Skip to main content

Purpose

It recently occurred to me that I haven't posted in a while. Well, REJOICE!!! I just saw Titanic 3D and now I have a lot of emotions. Just kidding. The movie was amazing, though. In fact, it got me thinking.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that I want to be a screenwriter. If you haven't, I want to be a screenwriter. There, we learn something new everyday. When I tell people this, they often laugh. I understand why they do. It's a seemingly impossible goal. After a person is done with his or her laughing fit, I'm often asked why I want to do this.

Watching a movie like Titanic only strengthens my desire to do this. I've been a moviegoer all my life, but I'm different than what people think I should be. Instead of watching several movies once or twice and analyzing them, I tend to watch a handful of movies over and over again, studying them, figuring out what I like and don't like. I look at the few I connect with to see why I connect with them, mostly because I want to do the same with my films.

For me, writing is about creating a story that helps a reader, listener, viewer, etc. understand the human condition. A story is not about special effects, historical accuracy, or suspense, but about people, emotion, and feeling. Whether a writer uses animals, inanimate objects, people, or anything else, it doesn't matter. If you can create a character that a person can cry, laugh, smile, frown, get angry, or sympathize with, you've won. That is what makes a good story. The more intensely and/or more often you can do that with a story or with a character, the more you understand people and the more they understand people. They may not like what they understand, but you've still done it. You have captivated an audience and maybe, just maybe, sparked a desire in them to be captivated again.

That is why I want to do what I want to do. That is why I am completely, madly in love with books, movies, TV, and even music. I believe by watching, reading, and listening to the things I love over and over again, I may be able to achieve the success I have just described. I want to make people feel something. I want to help them understand the people around them and I want them to understand themselves. Now I hope people understand a little more about me.

Comments

  1. AnonymousApril 12, 2012 at 10:54 AM

    I remember when I was a teenager watching leo dying=( Of course I cried and was thinking about love;)

    Wanna follow each other? I start right now;)

    Kisses from Berlin

    www.amihipnow.com

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cameron Crowe Ruined My Life

Believe me when I say that it pained me to type out the title to this post. Cameron Crowe is one of my very favorite filmmakers. To me, a guy who can write teenagers who are real people, really capture the full spectrum of human emotion, and incorporate a great soundtrack into his work is a real genius. Though it initially made me feel warm, fuzzy, and hopeful, a recent late night viewing of 2005's Elizabethtown  ended up making me a little nervous. I realized that Crowe was just like everybody else. Now, this probably doesn't make sense to those of you who admire his work. As a writer and filmmaker, Crowe definitely has a unique voice and vision that helps his work connect with all kinds of audiences. That's precisely the problem. Last week I wrote a post about how movies are only a reflection of life and not actually true to life itself. In the post, I mentioned that filmmakers are just one person with one perspective, and that is absolutely true of Crowe. In Crow...
Post a Comment
Read more

Talking to Myself in the Mirror

I think it's a pretty safe bet that a lot of aspiring actors/writers/directors/filmy people practice their future Oscar speech in the mirror as kids. I did. Who am I kidding? I still do. It comes with the territory. My mirror talks go, ahem, went (who am I kidding? go) further. Sometimes, I do my makeup while talking to Barbara Walters. Other days, brushing my hair turns into a podcast interview. Most of the time, though, I rehearse what I'm going to say to my heroes. These hypothetical moments are incredibly important, and I can't afford to say anything stupid, so car rides, showers, and mornings getting ready are devoted to preparation. This probably makes me sound crazy. The word "narcissist" may also come to mind. I think one of my heroes would have appreciated both the crazy and the narcissism in this bit of oversharing, though, but we lost her this morning. One of my first posts on this blog was a tribute to Carrie Fisher. I read it over this afternoo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Okay, Oprah: Or, a Pat on the Back and a Push Forward

I didn’t watch the Golden Globes this year. In fact, the closest I got to Oprah Winfrey was when a customer at the Starbucks I work in forgot we no longer sold her chai tea and ordered a “dirty Oprah” by mistake. Still, I was told about the speech . And I watched it. And I, like so many others, was moved by her words.  It made me irritated, too. Here’s the thing: it’s incredible that Oprah stands with women who are oppressed, abused, assaulted, and silenced. Beyond incredible. She spoke with a characteristic eloquence that made people aware and gave people hope in a way so many of us need right now. However, we cannot deny that she had the opportunity to speak those words on such a public stage because she is   Oprah . She’s one of the most powerful women in the world. I don’t think the irony is lost on anyone that the network that she owns is, well, OWN. We think Oprah, we think mogul, renaissance woman, icon, boss. The woman doesn’t need her last name anymore (or,...
Post a Comment
Read more