REFLECTION: Balancing Significance

Hello! My name is Arlen, and I’m a senior student at St. Michaels University School. I recently completed a three-month screen acting job in Halifax, all the while trying to stay involved in academics from afar; I quickly learned that being a student and working in the film industry can automatically subscribe you to two completely different worlds - both with their own challenges and opportunities, none of which necessarily fit perfectly together.

I was incredibly excited for the opportunity to be in such an amazing show; The Institute by Stephen King was one of my favourite novels as a kid, and it felt like a dream come true to have received the audition, then the callback, then the official casting. When I learned I’d have to relocate to Halifax, missing a third of my senior year, I still wasn’t too pressed - I was pretty confident in my ability to do online school, and would make it back in time for everything I really wanted to be there for. 

At least that’s what I thought. I found that, while filming was incredible, I had overestimated my ability to balance the two. Filming days would often have me leaving my apartment at six in the morning and coming back at six at night; work was tiring, and to have to do a full day of school work afterwards wasn’t as easy as I thought. I’m also a co-head of the school Pride club and a prefect; I found that finding the time to dedicate myself to leadership at school, while throwing everything I had at a good performance on screen, was difficult to execute perfectly. Aside from the time commitments of both, I think a big part of the dissonance between environments was the amount of responsibility I had. Filming in Halifax was the first time I’d received a paycheck that wasn’t minimum wage; it was the first time I ever paid my own rent, or bought my own groceries for more than a couple weeks, or went to full days of work. It felt odd to be managing my own finances and then tuning in to AP Psychology class in the next hour. School seemed a lot more safe, and a lot less out there; it felt like filming was my “adult” and “grown-up” thing, and it was jarring to go back to class and be normal, to keep working on my university applications like I was any other student. 

I don’t regret my choices at all, though; I was incredibly lucky with my first experience in the film industry. The people I met were wonderful, and I learned a huge amount with that hands-on experience that I was thrown into. I think that type of learning, paired with the schoolwork I was somehow managing to stay on top of, afforded me with a very well-rounded experience in those first three months. I feel lucky to have been a part of both, and while balancing them was difficult, I think it paved the way for earlier experiences in the future. When I go to university I’ll know how to keep myself on schedule when I’m studying on my own rather than in a classroom, and I’ll be more confident in all those key skills of living independently that are so weird to learn the first time. I learned so much about the different ways to learn, and wouldn’t trade it for the world!