FILMOLOGY

i have been writing a short. i haven’t made a film since the beginning of the year. i have worked, i have travelled and judged other people’s films. but where is mine? putting together a feature is a burning process, nothing to do with art. the art of filmmaking is a fallacy, it’s a lie, it’s a goddammn illusion. it is a business and no different than setting up shop to sell a shoe except you have to have a name feet attached to it! nothing wrong with selling shoes but I signed up for the sprint!

short film it is. string of short films to make up a feature. the audience don’t know what they want anyways. they pay millions to support crap and then blame hollywood for churning crap when all it is is a business based on supply and demand. we ask for it and we get it…in loads. we have plenty,  let’s revel in it, bask in the glory of self imposed nightmare. make love under the star studded nightsky emblazoned with the promise of “films are dreams”. why be a guy with a camera with typed words on blank pages and wait in line to pay millions and wait for years to put up a face that will please audience! by the time the beloved face is shimmering on the silver fucking screen crunched in a dwindling theatrical window, the audience is watching somebody else! like the way infants feel about people -great aunt has left the room, she doesn’t exist anymore.

so, i am writing a scene that has nothing to do with my feature screenplays. maybe this will be my next short film. started this morning…the coffee is overdue. and it’s almost lunch time. I go down to my favorite coffee shop down the street. mumble what i want and get it just like audience gets the hollywood crap. and a banana bread with butter - warmed up. lunch is done, my cup is still half full. i’m back at my desk, typing, I have written maybe a few pages and have deleted countless more. In total, I have 3 pages, going by the page count. 2 and a half is more like it.

who came up with the word film anyways. isn’t that more like a thin coating, a veneer, a membrane, delicate web of filaments, the dictionary says, film is a thin haze, a blur, or mist - that’s starting to sound close except the thin part.

I’m going around in circles

to find the roots of my faults

I know there is history

buried in the roots of all cause.

I see the mistakes inside my head

pain from frozen memories that are desecrated

shoot up in front of my senses

to steal an otherwise wonderful day.

I’m sometimes amazed at my awareness

sometimes I’m lost in my tiredness

my face cringes, nights bleed into days

like watercolors in the rain,

I remind myself, they’re dreams, they’re nightmares

except I’m awake and I’m going around in circles.

music only track available at www.dibpictures.com , MUSIC page, song 3 - STARLIGHT (click on the fast forward button on the ipod image to skip songs)

CHORUS

You wonder looking at the snow on the trees outside your window, why someone would care if they didn’t love. When I find it, I want to stand next to you. When I find it, I want to be close to you. When I find it, I want to hand it to you.

We would stand on the bridge and the water beneath would be cold, the breeze playing with your hair would be crisp and our friendship would be old. Old enough that I would know you’re searching for warmth every time you would turn your head and pull yourself further in your coat.

We both would have been there before, time and time again, until this time when our skins would be wrinkled and our eyes would have seen the world twice over, once now and once through the kids.

We’d stand there and you’d ask me the same question. I’ll take you back from where we began and you’ll find that it was not about finding the road for we’d have completed a journey…A journey that we would have walked together…on the same road that we set out to find in the first place!

the writing helps. mood stabilizer. I’m writing everywhere. on napkins, on my cell phone, on found papers, post-it-notes. Scraps of papers, abandoned, under the keyboard. On the paper tray, staring at me. On the printer. On the kitchen counter, on a pile of unopened mail. In the trash, facing down. They are labeled with nonsense. Labeled by me. ‘focus’, ‘it’ll pass’, ‘time’, ‘do it’, ‘what’s the truth?’, ‘illusion’, ‘vulnerable’, ‘now’, note to myself in bold “GET OVER IT FUCKING PUSSY!!!”. Music, put on the cd, turn on the synth, open up the screenplay, change the action, change the dialogue, don’t read emails, camera on tripod, get a light, shoot yourself.

It’s the simple things, if i start, it’ll carry me for hours. But i wait. I wait because I don’t have any compelling reason not to. I have things to think about. many simple things to start anytime. Why choose one over the other. Pick one without choosing one. What good is that going to do. Clear my mind, rewire my fucking brain. Open up photoshop, open up a picture. I’m in photoshop. levels, add layers, browse the filters. Now i’m set, i’m off for a couple of hours. Next day, I’ll look at it and i’ll be pleased. I’ll feel accomplished. it worked this time but it was an accident. Can’t recreate, can’t duplicate. accidents don’t happen everyday. Lucky, it does, if I can pull myself to start, convince myself that there is a journey, even if there is none, there is one.

I wake up from my stupor. dreams - some were recreational, some were re-enactments of the past but with different endings. life was wonderful but it’s 7.30. i wake up and walk into my skin. i shut the blinds - it’s getting warm in here. i switch the air off - it’s getting cold. toothpaste - red, from india, red because of the herbs in it. mint flavored floss on a pick with a handle - waste of technology. it’s in the trash after a few hurried strokes. i try to speak. the words come out from inside my chest. my vocal chord is shot. it’s thick, layered and dry. vodka from last night. listerine - my dentist said ACT is better for me, i need the extra flouride. my phone wakes up as the alarm kicks in. there is a message. it says “wake up”. no meetings today.

My thoughts are racing. Racing in an empty field. They seem to get nowhere. The faster they go, the faster they go nowhere. Salt flats, Utah. Everything goes by, nothing comes clear in sight. I try to grab on to one, any, any that I can hold on to but I can’t hold on. Either they lose me or I lose them. Some of them come back. Different the next time around but they’re all the same!  

Actors, faces, characters who have lit up my films, if you’re reading this, I have news for you.  you can use this link to showcase your work to prospective producers. The playlist button will bring up a list of the films. You can tell em which ones to see. The streaming starts almost immediately.
 
www.dibpictures.com/screening/screening.html
 
OR just tell them to go to dibpictures.com and cllick on FILMS

Like music, film is a language that everybody understands. The most powerful device for communicating ideas. Every film carries a message wether intended or not. These messages are born out of social needs and in turn shape social changes over a period of time. Films also used to be the only form of entertainment besides radio and theater. With so many filmmakers out in the field today and myriad other forms of entertainmnt like video games, video blogs, you tube, myspace and so on, do films still hold the legacy of bringing about social change?