I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again– nothing we do in Hollywood matters. We’re not doctors or soldiers or police or fire fighters. No one’s going to die if we make a bad TV show.
There are a few individual exceptions. People can get hurt if a grip or an electric or a stuntwoman doesn’t do her job right. Interestingly, these are the same people who will survive the inevitable zombie apocalypse.
Everyone else on the crew will be only so much fresh meat. Above the line? Dead. Camera department? Dead. Hair and make up? Dead and dead. Almost nothing they do bears any resemblance to actual, necessary life skills.
The same goes for me. I don’t know how to fight or shoot a gun. I don’t even know first aid.
I went to film school for four years. What am I gonna do, dazzle them with a trenchant analysis of Michael Bay’s oeuvre? All that knowledge is just gonna make my brains tastier.
One might argue that writers will be necessary in the post-apocalypse. Someone must bear witness to the end of history, right?
Sure, but that’s a secondary skill. It’s what Michael Taylor will do while taking a break from building his zombie trebuchet.
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I did a shoot on the Bay Bridge recently; they were sliding out an old part of the bridge and sliding in a new part. It was amazingly cool to work on it, and very rewarding.
I couldn’t help but notice how similar construction is to film making. A big difference is those guys are working on a project for years instead of weeks/months.
I can say that almost everything they work on has an impact and an effect on tons and tons of people. It’s practical. It’s tangible. It sometimes breaks, but hey, we do live in an earthquake prone state….Whatever they are working on, should last throughout the years, and most people will never understand the amount of time/money/sweat that goes into it.
Same thing can be said about film…except in my opinion, there is a huge amount of waste to usefulness in the film business.
Construction dudes have much respect in my book.
Zombies need entertainment too.
In fact, entertaining mindless zombies is the one skill Michael Bay has perfected.
You can also make propaganda films to convince the last remnants of human kind to surrender to their zombie overlords.
Okay, so it’s not the most ethical job, but it’s not quite as evil as making campaign ads for Republicans or Democrats. (“Welcome to Hell’s Own All Night Diner. Would you like your shit sandwich open-faced, or in a bun?)
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-Robert A. Heinlein
And if you haven’t read World War Z, you should. He covers everything from celebrities to what happens to astronauts if there’s a zombie outbreak. And one chapter is about how a famous director survives the apocalypse.
I’m curious…Are you going for head-shots with the trebuchet or just flinging the zombies back toward the studio execs?
Nail on head.
Has any of the things I worked on in the past done anything to further the human race? Nope, unless you consider “running for the border”, nobel worthy.
LOL
Now, now. There’s no need to be so existentialist about this ;-(