So the biggest thing that's happened to me since we last spoke is this:
I'm on the cover of this week's JHU Gazette! They did a piece on four of the senior Woodrow Wilson Fellows and subsequently took a photo of me staring down the camera while holding a camera in front of a computer and subsequently chose that image to grace the cover of their publication (we could get into how I then used a computer to take a picture of myself holding up a picture of myself but that would be EXTRA dumb). Because the main point of all of this is that--I won't mince words--I am now a celebrity. Nowhere on campus can I escape my own self-serious visage. Not to brag, but a student in one of my classes said to me "hey, I read that article about you in the JHU Gazette."
Besides throwing wood into the fire of my burgeoning fame, the article also served to substantiate this whole filmmaking process It publically and officially announced the premiere (May 12th, 7th P.M, my loyal readers). Right now the film is just an unexported (and half unedited) file on Final Cut Pro, but no matter what happens it will always have been a thing that was going to happen. And there's something cool about that.
Substantiation is something I want desperately. I really want to show the film to people. Not (just) because I'm desperate for people's approval, but because I'm growing increasingly interested in film as event. With this movie I feel like I didn't just bring to fruition my artistic vision. I also captured a moment in time. Most of my friends are in this movie in one way or another, many as heightened versions of themselves. Years from now we'll always be able to look back on the film and remember. Remember what it was like to be young, to be dumb, to have our futures ahead of us.
So I don't see it as just a movie screening, but also a community event. Even if it happens to be a tiny community. Maybe as I continue to work on movies my community will get larger. But that paradoxical feeling of both insularity and extreme inclusiveness is not something I want to lose, at least not yet. Because sometimes the love machine malfunctions a bit. It's easy to lose love for yourself at times, even your art. But when you've packed your film with a bunch of little buddies eagerly awaiting your finished project, it's hard not to crack a smile and keep plugging away.
So maybe that's why I go through all this trouble. To build communities. Or maybe it's just to get my big 'ol mug on the cover of as many magazines as possible. Either way.
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