Surrealism

Pounding the pavement for a short-lived job in a temporary and imaginary world becomes an addiction; for so many of us the first one was free. It's living both in the freedom of the circus and at the caprices of advertisers. It's an artifice, unlike any place on earth. The film industry is perhaps the only reason to show up in a vacant lot in the dark and get into a van with a bunch of strangers. And the film set is a surreal space and time, like no other workplace.

This otherworldliness comes from the very core of filmmaking; you are creating something that doesn't exist. Whether it's a horror movie, a comedy, a magical children's show or a gritty realist drama, the very act of filmmaking is to construct and present an environment that is fully invented. This means that under the Gardiner Expressway at 2AM, while I can be transported to an apocalyptic near-future, I need only turn my head to see a truck full of food, a bunch of lights, a rolling rack of robot suits. I am sure it's not the only job wherein the object is to give the world something that's unreal - those working in politics surely work towards the same goal - but at least film technicians are aware of the plasticity of the outcome.

Still, reality encroaches frequently into the magic-ness of our insular world. Bad traffic. Power failures. Illness and incompetence. And of course the moment you step outside the studio into the snow-covered parking lot and realize you are NOT in Tuscany the magic dissolves. If you are on location - that is, not in a film-specific studio but somewhere "authentic" such as a house, office tower or street corner - the real real world can quickly invade the filmmaking vision. You have to stop your car chase to let an ambulance pass. A delivery truck has parked exactly where the director wanted to shoot. The street lights went on. Everyday life continues oblivious of this very important film project.

Then there are the "civilians" who stumble across a film shoot in progress. The obese slacker who tried to sell me his "Flashpoint" script, drivers-by who for some reason feel compelled to honk their horns when passing a film set, the kid who climbed into the director's chair and asked for a coffee. Hilarious. And irritating. But maybe it's not that all these interruptions compromise the artistry of what we do. Maybe we don't like to be reminded that we are, after all, just at work.