First time

Don't get excited. I'm talking about my first time filming. No, not that kind of filming either.

A friend of mine is making a short film as an audition piece for a program that he wants to get into. He asked me if I would be willing to take a role. Since I've never worked on film before, I jumped at the opportunity to get new experience.

It's a night shoot, so set up didn't start until 9 & filming didn't start until 10. Then we filmed the first scene from three different angles, including closeups. I loved the other actor in the scene. He gave all sorts of energy to bounce off of during the scene, and every time we did it, it felt a bit different.

Four hours and another scene later, I'm home. The second scene was much harder. The timing, the staging (around lights and boom mic and everything), everything was much more complex, and I felt much more awkward.

Things I've learned:
1. This is fun! I want to do it again.
2. This is hard! I need to learn more so I don't suck.
3. I didn't realize how much, as a stage performer, I depend on the rehearsal process to build character and behaviors. A film actor doesn't get that time and has to build a convincing performance out of moments.

Time to look for film acting classes in my location and price range.

Musings on freedom

Sigh.  Maybe I'm confused about what it means to be free.  In the wake of mass shootings and tragedies, I keep seeing posts about the dangers of gun free zones, and stern warnings about the sacred freedoms protected by the Second Amendment.  And I wonder what's wrong with me.  I understand the need to be free to protect myself without having to wait for someone else to do it.  I understand wanting to be free to protect my home and my loved ones from attack.  However, when I truly dig down to think about the freedom that I long for, that would be truly free, I don't find weapons in that picture.  When I think about freedom, I don't picture an armed camp.  When I think of freedom, I don't long for the freedom to walk into a bar or a church or a school with my handgun.  I long for the day when I can walk freely without fear, without the need to carry a weapon because I'm afraid of the people around me and what they might do.

Writing what feeds me

I finished writing a sonnet today. It took me a couple of days of wrestling, but I finally settled into a piece that worked relatively well. I was pleased with it...for a time.

Then a friend posted something about his own process as he labors at composing a piece of music, and I looked at my feeble, barely adequate, "lovely" (what a pallid descriptive!) poem and saw it for the mediocrity it is. There is no light in it. Sigh.

Honestly, I wrestle with writing. It tasks me and I argue with it and the words tangle up into massive snarls behind my eyes until all I can do is communicate in terse blandnesses, all flavor leached away in the mental stew. That being said, writing poetry feeds me in a way that other writing absolutely doesn't. There's a satisfaction in a solid line, the way it rings when the longing and the language come together. There's a joy in searching for the line that I cannot quite find. That sounds odd, I know, but that act of stacking words up into ideas and tearing them away again until I hit just the right pattern...that's fun! The moment of finding, when I write a line and shivers stalk across my scalp...that's fun too, but not the same way.

Anyway, I am going to put that sonnet right here:

Had I but wit and words to speak my heart,
I'd shout your praises to the listening sky.
I hear your velvet-gravel voice and I
Must melt and burn, but words far from me dart
Just simple syllables in fits and starts
Fall from my tongue. Struck dumb when you are nigh
I cannot tell you how your twinkling eye
Does warm my soul yet tangle up my art.
But there are times we sit in silence warm,
Full sweet. The stillness shared by our like minds
Eliminates the need for empty speech.
Then, I don't fear that I am lacking charm.
Your life and mine the tie of friendship binds,
So without words our hearts speak each to each.

By Mary Dedwydd verch Gwallter
04/06/16

It is a mediocrity, lacking in almost every way, but the journey still happened, my soul was still fed. I will celebrate that at the very least, and come back to write more tomorrow. I will wrestle, and maybe find what I seek and maybe not, but the wrestling alone is worth it.