I talk to... STEPHEN and DREW

ages: 22 and 27
nationality: English and US
type of visitor: I forgot to ask
drinking: coke, water
eating: "a kind of rice-crispies chocolate cake thing"

Stephen and Drew are engaged in passionate conversation about a shared interest; I like the creative tension in their interplay as they probe, challenge, disagree, agree, agree to disagree. I hear the words "idiom", "framing", and I feel sure that they are writers of some sort, but then I hear "Mike Leigh", "shots" and "Isabella Rossellini".

They tell me they're postgraduates in Film Studies at Edinburgh University. Stephen wants to go into media journalism (that sounds like a tautology, but I presume it means media about media), while Drew intends to become an academic. I ask them questions, and they answer openly. But although there's something about the energy of their talk that has attracted my interest in them, there's something about the attraction of my interest in them that has killed the energy of their talk. I retreat, sheepishly, to behind the barrier of my laptop screen. Soon they've forgotten me, and here come the words again: "trilogy", "scenarios", "dual-personality".

Just before they leave I ask Drew to recommend his "best films". He goes for Hitchcock's Vertigo and Robert Altman's Images and 3 Women.