Post by spiderwort on Mar 19, 2017 13:46:28 GMT
I suppose that within all of we who love not only films themselves but the understanding of what makes them "tick," there's a director - or screenwriter or editor or DP or even producer - inside, yearning to be unleashed. Your story about the composer friend is revelatory and illustrative (as well as charming). My hubby is a veteran software programmer with a similar sense that's equal parts instinct, intuition and experience, making him the company go-to guy for exposing and exterminating "bugs" in others' code, and I had a chef friend long ago who'd know with one taste when a dish needed a half-teaspoon less of oregano and a half more of basil. Perhaps more prosaic examples than yours, but indicative of the way that certain artistic and/or technical pursuits just seem to "speak" to some at a level beyond that of what hubby refers to as "the user."
I told this other-side-of-the-coin story more than once back on IMDB boards: in the '80s, I was working for a VP of Post Production who once told me that learning the nuts and bolts of film and TV production when he'd entered the industry 30 years earlier had diminished his enjoyment of the product by destroying the magic inherent in the illusions created. While I understood it, I couldn't relate to it. Although his personal enjoyment may have abated, it yielded benefits: he was the guy at Universal editorial who'd taken teenaged Steven Spielberg under his wing and seen enough in his amateur and student work to bring it to the attention of Syd Sheinberg, so we have him (whose name was Chuck Silvers) to thank for that.
Really appreciate your comments, doghouse, and now I understand a little better why you sound like a director. And I agree with you that there's so often a creative spirit inside the viewer who wants to understand the mystery of the process. And many do, over time. Clearly you are one. One of the things related to this that I harp on a lot, because of all the explicit (and so often gratuitous) sex, violence, and profanity we see on the screen these days, is that less is more, and that we need to allow the viewer to become a co-creator in the viewing process, filling in the blanks with their imaginations. And in that way, however subliminally, they begin to internalize a bit of the process, too.
Also for Spielberg, I didn't know the names, but I did know of his early history at Universal. And I know that he's paid it forward in so many ways since those days, helping young directors achieve their goals. But how wonderful that Chuck Silvers was willing and able to help Steven in the first place. I'm sure he was paying it forward, too.
