Sitting In The Front Row

Sure, it hurts your neck, but that's the price you pay. When you're a Kid In The Front Row, it's just YOU and THE MOVIE. Nothing else matters. There's no dude two rows in front picking his nose. There's no woman in front of you whispering actors names to her Mother. There are no teenagers making out....... it's just YOU, and THE MOVIE.

And yes, I know I know, you have to keep looking left and right and up and down, trying to keep up with what's going on. But again, that's the price you pay. Rather than just watching and viewing like some middle aged film critic, you INTERACT with the beautiful motion picture doing its dance right in front of you. You are a participant. You get as much from it as you put in. And when you're down front -- you get to see the beautiful detail that the cinematographer has slaved over, you get to see the bags under the eyes of the actor who did his fifth night shoot in six days, you get to see all the beauty, ugliness, pain and passion in ways you never had before. You get to be in the movie.

"Shall we sit in the front row?" one friend will inevitably say to the other, before they both laugh and sit in the middle row. The middle row has many pluses, like comfort, and a wide, pretty frame, not to mention the cute girl in row six; but that's not why you go to the movies. You go to the movies to be a part of a motion picture which, if you sit close enough, you become a part of. You get to experience a living and breathing movie unravel before your eyes.

Go be a Kid In The Front Row. It's better than you think. It's better than you remember. You loved it before some boring old friend/lover/relative/film critic made you sit in row eleven. The neck pains are your war-wounds. They're there to remind you that you made the effort. You went where the magic was.

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Don't Keep Your Talents At Home!

It's easy to think you're a writer, easy to wait for a directing gig, easy to be an actor who types data for a living. But you have talent --- you've studied things, you've picked up things, you've had amazing life experiences and you have IDEAS and you have DREAMS.

You need to GO OUT INTO THE WORLD with them. I am no good just sitting on Facebook, you are no good just reading blogs. Whether it's putting on a spontaneous play in a parking lot, or reading a screenplay while sitting on a mountain, or practicing directing with a little video recording app on your phone... whatever it is, go out into the world and do it and be it and try it and fail at it and then do it again!

You literally could find a video camera tonight, and then go out into your local town tomorrow and make a short film, or make a documentary, or video some interesting buildings.

The world does this funny thing to us sometimes, where we feel like it doesn't want filmmakers and actors and painters and all the good things, we feel like we don't belong or it's not quite right for us at this moment in time. But it always is! There is always a friend who will help, always 32 views on YouTube when you make something, always a park just down the road ready to have you film there, or sit there and write, or walk around dreaming and concocting.

Go out go out go out and CREATE. FORGET about the 'business,' forget about only doing things that are part of a routine or plan or marketing strategy. Go out into the world and do a documentary about a local hero, or do a drawing of the place you played outside when you were young, or write a script with a friend in the coffee place in town. Decide to live in a world where you get to decide when to be creative, when you get to truly express some part of who you are. Because that stuff is going to have a little piece of magic every single time. You don't need big cameras, you don't need perfect sound equipment, you don't need the newest Mac. Most of all, all you need, is you.

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How Are You?

I feel I've been a bit out of touch recently, only turning up occasionally to dump out a few articles. Thinking back just a few months - I felt a lot more connected to the community of readers and bloggers here and on the Facebook page.

And I want to get that back.

So please; tell me what's going on with you. What projects are you working on? How is life? I'd prefer for this to be personal and heartfelt rather than a link-to-projects-a-thon; but other than that, I look forward to reading the comments and catching up with you all.

As for me, I am in early pre-production of a feature film I am writing and directing. It's a drama, with some comedy. I am also going through an intense stage of tea drinking, not sure what's brought that on. My mood has been slightly more grumpy and moody than usual; but often with moments of clarity and inspiration. I also made friends with two magnificent German people and two inspiring Belarusians all in the last week.

So, tell me about your life! The comments section can be our online coffee house catch up. (And if you're new here - please introduce yourself..)

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It's Time For More Diversity In The Movies

I'm a white guy, and I tend to write movies about white people, who are about my age, who have names like Darren and Amy. And their problems are love and work and not loving work. And that's fine. But the problem is, often - all the other films are like this too.

It's not that I'm in to all this equality stuff in the sense that every film should have every ethnicity and gender and sexual orientation represented in equal measure (although that would be a fascinating experience!) but I am just aware that life is such a rich and complex experience and we all delve into the depths of our differences and culture every single day. Even if you live in an area lacking in diversity, that's still an experience relating to diversity. So there is so much to delve into!

But it's also time to move beyond mere diversity issues and stereotypes. As much as I love a good movie about black and white people hating each other before learning life lessons, and as much as I enjoy that every gay character in the movies has a high pitched voice and funny walk - I really think it's time to move beyond that. And before anyone says "but we have moved beyond that, I have five examples," that's exactly my point! You have five examples. But if I asked for examples of white rich Americans falling in love in New York, your examples would be unlimited. It's time to burst through whatever invisible strange barrier it is that keeps us writing the same shit over and over.

How about a disabled character whose story is about a challenge in life other than his or her disability? How about a character who is gay but that isn't part of their story, just like being straight isn't always the key part of a story? How about more films with women; films where being beautiful isn't a pre-requisite, films where women get cast in roles that aren't sexy or 'playing the guy's role' but are instead, like life - just struggles and events and ideas and emotions and action.

I dream of a world where we aren't able to 'give examples' of diversity in movies or able to make a list of films where disabled people aren't stereotyped, because instead I'd like it to be the norm. I am as guilty of this as anyone. But I am starting to see the bigger picture, and feel inspired by how different we are; we're all different colors, we have different ideas, we're fucked up in different ways, we're the same in many ways, some of our bodies work and some of them don't, some of us are good and some of us are oppressors and some of us haven't got a clue what's going on -- but how exciting! Surely exploring these differences is going to be more rewarding and fascinating and exciting and original than another Ryan Reynolds rom-com or a medium-budget drama with Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner.

When you approach writing your next project, or begin casting your next movie -- have a think, what could you do differently? Might it be more interesting? Might it be more truthful? Just a thought!

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What Happens When You're Not Quite Talented Enough?

What happens to you if you're not quite talented enough to do what you want to do? Sure, you read books about Tom Hanks, and Frank Capra and Katharine Hepburn -- and you feel inspired. But what happens when you realise you're not like them? What happens if you've spent your whole life believing you're destined to create magic but, even after your best shot, you create something barely passable?

Sure, I know, the success books say keep trying, and you feel inspired by the book about how David Beckham kept staying late in training to hone his talent. But what if your talent only stems so far? What happens to you then? Sure, you could work hard and make a living in some way -- but what happens to your soul when you realize you don't have the talent you always based your life on?

I know I know, you keep trying, you practice, you persevere. Just like Steve Martin did and Angelina Jolie did and whoever else did. But they had the talent. What happens when your talent is two notches below the amount that you need to TRULY inspire people? Do you realize yourself, or do look for clues in the people around you?

Yep, people told Chaplin he didn't know what he was doing, and people told Sylvester Stallone he didn't have any talent. But what if you really don't know what you're doing and really don't have any talent? We've all seen an upcoming actor or a short film at a festival and thought "Jesus, what the hell was that?" -- but what if that is you? And what if it is you every single time? And what if you really aren't the talent you dreamed you were?

Was the teacher who told me I can't write right? Was the girl who said you're in a world of your own the only one who saw reality? Was the friend who said when will you get a real job aware of something I wasn't?

You put yourself on a big pedestal and you dream that you're Al Pacino. And then eventually you reconsider and think, hey; maybe I'm Matt Le Blanc. But then time goes by and it's not that the world doesn't take to you, but that you give it your all and it means nothing, it does nothing, it is nothing. And you're Joe Mabbutt, or Jenny Hendon or Matt Shipp. You've never heard of them, because they never made it. Not through lack of trying but because they just didn't. quite. have. it.

If you knew, for sure, that you weren't the talent you dreamed of - what would you do?

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