There is no fiction. In order to write a compelling story one has to imbue it with life. The story has to have movement, direction, and feel. Warmth. If it doesn’t have those things, the story will be stillborn. Dead. It will go nowhere and do nothing. If the story has life, direction and warmth, if the story has feel, it is alive. It’s real. Not fiction.           

I’ve been neglecting this blog for some time. I’ve been doing my schoolwork. And making a movie. The movie is an independent feature written and directed by Maureen Bradley. I’m in the lighting department. G&E Swing. I do electrics, answer to the Gaffer and sometimes the Key Grip, and I drive the gaffer truck. I’ve also sourced one of the locations and provided both my 1970 Ducati motorcycle and a dead ringer for the lead as stunt double to ride the thing. It’s fun on the set, hard work, long hours, lots of food. Eleven days into the shoot and I’ve lost nine pounds. I back the truck into my driveway, stumble through the front door and into my bed and wake to my i-phone alarm at 4:50 am to do it again. It’s snowing and I don’t like the cold but the horizontal rain has let up. Most of our shoots require that I be outside with the lights and scrims and frames and sticks and 250 or 216 diffusion and ¼ straw or ½ blue gels. That’s after getting the generator ground plate buried and 300’ of Joy cable run from the transformer to the HMI ballasts and the 4K Fresnel heads and get the c47s clipped to the barn doors before the DoP is ready for a camera rehearsal. So it’s fun. Interesting, challenging, tiring, and fun. I’m afraid I’m not involved in the creative end of things this time ‘round, but it’s good to see the other side- the mechanics of making a film- first hand. 

Movies are real too. Actors, crew, businesspeople, lots and lots of money. Don’t kid yourself: The story is real, not fiction. Regardless of the plot on the screen.