The class I'm taking at Los Angeles Valley College is exactly what I needed.

As you may recall, steadfast reader, It dawned on me while working on Torrid Affaire earlier this year that theatre is my "fall-back position" mostly because I have such a highly valued (by me) education in said subject. It stands to reason that if I were to engage in a course of study in filmmaking, my "fall-back position" could then become filmmaking. Also, as a student I would have access to equipment, crew, editing facilities, etc. all for the price of tuition (which is not that much at LAVC, as it turns out.)

Well, I certainly am learning!

Learning Cinema is like learning a foreign culture. It has its own language, its own history, its conventions and traditions. My instructor, Prof. Joe Daccurso, is a skilled and enthusiastic tutor of this strange culture. He's been around for a significant portion of its history (he went to school with Lucas and taught Zemeckis, to give you an idea) and he is a filmmaker himself.

He is also one hell of an examiner.

To say Prof. Joe's exam kicked my ass would be a bit of a misstatement: as I told Pamela, the exam experience was somewhere between waiting on line at the DMV and routine dental cleaning. It was arduous. Not wholly unconfrontable (although I had exam nightmares leading up to the day of the test) but certainly a marathon of cinematic knowledge demonstration. The test I took is essentially the first third of the final exam, and it counts for a quarter of my final grade. (I like that he breaks down the exam into manageable chunks. The subjects covered last Wednesday night won't be covered again in an exam.)

To his credit, Prof. Joe makes available study materials that truly prepare you for the exam. I've never felt more prepared for an exam in my life. So how did I do? When I get my grade back next week, I'll let you know.