The wonderful thing about art is you can interpret as you see fit/from your perspective. What I did was try to see what was on screen from the various points of view (the viewer, the story teller--which is the screenplay and camera, the production, the characters, and society--if applicable). Plenty to write about when you "look" at a movie like this.
Sure, yep. There's a lot of crossover. It's a good thing. Even though I wanted to be behind the camera, we were required to take acting classes and vice versa. It's critical to stand in another's shoes to understand what their jobs entail.
Incompetent doesn't describe it well--because it's more about attitude. We'd call them "posers" or "pretenders," people who didn't know what they were doing, but acted like/thought they did. Like I said, if you didn't know something that's was totally fine because that's what school was about--if you were really willing/wanting to learn. It's the ones that didn't that wasted everyone's time and racked up the frustration.
That's funny! I guess my telepathy works! heh
I think going by the book is perfectly acceptable (provided it's a good book and the right book!) when starting out. I've seen people totally throw out the book at the start and fail miserably. The quickest way to progress IMHO is to at least understand the book/rules before you break them--but have a reason to break them and not just for the sake of breaking them. It's just random garbage otherwise (as opposed to art).
Do you have any favorite movies?