Recreating Spielberg
The idea of making Steven Spielberg a character at the center of a fiction is not a new one, at least for me.
Yet in creating a fictional piece about a particularly painful part of Spielberg’s life, then expanding upon it to make it and horror-drama is difficult, especially as a two-character, one-actor video.
How do you depict Spielberg?
Do you take old films of him and adapt them or do you completely gut that concept and simply act out the part?
I’ve chosen to depict Spielberg rather than use footage of him.
This is for several reasons.
An action film requires action, and I can’t guarantee movements from old footage will depict what I need.
This video also requires some emotional representation and close-ups that existing films won’t have.
While -- most importantly -- this is a fiction video, designed to annoy Spielberg a little, it is a serious effort at learning film, and using the medium to create an illusion of reality.
This is, of course, my most ambitious
work to date, in which I hope to use
some of the film theory I have been studying.
In
researching this effort, I got a copy of The Making of Jurassic Park. I had
thought to green screen Spielberg out of it as a character, then changed my
mind. But the film provided several other things I did not expect. A philosophy
of film-making and the extent of preparation Spielberg goes to in order to
create an illusion.
I
also need the sound track to copy Spielberg’s speech patterns, even though I’m
sure he doesn’t talk that way in real life.
Depicting
Spielberg as a character will be difficult, but not impossible.
I’m
going to the actors costume shop within the next couple of days to purchase a
Spielberg-like beard since my efforts to grow one have always turned out badly.
One
of the really important lessons I learned from Making of Jurassic Park was the
concept of film reality. Spielberg likes to recreate the whole world, then put
his actors in it. This is an approach I tried to do in a different way, seeking
to create a 360 degree photograph against which my actors act.
My
lessons in film theory have pointed me in a different direction, especially
with Griffith and Einstein, and while I’m neither of those, the idea of
suggestiveness will play a large part in my new video – providing, of course,
that it works.