Falling in Love with Your Own Words

P L Travers

As a writer you have to fall in love with your work everyday. The characters you create must have a special place in your heart. Saving Mr. Banks was a great film that expressed a writers (P. L. Travers) bond with her story. She feared putting Mary Poppins on the big screen because someone else would have altered the character, someone else would be in control of who Mary Poppins, Mr. Banks, and other characters were originally on paper. As a writer I agree with Ms. Travers. It is hard to let go of such wonderful people who you have created. Same reason that Silvester Stallone had to play Rocky. He wrote the script himself and took a major pay cut in order to play the star role. When a writer falls in love with their work, they fight to keep it as they initially intended.

Not only is it important to fall in love with your characters but your plot line and underlining message. I am an advocate for coming-to-age films like Juno. I praise Diablo Cody, writer of Juno and Showtime’s United States of Tara because she writes for the story not for the money. Juno had such a strong connection with audiences and a true connection to Cody’s personal high school experience. You can not get bored with your own ideas. As a writer you have to believe in yourself more than anyone else. The writers that write for the sake of telling a story are the writers that impact generations.

As I am currently writing my own coming-to-age film. I fall in love with ever character, plot line twist, and at times high-five myself for my creative efforts. I get excited about my visual ideas, and convicting dialog. My own brain surprises me. I have to revise my script about 100 times before I bring it to the actors. I am excited to be in the stages of development to see how others interpret my story. But with that being said I will also fight for my message. What I put into my stories are characters that do things I could never do, and in situations others experience day-to-day. I love coming-to-age films because the story behind someones personal growth is foundational to shaping who they are. People relate to that. It is like watching an underdog win every time! Something we always want to see.

For me I am a lot like P. L. Travers. Even if Disney offered to make my film, I’d pull a Stallone. My story has an intended message, and my characters are like my children. I am proud of what is to come of my writing. That is why I have always, and will continue to write, direct, and edit my own films. I do not care to be a big time director, I just want to tell other’s stories. Being completely committed to your own creativity only give flair to your film.

Soap in Your Soup: Part 2

One of the beauties of film is its allowance for a range of passions to be expressed. Directors can have a passion for taking something on paper and creating the most enlightening way to expose that story. Actors, on the other hand, have a passion for engulfing themselves into becoming another person and accurately delivering the purpose of that character onscreen. Writers have the privilege of taking a thought and molding it to establish a films foundation and purpose. Then there is that special occasion when an actor, writer, or directed drift into another role in the film world. They fall in love with a story to the point that they can’t trust anyone else to deliver the job justice, they must do it themselves. In Part 1 of Soap in Your Soup we revealed multitasking musicians who have become actors. Part 2 will be discovering the all-time greats, and the upcoming actors that take on the role of director, wearing many hats on one project.

Some of the classic comedies we find are flavored with a particular style. Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Charlie Chaplin, when you hear these names originality comes to mind. Each one of those gentleman have mastered the craft of directing and acting in their own films. Together they have made this task look easy, they have challenged the following generations to go to a higher standard of film making. Of course Allen, Brooks, and Chaplin had particular themes and central ideas in all of their films, but what has newer actor/director combos done?

Kevin Costner – Starring and directing Dances with Wolves won him an Oscar for Best Director, Best Picture and a nomination for Best Actor. Kevin Costner turned down the offer for the squeal because he believed it would ruin the original movie, knowing it could never measure up to all that he put into the original

George Clooney – More then just one occasion has Clooney honored us with his many talents. In 2005 not only writing but also making his directoral start with Good Night and Good Luck, nominated for 6 Acadeny Awards. Clooney played Fred Friendly, a man hiding his marraige from the news studio where he so fought to obtain its objectivism. Clooney knew it was just the begining of his love for being behind the camera. He also starred and directed Leatherheads, and Ides of March.

Jamers Franco – Franco is known to dive into many projects at once, currently in the Broadway musical Of Mice and Men, an artist, author, soap star (yes, ABC’s General Hospital) and film professor at NYU. Known mostly for his acting, James Franco has also dove into the role of wearing three hats in his film As I Lay Dying, he adapted the screen play, directed, and starring in. Franco might be spread thin, but his films do not lack character.

Ben Affleck – Sadly dispointing for not wining Best Director for his 2012 film Argo, Affleck has a major fan base on both the acting, but more directing stand point. Argo was just one of many films where Affleck has been both behind the scene as well as the star. With best friend Matt Damon they together wrote and starred in Good Will Hunting with recently passed Robin WIlliams. Not to mention the ‘to close to home’ film The Town.  Affleck has a nack for directing intense escape films, as well as writing a heart warming stories of a poor geniuses, and acting as a regreting bank robber.

Joseph Gorden-Levitt – Recently unvieled his first writing , directing, and starring in film opposite Scarrlett Johansson and Julianne Moore in Don Jon. Definately a film to be proud of, Don Jon breaks bounderies with creating stapel character with unchangable characteristics and watching them develop into something less culterally acceptable but more gratiying and fufilling. Just look past all the masterbation.

Multi-taskers can often lose sight of important tasks at hand becasue they are spread so thin. But for these entrepreneurs who go all in with directing and starring in their own films, well that is just a over achiever, a dreamer and doer. Look at Sylvester Stallone, one of the best all-time action film writers. His start to fame with Rocky is an inspriation to many writers. After writing the scrpit Stallone refused offers from major film producers because he wouldn’t settle without being the star of the film. That is dedication to your project. A new up and coming director is the heart throb Ryan Gosling, who will soon release River Lost, a film about a boy who finds a secret town under water. Even though Gosling is not starring in the film, it is his first take on writing a directing. Down the road we might find our next Clooney or Affleck. These fellas on and off screen have proven they can provide film with flair, and that it is possible to multi-task without getting soap in your soup.