and chosen by them would be able to make it to production. With this new found information, we deduced that only about three scripts would be chosen for creation and that we’d have to hand our personal work over to other people for them to change it, which went completely against what the club had initially proposed. Already displeased and questioning why we were still attending these meetings, the president added more to our disapproval and to their fallacies. He went on to state that for the whole semester to gain “good standing” new members would have to shadow previous members and only focus on one specific job for each person participating. So now, not only would our ideas potentially not be chosen and worked on, and if they did others would be taking over the production, but we would only be participating in one aspect of the main scheme almost a full year after we had wanted to start working. This now creates a major time gap in our personal schedules and nullifies the idea of making a creative project your own and completing more than one project within the span of one to two years. We left the meeting frustrated and had unanimously agreed we were better off working on our own than with the looming presence of the club and its four commanders. The only silver lining to our attendance of the two meetings was that, it was their poor leadership that convinced us that we can bring our projects into fruition without the help of the school. The one question left on our minds as we had split ties with the group, was do any of the other new members realize what they were getting into?

            While I had severed my contact with the club, I had not severed my contact with the thought if anyone else had felt the same as I did while departing one of the meetings. To continue my investigation into my persisting question, I figured the best way to get my answers was to talk to former members and interview them on their thoughts. I worked to contact one of the people I met while in attendance to see if I could get their take. Once, I had explained my reasoning as to why I would be asking them questions, they implored that I keep their identity anonymous. I met with them in a common grounded area and proceeded with the interview. My first question for them, was they had looked to gain by joining the film club. They had made it evident that since they were young that they had always had an interest in film and how it was made, but that they didn’t necessarily know the ins and outs of the business and operations. I proceeded by asking questions on their thoughts of the club’s mission statement, and how the officers presented themselves. They answered by saying it was the mission statement that drew them in initially, and the message laid out in the words represented what they wanted to do with their pursued passion. They stated that the officers were kind and opened themselves up for contact when they needed them the most, and they felt as if the four were clear with what they wanted from the club and how they could help them in their endeavors. Once I had gathered that they were interested in joining the club and still were involved with them, I started to present my own perceptions on the meetings I had attended. They took what I said as standoffish and intentionally contradictory, so their following responses had shortened and became more withdrawn. I began to tell them my plans for continuing my passion for film on my own and asked them their thoughts on it. My interviewee showed that they had respected my plans, but they thought without the guidance of those with more experience than I, that I would have a harder time creating films and getting them out there for the student body and the rest of the world to see. I concluded the interview by asking them if their initial ideas on the club had remained the same after the series of question. They reminded me that they still believed that the club held true to their promise and will make their ideas come true, but that I had made them reconsider some of the things that they viewed about the fulfillment of the mission statement. At the end, I was surprised to see that there were still members of the club that had faith in the work that they were doing.

            The first interview had served past its purpose and enlightened me more on the topic holistically, including the side I did not necessarily agree with. I felt as if I wanted the greater opinion of the group though, that I would need to conduct more than a singular interview. For the second interview, I decided that I would look towards a trusted friend who was also in the film club, who had departed as well as I for their take on the club and its promises. The person I would interview was Noah Earle, a male student at FSU in his first year. He joined the film club at the same time as me but left shortly after I had departed from the group. I met with him in my dorm room but tried to keep the interview as formal as I could. I alerted him of the reasons why I was conducting the interview and he supported my claims in that the club’s true image was flawed compared to how they originally presented themselves. I started off the procedure the same as the first and asked what he looked to gain from joining the film club and their thoughts on how the four officiators presented themselves. He stated that he initially wanted to join because he always had a passion for film instilled in him at a young age from his parents, and that when he attempted to get into the Florida State University School of Film he was denied on his first application. He then went to point out that by joining the film club, he was continuing his most significant interest and by getting involved he would more likely be accepted into the film school on his second attempt of applying. Earle then went on to talk about his first impressions of the officers, and how he thought the power structure trickled down into the members of the club. He said that after the first meeting he felt welcomed and that the board was kind and welcoming, but he too felt concerned that they left too many key points ambiguous. He mentioned how he appreciated that they left their contact information out for all of the members to use. He then went on to say that it wasn’t until the third meeting he attended that he started to realize that the officers favored certain members and more often mentioned “good standing” as a reason to why he was less involved than others. He also felt as if the timetable that the officers had offered for accepting his work took far too long and that he would endlessly be writing scripts just for them to get rejected. I shared my thoughts with him, and how I similarly felt about the over elongated schedule that they had for projects. I asked Earle to elaborate on how they made the environment at their “writer’s table” gatherings. He said that at first it was everyone working on their own individual scripts, but then the ideas that the board had approved they had taken from the original writers and then given to a more experienced member. While the original writer could still be a part of the process and writing, they still would be further withdrawn from their own creation. This piece of insight only further proved to me how the club did not express the interests of every member. I then shared my own views with Noah Earle, and then stated how I believed that by working on my own I can achieve more within a shorter amount of time. He agreed with my thoughts but said the club itself may have not been the problem but possibly only the leaders. I concluded by asking Mr. Earle if he had changed any previous views about the club after the points and questions I had presented to him. He said that I made him think more about how their promises fell through, because when he first left he thought that it was just him who did not flow well with the rest of the club.

            Film is a timeless art and will hopefully forever be a part of society, especially with the opportunities that the future presents it. Even now, film has been further integrated into education and it takes more than just pure talent to have a career in the film industry. As schools start to accept that idea, more clubs and classes will be centered around helping those express their passion. But the system will never be perfected, and sometimes you have to stand up for yourself and your own personal ideas and say that you can do things on your own. Don’t let anyone limit your creative freedom.