Film Create/Film Destroy

Frustrated. How is it that a 22 year old woman-- someone who once believed herself to be an artist-- can not seem to master the manipulation of film stock? I guess I'm not cutting myself enough slack. Yesterday was literally the first time I have ever touched film; we still haven't spliced ours to the class reel so I'm not even sure how it will turn out. I suppose if I were to set my ego aside, I would say that yesterday's class presented me with an entirely new perspective on animation film-making. While it may have looked like a simple arts-and-crafts "I made the duck blue because I have never seen a blue duck before" class segment, I felt more like a scientist. Every scratch of the emulsion was to be minuscule, meticulous but not necessarily precise; drops of bleach eroded the emulsion, maybe a bit too much if I wasn't careful-- then again, I don't know what I am trying to create in this destruction, so why not let the chemicals act on their own? They know what they are doing better than I do. Maybe I was frustrated not with my performance but instead my reaction to the immense possibilities of film create/film destroy-- I was creatively paralyzed at the sight of so many instruments, bottles of ink, by so many familiar objects, yet in this context they seemed completely foreign to me. Film, film stock, that is, is intimidating, especially when you are unable to see the footage projected during the editing process. 

I suppose I discovered that I am easily frightened by all of the artistic opportunities this assignment presented. However, I am still holding on to that sense of gratification of having worked on 6 segments of 24 teeny weeny frames for 3 hours and finally seeing what the six seconds of all my frustration, confusion, and film illiteracy will look like when spliced and projected for the entire class to see. Now that I think about it, that scene in Billy Madison could be applied directly to this assignment. HA!