deadCENTER Film Festival 2009

At CERN (the European Organisation for Nuclear Research) today particle beams were successfully fired in both directions around the Large Hadron Collider.

I’m so excited about it. To my mind, no movie machine exceeds the grandeur or power of this huge and complex creation of mankind. No movie genius exceeds the real scientists who have theorised and argued and funded and built this amazing feat of thought, engineering and physics.

Movies inspire me, but to contribute to movies, as an actor, as a writer as a filmmaker, I have to be inspired by outside things. By things I mean thoughts, feelings, human achievements and encounters that touch me from the real world and that fuels the stuff that I bring to my work. For each person it can be something different but for me, one of my main inspirations is physics, something I have no talent for myself but which makes me catch my breath when I understand its magnificence in our universe.

I love the LHC in particular. It’s the place where some of the most amazing possibilities of our time are coalesced at the moment. Right now, we are about to learn new things about our universe and the innovation and creation that can come out of that real and very wonderful experiment puts a beam on my face that almost exceeds the width of the one speeding around under the Franco Swiss border right now. It makes my heart race and it accelerates my mind!

This business is a slog at the best of times. Hard work, long hours, difficulties at every level and challenges beyond what we sometimes think we can meet. When I feel burned out with it all, I remember the people at CERN and what they are achieving. And I remember that I too am human like they are and that humans are awesome and amazing and full of endless possibilities and potential. And I feel I can do anything!

Am I going to start writing screenplays about the LHC, or bringing particle physics information to my acting rehearsals? Certainly not! But it does make me feel tremendously alive to know that mankind is capable of such incredible things, and that sense of aliveness and humanity is something I can carry into my craft on all levels. For what else is it that I do if not breathe life into inanimate ideas and make them tangible to others..? It's an incredible privilege to be able to do that, and it doesn't come out of thin air. I have to find the life from somewhere and become the living bridge that carries it through into my work. We all must. Even particles in a vacuum take their energy from somewhere.

So whatever fuels you spend some time with it this week. And thus the world will turn and we in turn will inspire each other. Beautiful isn’t it.

A few weeks ago someone asked filmmakers on twitter why we make films.. To be honest, at the time I didn’t really know how to answer and I didn’t really think anyone should care or would even understand but the best way that I came up with to explain it in layman terms, is that film is like a really great sandwich.

First you have to be hungry for one.

You can buy one that someone else has prepared for you and really enjoy it.

There are some specialist delis where a lot of talented sandwich makers gather and work to make sandwiches for sale. Some of these can be spectacular works of art and commerce with a large established following.

There are some sandwiches that are made with poor choices of ingredients and bad taste. Some people still eat them anyway and can even develop a taste for them.

Most sandwiches follow roughly the same structure but there are variations and outlandish deviations from the norm that can work as sandwiches too.

The people who buy sandwiches to eat are consumers.

Some people though, prefer to make their own sandwiches and become sometime or full time sandwichmakers. That way they get to control the fillings and try different, new variations or just perpetuate the flavours they love in the proportions they want to eat them.

Sandwiches can be made alone or with others.

It helps if everyone agrees what should go in. Too much relish or pickle can overwhelm the flavours and not enough filling can leave things a bit bland.

Sometimes people have an idea for a new flavour combination. A test with a bit of spare crust is often a good way to try out mixes without spoiling the whole sandwich or wasting ingredients if the flavours don’t work.

If there is disagreement about what should go into the sandwich, the person who’s paid for the sandwich ingredients usually gets the final word.

The finished sandwich can be shared or sold (or both).

I make sandwiches because I like sandwiches, I have a lot of the necessary ingredients readily available to me and fun people to make them with, who think I have interesting bread to butter. Sometimes they have special ingredients they give me to use as they don’t want it going to waste or because they hope to establish a brand for their own special flavour. Some like to consume my sandwiches, flaws and all, and appreciate they have been made with love and care for the sustenance and taste of all who choose to sample them.

Filmmaking is in some ways becoming as accessible to everyone as sandwich ingredients. Whether you make your own films or sandwiches or if you just like the taste of others I wish you a hearty fullness from your experience.

And if you need a bit of Leilani relish you know where to come. ;)