She was crazy pretty, and it only just occurred to me how big a role she may have played in my life.
I was in a job just north of Charing Cross and just south of interesting and everything was misery apart from lunch time and home time. Everything was nothing and then one day this crazy pretty girl landed on the reception desk.
She was wildly pretty and totally lovely so I confidently and calmly stumbled into the reception area and mumbled something about hello and some joke that backfired and made me walk out never to return again.
But I came back because she was magnificent and I said something closer to hello and before long I'd always sneak away from doing nothing and we'd sit in reception talking about everything.
She was an actress, and I was mad in love. I asked her everything and she liked me because she could see I was one of her kind. She was approaching thirty and I was still stalling at seventeen, and everything she said smelled like life. She had a big project coming out and I was excited because I was unexpectedly behind the curtain, in the know. Then, quicker than a Covent Garden mugging, she was gone. Apparently she had some acting job and life for me went back to nothing.
It was either a Tuesday or Friday or some other day when my life got great again. She was sitting there, so beautiful it was as if she knew she'd be blogged about years later. We talked and talked and they kept calling me back to do nothing but I was too busy in reception talking about everything.
At some point I mumbled something about wanting to be in movies and she said this thing I'd never heard that was like "you should" but far prettier. It was an instant permission slip to follow my big dreams and I may be exaggerating but maybe I left the job two weeks later and decided to be myself instead.
Do I make films because I love the cinema or because I'm in love with the movie star girl?
It doesn't matter. I just wanted to share this story because it was so close to the edge of forgotten until it suddenly and randomly popped up in my head about twenty five minutes ago. I wonder how she is. I wonder if she remembers me at all.
Wednesday 16 February 2011
Weblog Award Nomination: Last Chance To Vote!
As many of you will know, and in fact; many of you are responsible for------ For the second year in a row, Kid In The Front Row has been nominated for a Weblog 'Bloggie' Award. I am up for 'Best Entertainment Blog'.
If you could vote for me, at this site, http://2011.bloggi.es/ - I'd be truly honoured. Winning it last year brought a lot of new readers here from all around the world. A blog like this is much like an independent film; the only way people find out about it is word of mouth. I celebrate cinema, writing and creativity in a way that is seldom given voice in the mainstream. The more you support blogs like this, the more we get into the consciousness of the wider artistic community. That's something to aim for. If you can take thirty seconds to vote for me on the site, I'd really appreciate it.
Thanks!
If you could vote for me, at this site, http://2011.bloggi.es/ - I'd be truly honoured. Winning it last year brought a lot of new readers here from all around the world. A blog like this is much like an independent film; the only way people find out about it is word of mouth. I celebrate cinema, writing and creativity in a way that is seldom given voice in the mainstream. The more you support blogs like this, the more we get into the consciousness of the wider artistic community. That's something to aim for. If you can take thirty seconds to vote for me on the site, I'd really appreciate it.
Thanks!
Monday 14 February 2011
The Shoot
The director's in love with the lead actress, but the lead actress is secretly sleeping with her co star, whose ex-wife is the line producer. Nobody likes the line producer because she turns up in the middle of the day acting like the most important person in the world. The production assistant keeps messing up the coffee, and the other assistant keeps annoying the DOP with enhance-my-career questions. The sound guy is unhappy because no-one informed him there would be planes in the sky, and the make up girl is annoyed because the 2nd AD made a joke about her job being easy. The camera assistant ate all the chocolate biscuits and the executive producer is currently looking for the chocolate biscuits. The writer is angry because he's picked up the day's pages and doesn't recognise any of his dialogue and two of the extra's just broke the set because they were leaning on things to look-like-they-belong.
And then it wraps and these people will never be together again.
And then it wraps and these people will never be together again.
Michael Caine explains the difference between stage and screen acting.
"The art of cinema acting is the exact opposite of stage acting. In the theatre you have to be as big and broad and loud as possible, even in the quiet scenes, which is a trick that only the best actors can pull off. Film acting, on the other hand, is about standing six feet from a camera in blazing light and not letting the tiniest bit of acting show. If you are doing it right you make it look very easy, but it takes a great deal of hard work to accomplish."
HARRY POTTER - Outstanding British Contribution To Cinema 2011 BAFTA Award
J. K. Rowling had an idea, and saw it through. When that first seed on an idea came; did she know it was a ten billion dollar idea? I'm guessing not. Did she know she'd have the most successful books ever and most successful films ever? Probably not. In fact; if we could take a trip back in an battered old DeLorean, I think we'd find the usual mix of inspiration and self-doubt that makes up every creative project.
The Harry Potter films deserved the recognition. It's easy to be anti-Harry. It's easy to be cynical because of how much money it made. It's easy to moan about how it's one big franchise. But Harry Potter is something special. It got my little cousins into reading. Have you ever tried getting your little cousins into reading? The most they normally read is the back cover of an Xbox game. J. K. Rowling changed that. And the films were giant, epic fantasies, and they took millions of people along for the ride. They made stars out of unknown kids like Radcliffe and Watson; and they brought all the A-Listers together on screen too.
I just found this. "In 1990, my then boyfriend and I decided to get a flat and move to Manchester together. We would flat hunt every once in awhile. One weekend after flat hunting, I took the train back to London on my own and the idea for Harry Potter fell into my head. I had been writing since I was six, but I had never been as excited about an idea as I was for this book. Coincidentally, I didn't have a pen and was too shy to ask anyone for one on the train, which frustrated me at the time, but when I look back at it was the best thing for me. It gave me the full four hours on the train to think up all the ideas for the book. A scrawny, little black haired, bespectacled boy became more and more of a wizard to me. He became more real. I think if I might have slowed down on the ideas and began to write them down. I would've stifled some of those ideas."
The books got turned down. Harry Potter didn't get published right away. Those people out there saying Potter was not good enough are the same people telling you your script sucks, or you should give up acting, or your camera-work is all wobbly. HARRY POTTER GOT REJECTED. Remember that every time you feel down or low about your career.
J. K. Rowling was just a woman on a train who had an idea and saw it through. She had a vision of writing seven books and she kept to that vision. Sure, now she's rich and we can be cynical - but she's just a creative woman who created magic. But it's not magic; it's just words on a page.
Harry Potter was just a seed of an idea in a woman's head. THAT'S ALL. But now, we know more about Harry Potter than we do about our government. We can recognize Daniel Radcliffe but sometimes we forget the names of our relatives. Harry Potter is everywhere. It's not just a cash-cow, it's a real life example of dreams coming to life, in so many ways. And I can't get over the fact it was all created by a writer who sat on a train and had an idea.
If you had been J. K. Rowling, on that train, and you'd had an idea about a kid with glasses who goes to wizard school-- I wonder, would you have seen it through? Would you have completed it? Would you have believed in yourself? Whether the answer is yes or no it doesn't really matter. It's just worth remembering the story of how Potter came to be. All of the directors, producers, financiers, marketing executives, actors, red carpet premieres, toys, screenings, etc -- it is ALL because J. K. Rowling sat on a train and had an idea.
The books got turned down. Harry Potter didn't get published right away. Those people out there saying Potter was not good enough are the same people telling you your script sucks, or you should give up acting, or your camera-work is all wobbly. HARRY POTTER GOT REJECTED. Remember that every time you feel down or low about your career.
J. K. Rowling was just a woman on a train who had an idea and saw it through. She had a vision of writing seven books and she kept to that vision. Sure, now she's rich and we can be cynical - but she's just a creative woman who created magic. But it's not magic; it's just words on a page.
Harry Potter was just a seed of an idea in a woman's head. THAT'S ALL. But now, we know more about Harry Potter than we do about our government. We can recognize Daniel Radcliffe but sometimes we forget the names of our relatives. Harry Potter is everywhere. It's not just a cash-cow, it's a real life example of dreams coming to life, in so many ways. And I can't get over the fact it was all created by a writer who sat on a train and had an idea.
If you had been J. K. Rowling, on that train, and you'd had an idea about a kid with glasses who goes to wizard school-- I wonder, would you have seen it through? Would you have completed it? Would you have believed in yourself? Whether the answer is yes or no it doesn't really matter. It's just worth remembering the story of how Potter came to be. All of the directors, producers, financiers, marketing executives, actors, red carpet premieres, toys, screenings, etc -- it is ALL because J. K. Rowling sat on a train and had an idea.
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