The Interview that wasn't an interview

Hi

How's it goin?

Prepare yourselves for a tale. 

A tale of travel, disappointment, and a slinky attached to a mans fly.

Are you suitable prepared?

Alright, lets go.

Yesterday I had an interview for university, this is the tale of how it went.

As regular readers may be aware, my college course is coming to an end soon. I have just over three months left. I still have to shoot my main feature in that time. Which I am fairly confident I will get done. So in the meantime I have to start thinking about the future. Again, regular readers will know this has been causing me a bit of stress lately. 

And then, about three weeks ago, I got an email. A great e-mail. An email which showed a glimmer of hope on the horizon. I had an interview. An interview for a university. Fantastic. This was something. Not a definite place, but something.

One small problem was that they wanted a showreel. I don't have a showreel yet, so I worked hard and fast, and finished off two of my projects for this year. The Cooking Show, and a short film for a festival. More about that on Monday.

I stuck them on a DVD and made up a portfolio with paperwork from my various projects and some of the other films I've been helping on.

I was fairly happy with it. 

The university was not in Aberdeen, but in another great city in bonnie Scotland. I apologise for the vagueness, but it is a necessary evil, so as not to get myself into trouble. I don't want someone at the university to find this blog entry and then blacklist me or something.

I booked a train ticket the day before, the email I received said the day would take no more than three hours. The problem was, I was going to the theatre to see Avenue Q that night, in Aberdeen. My appointment was at 1:30, this would mean to get back to Aberdeen on time, I would need to be on a train by 4:30 at the very latest. It was gonna be tight.

I arrived at the station intending on getting the 9:07 train. This got me to my destination 2 hours before my interview, so I had plenty of time to find the place, and maybe meet up with a friend or two in the city.

This was my first problem of the day. The ticket I bought was valid for trains AFTER 9:15.

Shit.

My train was at 9:07. The next train was at 9:52 which got me to my destination at 12:35. Still plenty of time, but if that train got delayed for any reason, I would be late and could kiss any chance of a place at this uni goodbye. I had to pay to upgrade my ticket. Another £24. I had already paid £50 for the return ticket. That meant I spent £74 for a day return ticket. Unbelievable. £24 to get a train 8 fooking minutes earlier. And it's not like they were full or anything. Quite the opposite. Bastards.

And the train was shit.

No power point for my laptop.

No Wifi.

I fucking hate First Transport Trains.

£24 for 8 Fooking minutes!

I was raging!

I arrived at my destination with plenty time to spare, had a wander and found the building easily enough. 

Eventually 1:20 arrived, I was instructed in the email to arrive ten minutes early to register. So being the good young man I am, I did.

I arrived, gave my name and was told to make my way upstairs to the meeting room marked "film and television." Which I did.

No sooner had I sat down than someone was calling all the film and TV applicants to another room to hand in portfolios. This was brilliant. I would be outta here by 2:30 the way this was going. Plenty of time to get home.

We went to the other room, gave our names to another woman and was told to leave our folios on the table. I was then handed an information sheet about the day. The woman then told us to go back to the meeting room and the tour would begin at 2pm.

I told her that it's only 1:25, she looked at me with a very blank expression.

So we returned to the meeting room, and sat. For 35 minutes.

With nothing else to do I read the information sheet I was given. It told you that you would go on a tour which would last about an hour, then you would have a Q & A with the tutors. Then at the bottom I noticed this.

Read the last sentence.

WTF!

NOT AN INTERVIEW!!

THEN WHAT THE FOOK AM I DOING HERE!?

I was not happy. As you can probably tell.

Eventually 2pm arrived and incredible boredom had set in. Three Students wearing "Guide" t-shirts arrived. I assumed they were tour guides and not Girl Guides. They came round and asked everyone's name and what course they were applying for. Then had a little conversation amongst themselves. 

We were then told that the tours for Animation and Film & TV were being combined as not enough people had turned up.

So?

That's not my fooking problem!

So with our groups combined we followed our tour guide. A man who looked like a cross between Charlie Chaplin and a tramp.

We went to an animation class, stayed in it for about 30 seconds while the guide tried to find a tutor to talk to us, then left when he couldn't find one. This situation was repeated in the animation studio, the 3D studio and the sculpture studio.

I was forced to walk around the animation and art sections, which was of no use or interest to myself, or the 8 other people here for the Film and TV course.

At one point the guide noticed I wasn't interested and asked if I was here for the film and tv. I informed him I was to which he asked if I minded going round all the art stuff.

I replied with,

"Do I have a choice?"

Apparently I did not.

During the course of this tour, I got particularly annoyed with a fat girl who looked like pig, she would not shut the fook up. Every two seconds she's talking about how she always gets picked for being sound recordist in her course at college. She doesn't know why.

I'll tell you why pig girl.

Two reasons.

1: If you're recording sound, it means you have to listen, so then you'll shut the fook up.

2: Sound recordist is generally the job you give to someone who is shite. That's what I did when I made my first year film, and to be honest, I would have been better using a microphone stand for the amount of work that this persona actually did.

Our guide got lost twice while attempting to find the TV studio. When we eventually got there it was interesting to talk to someone who had done the course. But that was for all of three minutes, we were not allowed to see the edit suites as they were in use.

After this we got shown round the shop. The tour guide was especially enthusiastic about this. I am not sure why. It was a shop. It sold pencils, paint, and twix's. But he insisted we see it.

We then got taken to the sculpture studio, I have no idea why. There I saw a student attach a Slinky to his fly, his mate pulled it across the room as far as it could go, then let it go to watch it ping back at him. The two of them then fell into fits of laughter.

Fooking mongs.

I was very, very unhappy.

The tour lasted just under an hour, only about three minutes of which were useful to me.

We eventually returned to the meeting room and had to wait there for anther ten minutes before we got to see the tutors for the Q & A. I was looking forward to this as it meant I could go through some of the stuff in my folio with them.

We went into a classroom and sat down with two tutors. One was in charge of Documentaries and the other in charge of Drama's.

Both of them seemed quite dull.

They gave us some more information on the course. The pig girl seemed irritated that this course would only allow you access to year two with her HND. She said that another uni in the same city was letting her into third year with her HND. I know what course it was she was applying for, and what she doesn't know is that, that particular course doesn't have a first or second year. It is designed for people who have just finished an HND in TV and lets them continue on to get a degree. 

Stupid pig faced bitch.

I asked about the application process and what happened next. To which the tutor replied, that's it, just wait and see. They have made their recommendations based on our application forms and our portfolios. They are apparently not allowed to do interviews. NOT ALLOWED?

WTF?

So all they did was look at the portfolio I left on a table for them?

No individual one to one chat or anything.

I spent £74 getting to the city that day. I could have spent £2.50 on a FOOKING ENVELOPE AND SENT THEM MY FOLDER!

I was raging.

What a waste of my time.

Overall my day was a total waste.

I arrived at 1:20 as instructed and then dumped in a room with nothing to do for 40 minutes. I had a tour guide who knew nothing and got lost, I got taken round a tour of areas that will have NOTHING to do with me if I go here. And I didn't get a chance to talk through my portfolio with someone.

I was very, very angry.

As I was leaving I was asked to fill out an evaluation form about the day. I gave them 1 out of 10 and where it said, "Any other comments?" I wrote this,

Total bloody shambles

Put the following words in the correct order...

Brewery you organise in a couldn't a piss up

Fortunately the evaluation form was anonymous, I have yet to hear anything back from my "interview."

Bastards.

That's All For Now

Until Next Time

Have A Nice 

Andy G

If you want to get all the crap I write delivered straight to your inbox then go to www.TheBlogOfAndyG.com and put your email address in the wee box that says "subscribe."

If you don't subscribe then I will force you to have a day just like the one you just read about.

P.S. I did make it home in time to see Avenue Q. Have you ever seen it? It's really good. Very funny. Although I was slightly pissed off about the fact that I was sitting behind a man with a very large head. Surely people with big heads should be forced to sit at the back? It's only fair.