Friday, December 3, 2010

Filming for a Reason

 
      Call me an eternal optimist. Call me a delusional prognosticator. Call me an irrational thinker. I cede any pejorative title relating to my reservoir of inexperience from any reader of my blog—that is your right. 
      But, in the coldest of my reasoned thoughts, I call myself a calculating practitioner of manageable expectations, fashioned by a creative and smartly-premised bent. I have designs of one day honing my craft in the film business, initially as a screenwriter. 
      At this point, I will accept any role in the creative process. My one caveat, of course, is that it is concrete and not menial—i.e. if your looking for a gofer to fetch your coffee, I'm not your guy.  Ultimately, I would like the opportunity, as I'm sure most also do, of having my screenplay purchased from a studio and budgeted for production and wide-release. And of course, I'd be captaining the starring role.
      This fairytale story of the hungry and unknown, wily-eyed ambitious actor/writer becoming a movie star has already been done. In my humble opinion, it is the greatest story ever told. The making of one of my favorite films, Good Will Hunting, is precisely a tale of how two mostly forgotten acting talents—as their earlier film roles were largely unseen—became household names. 
      Facing uncertain oblivion in Hollywood and driven by a tenacious hunger, full of piss and vinegar, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck implored a big studio to buy their screenplay. By enlisting the support from cult indie, now-mainstream director Kevin Smith, Damon and Affleck convinced Miramax to green-light their script.  It was a career-making turn for the best friends. Soon, leading roles would start pouring in.
      Now, to say that my ambitions of discovery even remotely follow Damon and Affleck's tremendous rise to fame, is a bit far-fetched and laced with fairy dust. But I strongly believe I possess the talent of a filmmaker—in the duel sense of writing and acting—that will grant me the chance to have my film screened around the world. What follows next, of course, is the stuff of movie legend ...

* Checkout one of my favorite scenes from Good Will Hunting from the below linkIt's the Harvard Bar scene that I always enjoy watching.  It's great to watch Will just completely and unabashedly disparage that obnoxious, preppy Harvard student by calling him out ... ya know it appeals to the geeky side of me, just exerting intellectual kung fu on some deserving prick. 

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