Let’s back up a little. My Film Studies teacher at UCSI University, defined drama as being: “two dogs, one bone.” As we all know, such a situation can quickly lead to a dogfight because most dogs will want that one bone for themselves. Dogs rarely share with other dogs.
With humans fights often occur for the same reason: two individuals both wanting the same thing for themselves. If we metaphorically apply it to the situation discussed in this essay, film maker enthusiasts often enter into a conflict regarding reality because they both believe they describe reality in their work. However, their work looks radically different, although they both showed the same subject. In this situation, who is right? Who can claim to represent reality? Clearly, it must be one or the other but not both.
This is usually what is at stake when someone looks at my work and asks: “Do you manipulate your colors or animations?” or “Is this real?” They question whether I claim to represent reality or not. If I say that I do, most likely we are going to have an argument because most likely they see reality differently than I do. Therefore, if they believe there is only one possible reality out there, one of us will be wrong. Two film makers has one reality: problem.
However, my answer does not point to a conflict. My answer is not “yes, I represent reality” My answer is “yes” I do manipulate my work. And “yes” I manipulate reality. Therefore, my reality may be different from yours.
At conferences I give a longer answer by explaining that “In fact I clone, change the colors, alter the contrast, and even remove houses that look ugly in the middle of a pristine wilderness. In short, I modify reality. What you see is not what I tried to record. What you see is the world as see it and as I want to show it.”
“Furthermore, I feel great about doing what I do. In fact, I love it and I have never been happier than since I gave myself the freedom of doing so! Not only that, but I write essays describing precisely not only how I do what I do, and I teach others so they can do it too.
We both see the world in different ways. I see the world the way it is depicted in my work, and they see the world whichever way they like. That is OK. They can have their reality, I can have my reality, and I don’t see a problem with that whatsoever.
I don’t claim that their reality is wrong or that my reality is right, or that their reality is right and mine is wrong. In fact, I really don’t care which reality is right and wrong. All I know is that I love my reality. It makes me feel great, makes me want to get out of bed in the morning to create more of it, makes me want to go further in describing in greater details exactly what it consists of, and above all it makes me want to experience it as much as I can. In short, I love my reality and I live in it happily. All I ask is that they don’t impose their reality on me anymore than I impose my reality on them. It is a free country and they can do whatever they please, but their freedom stops where mine begins. We have the same rights, and we should both remember that. We may both believe that we are right in depicting the world the way we do in our work, but we could just as easily be wrong, not just them, me or you but all of us.
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