Slumping though Dublin, and films

When my teacher Wendy asked me if I wanted to go to Dublin to help teach high school students how to make films, the thought of Europe was already in my mind. I had the idea of traveling around for a couple of weeks upon graduation. I had no clear-cut plan, and considered London, Paris or perhaps somewhere in Italy.

Dublin was a second, more affordable, option that appeared out of nowhere. In a flash, two weeks after graduation turned into five weeks at the end of the summer. I accepted the invitation and here I sit, writing from my two-bedroom apartment in the heart of Dublin.

I share the space with a nice guy named Adam. Adam is an actor and a student at Brown, who is studying in one of the other NYU programs here. His hours are just as long as mine and we rarely see each other. But on occasion, we sit at our kitchen table and talk about “the States.”

He’s much more positive than I am, about everything. Which is nice. Probably nicer for me than it is for him. He likes it here and is usually excited about something.

“I’m not sure about Dublin, man,” I said as I cut up an apple and spread peanut butter onto the side of a plate.

“Oh, no?” he countered.

“Yeah, I’ve been here for a week and a half and I’m pretty much ready to go.”

He smiled politely. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

I wondered if he really did.

My apartment is four blocks from Trinity College in an area called “Temple Bar.” It is, to no surprise, exactly what it sounds like. Bars line cobblestone streets. During the day, street performers play to crowds of tourists. At night, the trendy nondescript bars are filled with the same tourists. They are loud, rambunctious and always intoxicated.

I spend my days at the teaching classrooms of the Tisch Dublin office. It is significantly smaller than I had expected, and consists of a lounge, a computer lab and a classroom. As one of the teaching assistants, I am with the high school students for two to three hours a day. I am responsible for my crew of four every step of the way from shooting on the streets to editing in the lab.

Being here with them is a reminder of just how far I’ve come since high school. Their maturity levels range from insightful to immature, often within the same sentence.

One of the main reasons I wanted to come here, in addition to the free trip to Europe, was to be around raw filmmakers: kids that just love to make movies. It’s quite a difference from my friends, all recent graduates, where everything is about money and competition. It’s all about getting a job, keeping a job, who’s doing what, with who, and all of the other scary real-life realizations that people with a degree in filmmaking go through. Before I left, I had started asking myself why I had spent the last four years of my life and countless amounts of money in film school.

After the first day with the students, though, I wanted to murder all of them. The city of Dublin and these kids, who seemed to never stop talking, just got to be too much. As soon as they left for the day, I was off to the pub.

Strange how the entire Irish culture seems based around drinking. In New York, it’s all about the food. Here, the food is mediocre and overpriced. Just how many fish and chips can you possibly eat? The first week, I searched high and low for macaroni and cheese to no avail. I have found bangers and mash to be pretty good, but everything here is so unhealthy it makes me nervous.

My roommate is taking a theater study class and assures me that there is a lot of great theater in Dublin and a rich theatrical history. James Joyce fans would enjoy the museum that bears the same name. And the Guinness factory is worth a trip. But all and all, I’m not impressed. Before I make up my mind about the country, I need to see the rolling hills and the castles of the Irish countryside, which I hear are quite beautiful.

Almost daily I feel like an ignorant American and a rude New Yorker. I need to learn patience. Life in these parts moves a bit slower. They charge you for plastic bags, the streetlights constantly make annoying sounds, but there’s no tax and you don’t have to tip at bars.

My hope is that being around the high schoolers will reawaken my love for filmmaking. I’m hoping it will help me remember why I wanted to go to film school and take me back to the time when making movies was about fun, the suspension of disbelief and telling stories.