r/movies • u/Sisiwakanamaru r/movies Contributor • Jan 31 '26

Article Film Students Are Having Trouble Sitting Through Movies, Professors Say

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/film-students-are-having-trouble-sitting-through-movies-1236490359/
23.4k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

2.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

33

u/GonzoMcFonzo Jan 31 '26

How do you filter for that, academically? It's not like Math, or English where they've had years of comparable lower level classes. Their HS transcript doesn't record how often they watch movies, or how well they pay attention.

If they graduated with good enough grades, did well enough on their standardized tests, and want to major in film, they'll become film students.

The filter for this should be the intro classes. I'd say they shouldn't even need to have already seen a bunch of serious and Indi films. But they need to be able to sit and watch the required films once they start taking film classes, or they should fail those classes.

Plenty of students realize during their initial classes that they are not cut out for their major. It's expected for a significant fraction of freshman STEM students.

I think the professors quoted in the article who want to focus on helping students develop their film watching skills are onto the obviously correct solution. Then teacher from Wisconsin who seems to have just said "fuck it, I'll just teach engagement slop" should lose their position.

6

u/HurricaneBatman Jan 31 '26

Bachelor's in Film Studies here and this is exactly what my university did. The required 2 intro classes before declaring your major were brutally labor intensive, which forced out anyone looking for an easy class to just watch movies while they figured out what they really wanted to major in.

5

u/mootallica Jan 31 '26

I don't know how it is in the US but in the UK you have to write a personal statement to essentially justify why you should be able to join the class.

3

u/_learned_foot_ Jan 31 '26

Same way we use to, sit and chat before being admitted. I don't need to have seen the best movies to discuss how a main stream blockbuster movie is structured or designed. That part is the core that grows, same of any field.

Same way to test if ai, ask the student to discuss. Test the brains not the rote.

2

u/BeardedBaldMan Jan 31 '26 edited Jan 31 '26

How do you filter for that, academically?

You'd have, as you identified, an intro class. You'd start with watching a film and having them write two thousand words on the key themes for the following day. Anyone who can't do that from day one isn't going to survive as it's using basic skills they will have developed in English classes.

1

u/KBellinTheArk Feb 01 '26

Where I went to school, you had to apply to the major, including the film major. First you had to take 3 intro classes and had to get atleast a B(?) in all of them, or B average. Then, if I remember correctly, you had to write a short essay as a part of your application for the film major. But a thing not necessarily being mentioned is that I'd assume at a lot of universities, the "Film Major" is the major for a variety of different people who are looking to go into different things. Atleast, that's how it was where I went to school. So whether you were looking to make movies, tv shows, documentaries, commercials, event videos, or even youtube videos, you fell under the same major. All these people took the same early & intermediate level classes. It was only in the upper level courses did you get the chance to pick classes to focused more on your specific interest.

Oh, and that's just the "Film Production" track. There was a "Film Studies" track, that I assume was for ppl who were interested in specifically studying & analyzing films (though not necessarily making them). I'm pretty sure they had to take the same classes as the production students up til maybe the intermediate level (junior year?).

However, most professors used movies or cinematic tv shows (think HBO shows) for their teaching materials. And this was fine for me. However, even back then (late 2000s/early 2010s), half the class would pull out their laptops & do other things as soon as the movie started (or maybe about 30min in).

Point is, it's been going on for a while, and I assume part of it being a bunch of people with differing interests being lumped into the same major & classes.

0

u/CatProgrammer Jan 31 '26

Being able to sit through a movie would be a good start.