Job and internship in Japan

I've been in Japan for exactly 2 months. I still can't quite believe it. Life goes by pretty quickly here. Sometimes the days are slow, but most of the time they pass in the blink of an eye. The weeks are following each other, the routine has caught up with me. Time for a few new challenges.

My internship

I started an internship yesterday at the school I go to. I'm responsible for marketing and social media and am now editing and uploading videos. I'm not allowed to say much more about it, otherwise I'll be breaching my duty of confidentiality, which is relatively strict here compared to German contracts. Let's see how it turns out, I'm intrigued because at least four hours of my free time are now being taken away every day. But as I've finished my first attempt at a book, I need a bit of distance from it anyway before I can improve it. Doing an internship for a month might not be so bad now.

My work

I'm still a film lecturer at my old university. I have the task of running my own film course and this time I've put it on for the third time, much bigger than usual. The second course last term was already 10 times more professional than the first and now I've topped myself again. But because I'm in Japan, I have to manage everything from here and it's proving to be a challenging task. From questions like ‘How do I manage my time’, to ‘How do I design a remote lecture that prepares students for filming in the best possible way’. Above all, however, there is the question of how best to train my students so that they get the most out of the course. Because I have a big hole to fill. After my first semester at the film university, students came up to me and told me that this was the best course of the semester. It should be noted that my course was only an elective course that took place once a week on Friday. This is still the case today. But they told me that my dedication and rigorous approach lit a fire in them and this course was better than any real course in college. What they don't realise is that they did the same with me. Yes, I put a lot more effort into the course than I should have and gave the students resources in acting and manual film classes. But they showed me respect in return. Because they saw how important the course was to me and how important the results were to me, as well as dealing with actors and the attention to detail, they gave me exactly that back, even more. Now the third part of my course starts in less than 2 weeks and I have given everything to make this course 10x better again.

In the meantime, I have prepared real lectures, which I still have to work out in the next few days, but which should be presented at the level of real lectures by renowned lecturers and speakers. At the same time, I have created a trailer for this course so that I can get new actors from all corners. The trailer and my invitations to groups have reached more than 1500 actors and so I have many more requests to take part in my course. At the same time, I have made contact with former fellow students who want to follow in my footsteps with their own course. I have asked some of them if they would like to gain some experience on my course so that they can help me and I can help them. For example, I could use experienced film makers on site who can help the students in problem situations.

There are a lot of activities starting in my life right now that could all go wrong. I do my best to stay above the water, even when the water is constantly rising. At the same time, it spurs me on and I see all the doors it can open. If I make this course successful, how can I make the 4th course, which is also in Japan, 10x better? Could I offer it online? Germany-wide? Europe-wide? Or at least Berlin-wide? For a fee? Who knows? I think I've found something here that inspires people and maybe I can show the reader what my students have shot under my supervision. From complete beginners who didn't understand cameras to the small film makers they have become today. And these are just the best scenes after two semesters, i.e. an improvement. Maybe you're just as excited to see what happens when I can fire more coal into the students' hearts, but see for yourself: