A film, A midterm, and a realization

Hey everyone! If you're interested, some friends and I produced this last week:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxDTm62Cmb8

It's for a freshman film festival SCA is putting on for the first time this year called the Alfie's. Its supposed to be a two minute film about the first six weeks at USC. You might recognize the story if you've been reading the blog. Enjoy!

I can't take much credit for the film because honestly I wasn't there for most of production. I have yet to determine whose fault that was. Pretty much what happened was I was involved for the original brainstorm and then the follow up meeting. And beyond that point storyboarding was handled without my knowledge and shooting was scheduled without me. I ended up having class both shoot dates and they couldn't reschedule because that was the only time talent was available. I don't think this was on purpose or malicious in any way, but I couldn't help but feel a little pushed out by the other members. Anyway, I provided most of the original framework for the story and some finalizing with music and editing. Beyond that though, I had very little creative input in the process. I do hope you enjoy it though.

I just had my mid-term in Casper's Cinema course. Surprisingly it was not nearly as hard as I expected. I finished a few minutes early and felt I had answered most questions very thoroughly. We were given two hours to answer six of seven questions offered on the test, all essay format. I just hope my TA can read my scribble.

Something I realized in the run-up to this midterm, really the only one I cared about this semester, is my inability to really buckle down and study. Most of my friends are from production and so were taking this midterm as well. They started studying last week and really hadn't stopped until today at two when the test started. This inspired me to try to study as well and I realized I really can't. Being a fast learner like I am, I never read any text during high school. I also never studied for any tests (except maybe in Spanish which I was horrible at). What I did do was go to class every day and listen. I never took notes, but I paid attention. And that was usually enough to get me an A on the test. Or at least to get me by. The problem is that now, when I actually need to study and take notes and read the text, I don't have the good habits I'm finding most people around me have. I think my intelligence has been a major strength of mine growing up. However the problem with being smart is that you never have to work hard for what you achieve. So when it does comes time to work hard the people around you, who have been shitting themselves daily to attain what you did naturally, have the work ethic and the habits that allow them to succeed. This while you can only work for ten minutes without needing a break and fall asleep every time you try to read a textbook. I'm wondering how much longer my intelligence will serve me before it starts to hurt me. I think I did pretty well on this midterm, but who knows? What about the final? What about other classes where answers are in the reading that I haven't done? We'll see if my fast learning was an enabler or a detriment to me in the coming months.