I have been reading about film-making lately because I am currently scripting a documentary.  Every art medium seems to have its associated language, and in film, much of the language seems geometric.  They speak of angles, degrees, proximity and distance.  For example, no two consecutive camera angles should be less than 30 degrees apart, otherwise their proximity gives the impression that the filmed object “jumped” within the same frame.

I have come to this kind of language rather late, and I don’t know whether I would ever learn it sufficiently to be, say, a film-maker.  But it gives me even more respect for those people who DO understand it, and operate in it successfully.

I am fully immersed in several different media during this semester: sound, film and — as always — writing.  Oh, and let me not forget photography.  It is so illuminating to think of the interplay between all of them.  When I think about film, for example, I have another tool with which to approach scenes in my own writing.  In revising a critical scene in my novel, I started thinking of “cuts.”  I have a scene which cuts from the present to the past.  Sometimes, one sentence belongs in the past and the very next one belongs in the present.  In film, this is easier to do.  In writing, it is very difficult, and I am not sure if I have succeeded or not.  I’ll see what my editor has to say on that one!  But regardless of my success or failure, I am so glad to be exposed to so many media that expand and inform my own work.

A career in artistic creation truly is infinite in potential.  There is no limit to what you can learn and to what you can try out.