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Get There! |
League time! I wasn't able to partake in last week's assignment due to barely being in one part of the country for long enough, but I'm back on it now. And the topic this week?
I have a dream…
Not so much one word as one idea, for me this open topic is about what we want to achieve within our increasingly short lifespans. I know I'm older than many of my competitors for my own ambitions, but I guess that means that I just going to have to work even harder...
I'm on the cusp of turning 30, and I've been jokingly saying to family and friends that my ambition for my fortieth is to have a pool party at my LA mansion. In reality I'm a lot less assuming than that, and my honest-to-God dream is for me and the Emcat to own a house by the sea, where I make an actual living writing and we're financially secure enough for Emma to pursue whatever ambition she has. As any good writer knows though, it's not the destination but the journey that counts, so how exactly would I get there?
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Sci-Fi, Ladies and Gentlemen. |
I owe a lot to Star Wars, but I'm pretty sure I would've been fascinated with space even if George Lucas' opus somehow never made its way to my eyeballs. There are so many great science fiction shows - Star Trek, Farscape, Battlestar Galactica, and then the fantastical (magical realism?) ones like Lost that combine imagination, incredible designs and epic storytelling with the nuances of the human condition, and an exploration of what makes us human amongst so much noise. To me these big idea stories are the ones worth watching, and telling, and that's exactly what I'm trying to do.
I've read that TV and film executives don't watch sci-fi shows, and that's probably correct - but I'm a firm believer in doing what you're passionate about, and doing it well. At the risk of committing potential career suicide, I actually couldn't imagine anything worse than working on a soap like Eastenders or Coronation Street, having to work with incredibly unlikable characters and putting them into increasingly worse situations whilst leaping on the latest social panic. There would be no passion there, besides a fervent desire to cash the cheque and go home, and I don't think I could write like that.
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You are cleared for take-off! |
Give me starships. Give me mammoth robots and advanced technology. Give me alien life and dinosaurs, and stakes so high they get lost in the stratosphere. Give me relatable characters of increasing complexity and morality, and give me cannon fodder. I've learned a lot over the two years thus far of my filmmaking course, and amongst that I've discovered that the big picture canvas is what works for me.
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Hero. |
Let's not forget that superheroes fall into my (increasingly loose) definition of sci-fi as well, and that's an area I know a thing or two about. Big stories on the widest scale imaginable with a human being at the heart of it all - I'm not sure why any filmmaker would want to do anything else.
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Built by dreams! |
So there we have it - my dream is a secure and idyllic future, paid for by creating stories that I love. I hope you enjoy them too!
Here's what other Leaguers see when they close their eyes at night...
Needlessentials Online provides a piece of beautifully whimsical prose about going home again.
Infinite Hollywood wants an end to subscriptions.
Geekshow Ink has a tale to tell...
G.I. Jigsaw is making it happen!
Random Nerdness is inspired by agreen great.
And The 30ish Year Old Boy can't abide no stinkin' muties...
Needlessentials Online provides a piece of beautifully whimsical prose about going home again.
Infinite Hollywood wants an end to subscriptions.
Geekshow Ink has a tale to tell...
G.I. Jigsaw is making it happen!
Random Nerdness is inspired by a
And The 30ish Year Old Boy can't abide no stinkin' muties...
Check out the original assignment over at Cool and Collected, and thanks for reading!