my cinematical mind

It should come as no surprise to you that I enjoy films and that I once (twice, thrice, four times maybe) thought I should be a filmmaker and then convinced myself otherwise each and every time. I never needed to exactly explain my position on this issue. People have either always agreed or even gone so far as to recognize that I "really like movies." It just makes sense.

Why do I want to be a filmmaker?

Glad you asked. Other than my intense interest in film production and consumption and criticism and history and etc., I fancy myself a photographer and a keen observer of the human condition. Stories fascinate me. My twenty years of watching films have greatly affected how I see the world. Literally. And my eyeglasses help frame this view. It's as if my looking out through these lenses that help me see better constitute a camera. That I can see the frame only emphasizes my self-awareness of the medium, as a director of my own life. My ears are fine-tuned to what goes on round me. I love spotting seemingly random and quotidian sounds. The absurdity of life, which I encounter everywhere, is always fodder for filmmaking. It only makes sense.

When I was in middle school and high school, I was a very depressed and lonely figure (still am to some extent, but that's another series of blog posts). Whenever something unpleasant happened to me, whether it was the nasty words and stares girls at the lockers would shoot my way or a C on a math test, I tried to forget about it. Especially the bad grades. I would tell myself, "You are not stupid. This is your life. It is a movie. It's in the script. But it's not in the script that you'll fail." Delusional, I know, but we all have our own ways of dealing. Mine was to pretend my life really was a movie and that nothing is real (even when I am the one who was unpleasant to others). I still feel this way sometimes.

Everything affects me. No matter how big or small. Some people call it ultra-sensitivity, arrogance, paranoia, etc. I don't know what to call it. I'm just uber-observant. I am so observant that I notice things before others and pretend not to notice at all. So as to avoid talking or arguing about it.

No one else is going to make a movie out of my ideas. I may have these ideas and joke that I wish someone would make them into films, but they're not going to.

A piece of advice that I collected while talking with a documentarian: "make sure you choose the right medium for your idea. You make think you want to make a movie, but it might be better as a short or hell, even a novel or short story." I admit some of my ideas shouldn't be films, but every time I have an idea, I see it played out in front of me like my pseudo-dreams. (I call them "pseudo" because I am awake while they take place and I consciously manipulate what happens.)

More to the point: it's not enough to analyze and write about films. Through discussion of films--whether verbal or written--there is always a lesson, or at least some indication of what to do or avoid in fixing my idea onto celluloid. In other words, my study of film has taught me how to be a filmmaker. How Tarantinian of me.

I have the French New Wave manifesto of le politique des auteurs to thank for this one. And also how filmmakers since them have interpreted this ideology that the filmmaker is an artist and how he or she uses the camera to tell a story is highly personalized, even if it's a collage of styles. How unexpected to be inspired by Luc Besson's Subway (1985)! A film that, according to the comments I scribbled in my film journal upon watching it for the first time, I didn't like or dislike.

I'm a postmodernist. I'm forever making connections. And I could go on. Probably will.