Fuck you guys, I'm talking here [aka Why I Write]

[Warning: the following post is incredibly narcissistic and, superficially, has little to do with writing. However, my narcissistic side contends that it has everything to do with writing. Go figure. You have been warned. Seriously.]

[Deleted out of sheer embarrassment]

So I quietly have to fess up that I want to make movies. I always say it understated like that cause its far less embarassing than saying ' I Want To Direct Movies '. Say that when you actually work in the Biz and you'll be laughed at - "You and everyone else, kid". So he goes on: "What about movies motivates you to want to make them?"

So I had to really fess up:-

"I want to direct them and probably write them too cause most writers suck***".

I can't so he was entirely surprised.

"But what motivates you to want to do that"

"Everything. I'm not just motivated by one thing, I can't be, I get bored. Making movies is like a spectra of myriad motivations." (How's that for redundant)

"..."

We went on and I tried to explain it. I failed and it sat with me for a while, so this is my attempt to answer the question.

Here it comes... The Good Stuff:

Why (I Think) I Wanna Make Movies:

At their best movies capture the gaps in the words.

(Badly expressed, but whatever, kinda proves me point)

I spend all my time in thought, often deeply, densely layered in words. Movies allow me to break free of that cell. There are emotions and feelings and narratives and thoughts that we struggle to express with words. They are exist apart from such a logic construct as language.

Look at Bill Murray in Broken Flowers (d. Jim Jarmusch, 2005). We never know how he's feeling, he certainly never says how he's feeling, he's alien to us... yet its a completely moving performance. It just bypasses all the barriers of the brain and slithers right into your subconscious.

Look at the last shot? How could a screenwriter EVER EVER EVER EVER write something like that with all its layers and nuances and complexities and... simplicity? Pages and pages and pages of description detailing the minuate of his expressions and it'd still never come close to that.

Wow.

Think Terrence Mallick, Wong Kar Wai, Stanley Kubrick, David Fincher etc, Six Feet Under... etc. etc..

But on a basic level, I think that's how all cinema works (to lesser and greater effect). Look at something like Jaws or even the Matrix. It just taps into the brain and we *understand it*. Yes, it uses a complex system of semiotics... but its more than the some of its parts.

I'm not saying screenwriting is invalid, I spend too much time thinking about writing for me to think that. Its a fundamental component of the synergy of cinema: writing, photography, music, sound, performance, design, montage, sculpture, fashion etc. etc. Together, they produce a medium which can express what none of them individually can.

To me, the joy of shooting of production is discovering all those moments which make the film come alive. You can storyboard and rehearse all you want, but when push comes to shove, its the MOMENT which matters in front of the camera... A single moment of being.

... and that's what interests me and why I find it endlessly fascinating as a medium. All that I want to say, all I want to explore is about embracing that.

That is why I write, in the hope that eventually it'll help me finding moments of truth... non-intellectualised truth...

Tarvkosky once said in Sculpting In Time that (paraphrasing here): "Science and art are the same, their purpose is to help us understand the world".

My Boss also said 'You're good at lots of things, but you're not exceptional at anything". I got really pissed off because while it is it also ignores that being good at lots of things can be exceptional in itself.

I see patterns and connections and depths where others can't... I'm not the worlds best writer or photographer or composer or sound designer or actor or designer or editor or sculptor or costume designer or whatever... but I understand, instinctively, how these things connect... and that (I hope) is what makes me do this filmmaking thing and will do it well.

[Wow. How about that for trying to talk yourself up? Arrogant prick...]

I feel better now. Time for some Xbox to shut up brain.

Hmm. Do I send this? Hmm. If I don't send this now, I never will, so screw it, here goes. I did warn you poor bastards that got this far. Sorry guys.

UPDATE
Screenplays are the beginning of the framework of the movie. I don't think thats depressing. I think that's pretty freaking awesome. If you've ever had the pleasure of watching actors workshop your work, its an awesome kick. They bring so much to it that is beyond your petty control freakishness.

If you want everything to be exactly as you've written it, just write a novel.

* I love that adjective in a business context, it just means so little while pretending to say so much. It's the Da Vinci Code of Adjectives. "Stuart Willis, one of the world's leading bloggers". Am I lying? No. Arguably I am a leading blogger, but in what am I leading? Footnotes? Stuart Wilils, leading bloggging proponent of digressivng footnoes indicated by incrememented asteriks (@ asteriks = ( $asteriks + 1). told you tcsh sucks).
** I made that up.
*** Except of course you, dear reader.