Welcome to the Listening Time podcast.
I'm Connor from polyglossa.com and you're listening to episode 31 of the Listening Time podcast.
If this is your first time here, welcome.
It's great that you found this resource, because it should help you practice your English listening comprehension.
So with this podcast, you'll be able to listen to different episodes about different subjects that I talk about in a natural way, using natural words and expressions.
But of course I speak a little bit more slowly and a little bit more clearly than other native speakers speak.
In this way, you'll be able to understand better and you'll be able to learn more new words more easily, because you'll be able to understand the context of the sentence a little bit better and you'll be able to identify those new words more easily.
Also remember that you have the transcript available for this episode in the episode notes, so be sure to access that if you need it.
So my voice is a little bit bad because it's very early in the morning.
So you'll probably hear if I'm recording in the morning or in the afternoon, based on the quality of my voice.
In the morning, my voice always needs some time to get warmed up.
In English, when we say get warmed up or to warm up, we're just referring to getting something ready, getting something ready to operate at 100.
So, for example, athletes need to warm up before their event, before their game, for example.
So my voice needs a little time to warm up in the morning, but unfortunately on days like today I only have time early in the morning to record an episode.
So, Unfortunately, I have no other choice, but I'm sure you won't mind.
So today I'm going to talk about my experience in film school.
So I actually attended film school for a short period of time.
And so I thought that would be an interesting topic to talk about.
If you don't know what film school is, the word film just refers to movies in this context.
So I went to school to learn how to make movies.
This was a long time ago, so I'll have to do my best to try to remember all of these details, but I think I'll be able to.
So, before we start, remember to sign up for our 1 listening practice seminars at polyglossacom, if you need more practice with your listening skills.
Also, please share this podcast with anyone who might find it useful.
That would really help the podcast grow, and it would give me more time to record more episodes.
All right, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time.
Okay, so first of all, let me give you the context behind my decision to go to film school.
So when I made this decision, I was only 17 years old.
I was still a kid, basically.
And when I went to film school, I had barely turned 18.
So in English we can use the word barely in this way to say that something had just recently happened.
So, in this context, I said, I had just barely turned 18.
This means that I turned 18 and then, like one month later, I moved out of my parents' house and I went to film school.
So I grew up mostly in San Diego, California with my parents, of course.
But when I turned 18, I moved to Los Angeles to go to film school.
So this was a huge transition in my life.
I think that for anyone who has moved out of their parents' house, they know that it's a hard transition.
It's not easy to suddenly live alone.
And I think it's even harder when you move to a city like Los Angeles, because it's a huge city and it seems a little bit intimidating or scary even.
So I lived in a neighborhood called Koreatown.
It's called Koreatown because there are many Koreans or Korean Americans who live there.
So if you go there, you'll see many signs in Korean.
It's pretty interesting.
However, I would say that this isn't the best place to live in Los Angeles, but I think it was affordable for me at the time, so I didn't have much of a choice.
But this was a neighborhood that had a lot of homeless people around it and I always heard police sirens at night.
The word siren refers to the sound that a police car makes.
This is the siren.
So, I'm not saying it was the worst place, but it definitely wasn't the best place.
But it was okay.
I survived.
I lived in an apartment with three other people, but we only had two bedrooms.
So I shared a bedroom with another person, and then the other two roommates shared a bedroom.
So we didn't have a lot of space.
But it's Los Angeles, so it's expensive and you do what you have to do in order to afford everything and survive.
So I had to share a room with someone else.
So at that time, I was very young and I had aspirations to be a filmmaker.
The word aspiration just refers to a goal or an objective that you want to accomplish in the future.
So I had aspirations to be a filmmaker.
And I have to say that at that time, I was young and dumb.
When we say the word dumb in English, this is an insult.
It kind of means like stupid or something like that.
So I was a little bit stupid and I didn't really think through what I wanted to do.
I didn't think through my plans very well.
And I just said, I want to be a filmmaker.
But this ended up being a mistake, of course, because I'm not a filmmaker today.
But it was an interesting experience nonetheless.
When I say the word nonetheless, this is like saying however, right?
It's showing contrast.
So this was an interesting experience nonetheless because I went to a pretty cool film school.
So let me tell you a little bit about that.
So this school was designed to give you the experience of being a real filmmaker.
So I did the directing program at this school, but they also have other programs as well, like acting programs, editing programs, cinematography programs, etc.
But I chose the directing program because I wanted to be a director.
So in this school, we had to go to classes usually about six days per week, if I remember correctly.
So it was a heavy schedule because I didn't have a two-day weekend every week.
I usually had just one day off, usually Sunday.
And we had classes on all of these other days.
And we also had film shoots.
So when I say a film shoot, I'm just referring to a film that we were making, producing.
So we would go to the location where the film was being made and we would have to work making that film that day.
So this is what I'm referring to when I say a film shoot.
So we either had classes or film shoots six days a week, usually.
So it was a very intense program.
But, as I mentioned before, this school is designed to give you the experience of being a real filmmaker.
So I had the chance to direct and produce about 10 short films during my six months at this school.
So that's a lot.
And I also had the chance to work as a crew member on other people's projects.
So a crew member just refers to someone who is on the filmmaking team.
Right.
Sometimes I held the microphone.
Sometimes I worked the camera.
Sometimes I edited, etc.
So I had the chance to work as a crew member on other people's films as well.
So this was a really cool experience because we were treated as real filmmakers.
So, for example, for my films, I had to hire actors.
I had to reach out to actors or have auditions for actors to hire them for my films.
So, as I mentioned before, this school had acting programs, so there were many students at this school who were training to be actors and we were able to hire them to act in our films.
This was really cool.
I remember working closely with a few different actors and it was cool to have the chance to direct them and work with them on each film.
So I really liked that.
Another interesting thing about this school and about my program is that we learned how to use film cameras.
Most of the movies that you watch are shot using digital cameras.
So it's literally just a recording device.
A device just means some type of electronic machine, right?
Like your phone is a device.
Your computer is a device.
So nowadays, filmmakers usually use digital cameras to record their films.
But in the past, people used actual film, right?
The word film literally refers to this type of camera that captures many many, many images of at a very fast speed.
And when you watch these images together at this speed, it looks like the images are moving.
This is why they're called movies, because they're moving images or moving pictures.
So if you watch older movies... you'll see that these movies are not shot digitally.
They're shot using film.
But, as I said, nowadays filmmakers prefer to use digital cameras because it's probably easier for them.
But in my program I learned how to set up a film camera and how to actually use it to shoot a movie.
This was really cool.
I got the chance to learn the details of these film cameras and see how they work exactly and see how filmmakers shot films in the past.
Of course, certain filmmakers still prefer using film nowadays, but this is probably the minority of filmmakers.
Most filmmakers just go with the digital cameras.
So that was something cool about my program.
And another thing that was really cool was that the location of my school was actually on the Universal Studios lot.
When I use the word lot here, I'm just referring to the actual place, the actual grounds of Universal Studios.
So I had to enter Universal Studios every day to go to my film school.
But, of course, I didn't go to the amusement park side of Universal Studios.
I didn't go... to the place where all the rides and attractions are.
I went to the other side of Universal Studios, where it's actually the filmmakers and the business and the school that I went to.
So I had a badge to enter into Universal Studios every day.
The word badge refers to a little card or a little thing that you can put on your shirt that shows who you are right.
It shows your name.
It shows that you belong at that place.
So I had a badge that to get into Universal Studios every day.
But like I said, not at the amusement park.
I went to the other side of Universal Studios.
But the really cool thing about this is that we had the chance to film some of our movies using these Universal Studios sets.
So the word set in English can refer to a place where you film a film, where you shoot a movie.
So Universal Studios has many sets that people can use to shoot their movies.
So you can rent a The set for a certain amount of hours or days.
So, for example, there is a set that simulates Europe, for example.
They have like a fake European city there and you can use that to shoot a movie that is set in Europe.
And they also have a New York set.
So you can use that set to show New York in your film, to act like you're in New York, even though you're not, because it looks exactly like New York.
So they have a lot of different sets like this that have been used in many, many famous movies.
Because many times filmmakers don't want to fly to Europe or fly to New York just to shoot a couple scenes of their movie.
So they might rent one of these sets and shoot a few scenes there, so they don't have to go to New York or Europe with all of their crew members and actors and pay all that money to transport everyone.
So of course they prefer to use these sets to make it look like they're in New York or Europe or wherever, but they don't actually have to spend the money to go and transport everyone to go there.
So that was really cool because we got to film on these sets where many famous movies were filmed.
And one funny thing is that these sets are also an attraction at the Universal Studios theme park.
Thank you very much.
To the side of the park where these sets are and you can see some of these famous sets that were used to shoot some famous films and you can take pictures of them and you can try to recognize which films used these sets.
So I remember that when we were filming on these sets, there were tours of people going by and they saw us on these sets and they thought that we were famous filmmakers and famous actors.
And so they started taking pictures of us and waving at us.
And we pretended like we were famous and we waved back at them.
And it was really funny because we were just students at a film school, but we were using these famous sets.
And so the tourists.
They naturally thought that we were famous filmmakers themselves shooting movies at that time.
But we were just film students shooting our student films.
But I thought that was pretty funny.
So overall, my experience at film school was really interesting because, even though I decided that I didn't want to be a filmmaker I, after six months in my program, I still have to say that I learned a lot.
I learned a lot about the film industry, and I learned a lot about working in teams.
But most importantly, I learned that I don't really like film.
I don't really like the film industry.
I don't like Hollywood.
I don't like that whole world.
And I don't really like the technical part of shooting films.
I'm not very good with cameras and I'm not very good with cinematography.
I wasn't very good at the technical aspects of film.
What I was good at was writing stories.
So I liked writing the scripts for these films, but I wasn't good at actually executing the film and setting everything up right and capturing the perfect image.
I was really bad at that.
So I learned that that type of job wasn't for me.
And like I said, I really dislike the whole world of Hollywood and the whole film industry.
And I realized that really quickly after I started my program.
So I didn't actually finish the whole program.
It was supposed to be a one-year program, but I only stayed for six months because I couldn't take it anymore.
In English, when we say that we can't take it, this just means that something is too much for us.
We can't handle it.
I couldn't take being in that environment anymore.
And so I decided to drop out of the program.
This means that you quit a program.
You end early.
So I dropped out of the program and I moved back to San Diego.
But I did have the chance to make 10 short films.
So that was definitely a nice experience.
And it's a cool story to tell nowadays.
Alright, I'll stop there for today.
Hopefully this episode was interesting for you.
Remember that the transcript for this episode is available in the episode notes, so make sure to access it there.
And remember to sign up for our 1 listening practice seminars at polyglossacom if you want to practice your listening skills even more.
And please share this podcast with anyone who might find it useful.
Well, thank you for listening to this episode and I hope you'll come back for episode 32 of the Listening Time podcast.
