Random musings
May. 24th, 2006 12:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luciazephyrI've discovered that I consider film and television almost sacred.
First, I have to explain my philosophy of life. The greatest thing a person can strive to do is to create. Some believe discovery is more/as important. Maybe in reality it is, but in my mind, it's not. Discovery is just finding something someone else has already made. Despite people claiming land through lawsuits and paperwork, it's not theirs and their misguided if they think it is. On the other hand, if you create something, even if it's for someone else, you are the one who gave the gift life. It's yours.
Back to the sacred nature of film and telly.
We raise up actors because they are the most indentifible figures, representing something that is sometimes hard to grasp. They live lives grander than our own. They see things and understand things in ways we couldn't without them doing it first. Everyone wants to lead an extrordinary life- I honestly believe that people who claim to want a 'quiet' life are misguided or lying. What can you do but want more? It's human nature to want to have and do things others haven't- to create things, whether emotions, experiences, or understanding.
But, where my obsession goes farther than most is here: I appreciate the figureheads behind those fantastic lives. I nearly worship those who create those lives. I am referring to the writers and to the directors. I believe there are two types of people. The first are the normal(er) ones, who stared at the night sky as children, as teenagers, but not as adults. How many adults do you know that pause and completely stop to tip their heads back and examine the sky, giving more than a fleeting glance? Not many, I imagine. The second type of person, they don't stop. They live their lives, get jobs, have kids, move on, but sometimes they just need to stop. Those are the people I love and want to be like. They don't stop reaching and dreaming and wanting. They never stop creating, and that makes me respect them more than anyone else.
Everyone involved, though, not just the writers or directors or actors, gets my love. As of a few months ago, I began to really notice how cameras capture picture. I notice how lighting works in it's beautiful, subtle ways. I notice music, whether lyrical or instrumental. I notice editing, how the editor controls virtually everything shot. All of it, I'm becoming increasingly aware of.
Let's talk different areas of media, namely television.
I have more respect for sci-fi than any realistic show. In sci-fi, you have to create new rules- essentially, a new reality. In realistic telly, you have a world to play in already. You just have to create the stories in that world. In sci-fi, you have to focus on the big (where are we, what's our history, why does this world exist, and how?) and then refocus on the small (who're we looking at, why are they important?) while still keeping track of the big. To pull off both is a rare feat and is often a shaky road to walk down (see the many stock characters and psuedo-science that emerge so heavily in sci-fi).
Through sci-fi, you pull away from the daily routines of life and are shone something larger and more important. This will sound a little nuts, but for higher understanding, you go to sci-fi. If you want to understand the world around you, as in the comings and goings, the routines, you turn to realistic telly.
The one thing I cannot fathom, but would love to, is what it feels like to create these things, to know others are watching it, and quite a few may be understanding it. That'd be the greatest feeling in the universe.
Next to living the lives you write, that is.
-Luce
First, I have to explain my philosophy of life. The greatest thing a person can strive to do is to create. Some believe discovery is more/as important. Maybe in reality it is, but in my mind, it's not. Discovery is just finding something someone else has already made. Despite people claiming land through lawsuits and paperwork, it's not theirs and their misguided if they think it is. On the other hand, if you create something, even if it's for someone else, you are the one who gave the gift life. It's yours.
Back to the sacred nature of film and telly.
We raise up actors because they are the most indentifible figures, representing something that is sometimes hard to grasp. They live lives grander than our own. They see things and understand things in ways we couldn't without them doing it first. Everyone wants to lead an extrordinary life- I honestly believe that people who claim to want a 'quiet' life are misguided or lying. What can you do but want more? It's human nature to want to have and do things others haven't- to create things, whether emotions, experiences, or understanding.
But, where my obsession goes farther than most is here: I appreciate the figureheads behind those fantastic lives. I nearly worship those who create those lives. I am referring to the writers and to the directors. I believe there are two types of people. The first are the normal(er) ones, who stared at the night sky as children, as teenagers, but not as adults. How many adults do you know that pause and completely stop to tip their heads back and examine the sky, giving more than a fleeting glance? Not many, I imagine. The second type of person, they don't stop. They live their lives, get jobs, have kids, move on, but sometimes they just need to stop. Those are the people I love and want to be like. They don't stop reaching and dreaming and wanting. They never stop creating, and that makes me respect them more than anyone else.
Everyone involved, though, not just the writers or directors or actors, gets my love. As of a few months ago, I began to really notice how cameras capture picture. I notice how lighting works in it's beautiful, subtle ways. I notice music, whether lyrical or instrumental. I notice editing, how the editor controls virtually everything shot. All of it, I'm becoming increasingly aware of.
Let's talk different areas of media, namely television.
I have more respect for sci-fi than any realistic show. In sci-fi, you have to create new rules- essentially, a new reality. In realistic telly, you have a world to play in already. You just have to create the stories in that world. In sci-fi, you have to focus on the big (where are we, what's our history, why does this world exist, and how?) and then refocus on the small (who're we looking at, why are they important?) while still keeping track of the big. To pull off both is a rare feat and is often a shaky road to walk down (see the many stock characters and psuedo-science that emerge so heavily in sci-fi).
Through sci-fi, you pull away from the daily routines of life and are shone something larger and more important. This will sound a little nuts, but for higher understanding, you go to sci-fi. If you want to understand the world around you, as in the comings and goings, the routines, you turn to realistic telly.
The one thing I cannot fathom, but would love to, is what it feels like to create these things, to know others are watching it, and quite a few may be understanding it. That'd be the greatest feeling in the universe.
Next to living the lives you write, that is.
-Luce
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-24 06:27 am (UTC)The things about actors that I think we like, more then anything, is their ability to lie to us.
Because acting is, in it's most basest form, lying.
But we like that they lie and that they lie brilliantly. Why do you think actors are the most fun to hang out with, be with? They can lie so beautifully to us, not just on stage but in real life. And we know it, and welcome it, in some way. It allows us to put them on that pedestal, raises them up to some higher plane because they are never anything less than actor.
I'm talking about real actors here. The people we know can lie to us and we will believe it, even if it's in our personal life and they're acting their way out of a fight you know you've won.
I was in love with an actor once. I loved him for himself but he was acting himself and you can't love someone who lies like that to you everyday, every second of "I love you".
How do you know when an actor isn't acting? You don't, if they're good liar.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-24 06:53 am (UTC)Otherwise, trust none of them.
Lying, like most things, has two sides and actors can harness both and that makes them rather powerful. Though, I have heard the arguement that it's not so much lying as just being someone completely different, but that's for the really awesome actors who, on some level, become their subjects. But I'd be afraid for such an actor- having that many full people in their head.
acting himself
That's interesting. I'm not making a comment on your relationship (I don't even know the guy), but don't we all act a bit? Editing our behavior to appease the masses?