Saturday, December 19, 2009

College Essay

It's about time I finished this-

I am passionate.
Network's Howard Beale was passionate about the depreciation of society through mass media, but not me. That's not to say I don't care about such things - about the ever-waning minds of reputable, fashionable and oh-so-venerable people- I do, but that's not the point. My passions (and there are many) reside elsewhere.
Given the nature of my college outlook and intentions, you might be surprised to read that film is not my passion. Neither is acting. Not even writing.
As I said, my passions reside elsewhere, like in apple crepes, for example.
“A crepe is made with love,” my mother always said, as mothers always do. Crepes are very delicate foods, not only in their consistency but in the difficulty of making them truly delicious. Details must be accounted for, and the strictest attention must be paid to every ingredient and each step of their preparation (we took our guidance from a 1980s Betty Crocker cookbook) or they will simply fall lifelessly apart. To tell you the truth, I am describing a painstaking and frustrating process that brings many a family to madness, but our plates were graced every holiday (some birthdays included) with lush fruits and tender crepes. My parents never gave up, for they shared the same qualities that I find in myself: ambition in passion, passion through production.
On crepe days, my mother and father rose early and reported to their respective positions in the kitchen: mom at the stove - coring, peeling, and baking the apples for the filling, and dad whisking and pouring the batter. Over the years, the whole process has become a family routine, with children waking to the surprisingly bitter, yet wonderfully-familiar, smell wafting through the house. Gradually, I learned and I progressed in the art, slowly improving with each and every crepe - just as any ambition progresses with effort and the passing of time - from wish to accomplishment.
Then it was time to eat.
But crepes at the Wiedeman home aren't just crepes, just as anything you love and put your heart into isn't just that. To my brother, the oldest, they were a mess, an ooze of apple and cinnamon bulging through the pancakes until they tore, splattering their contents all over his eager face. To my sister they were plain and simple; she never even put the apples in. To me, they were clean, equal, and perfectly-positioned portions on my spotless plate... unless that crepe day was different; unless I was the one waking up early, breaking out Betty Crocker, cooking and fashioning the morning feast for the rest of my family; unless I stood at the counter, my arms coated in moist batter and my hair matted with misplaced apple goo; unless my hands formed the fragile shapes and placed each before my excited family. That changed everything. For me anything I make with my hands, with my mind and with my will, is special. Those crepes were special because I put my heart into them, just the way Howard Beale puts his heart into his words and just the way I put my heart into something else: my films.
My experience with film has oddly enough been similar to my experience with crepes. Over time, I have developed a love for both, especially in their creation. It's when I can call what I have made 'my own' that I am truly proud; truly happy. The same way I love the sweet, warm taste of apple crepes, I love the essence of a good movie. But only when I am behind the camera, or move the pen across the page, do they really touch me; when I know I love what I am doing.
Yet my passion is not film.
It's capturing the touch of emotion through movement - the harrowing swing of a bloody ax or the twitch of an eye - and a lens. My passion isn't writing, it's breathing life into my own skewed perception of the world around me; giving my own beating heart to Ben Childs or Felicia, my own separate beings. It isn't acting, it's transforming myself into the quizzical, riotous or melancholy faces of emotion. My passion is not my success, my success is living my passion. That is why I say no, I'm not here to make movies, to write scripts or to read lines. I'm here to enthrall you, entertain you, sicken you, strengthen you, and impact you - and I will not give up until I have done so with everything I create, every time. And at the end, I want you to get up, turn around, and walk back towards reality, only to discover that your entire world has changed because you are a changed person, from the pores of your skin right to the very depths of your soul. If that can't happen, so help me, I'm not passionate in the least because I'm mad as hell and I am NOT going to take this anymore.