...and telling stories in the dark.
I have been an inventor of stories since I was able to string two words together! I love images, music and words all combining to form an experience, a moment which the imagination can step into.
I am starting this blog now because I am passionate about Filmmaking, forming friendship and creative relationship with people all over the world and I wanted to have a place to share anything I found useful or inspiring with others.
I am a kiwi filmmaker living in Sydney, trained at the Actor's Centre Australia in their full time acting course aptly called 'The Journey', & before that I graduated from the Victoria University of Wellington with a degree in Music, majoring in composition.... (I am totally wild about percussion and the geography of Wellington - if you like wild, four-seasons-in-one-day, living-life-on-the-edge, then check out Welly - it's a fantastic place to live and a creative pressure cooker! Esp. for innovative film and music cultures)
I was blessed to be born into an incredibly talented creative family. My mother was an artist, constantly scribbling & doodling, taking art classes and various courses. She had a love of words - poetry, Shakespeare - and we share a love of Children's Story books. Every night one of my parents would read to me from our ever expanding library of fantastic story books - ranging from popular books of the time, to the timeless likes of 'Where the Wild Things Are', A. A. Milne, The 'Just So Stories' of Rujard Kippling and Roald Dahl - 'The Giraffe, the Pelly and Me' - a total favourite! - to fantastic unheard of masterpieces we or relatives had happened upon by chance, 'Joey', 'The Stalk' & the wickidly funny anthology of 3-minute stories (especially if you actually tried to read them in 3 mintues!)...
Sometimes, dad would even sing them to me with made up melodies on the spot as he improvised on the guitar! Fantastic :)
What those precious books always had in common was fantastic illustrations, imaginitive worlds that you could practically step off the page into & words that spun their story out thin air in front of us...
The next presence of the arts I was blessed to grow up surrounded by and immersed in, was the wonderful musical world of my father. He was a classical guitarist, an avid folk-musician & a born story-teller. This man could hold a room of 20, screaming with laughter, in the telling of one joke . I have to say he was my total hero. Well, him & He-Man were neck and neck anyway! (yes I was a total, fiery, kiwi-italian tomboy)
I was really lucky because I was allowed to go along to all sort of musical concerts with him. I was always told before each one - "You can come, but only if you listen quietly for the whole thing" & you betcha, I would! Either I would be listening, drinking in the music, or I would have fallen quietly asleep beside him and mum on the concert benches or chairs.
Growing up in a hectic schedule of concerts, late night parties & home soirees - and plenty of travel - I was lucky enough to learn that critical skill of being up when you are up and being asleep whereever you can catch a kip. I think that will put me in good stead for my career in the film industry, don't you?
My dad was originally from Italy. So we used to travel back and forth to Europe and go on long trips around the world alot as a family, so having the ability to drop to sleep whenever I was tired, WHEREVER I was (including a crowded airport lounge) - was a total godsend. And now that I think of it, a survival essential, due to our lifestyle! To this day, I can fall asleep in a pumping party on the couch. In fact, hearing the noise of people laughing & talking & music going on... actually helps!!!
My parents were running an Italian Restaurant called "Da Mario's" in Palmerston North. It was the best thing, growing up in and living upstairs to a busy restaurant. Not only was my mum a killer, multi-cultural chef - so the food has always been sublime - but we often had fantastic musicians playing live and staying with us from NZ and all over the world.
One of my favourite things at that time was to creep out of bed and slink half way down the stairs to watch them in the dining room performing... It was all so magical, this world of music and performance. The rapt awe in a room full of diners that these musicians would command - some patrons would even forget to eat... In mid mouthful, they would turn in their chairs as the hush silence came over the dining room, to wath the performers play or sing... and then they would applause! Well, as four or five year old, I thought that was really something! The act of performance. The exciting exchange between audience and artist...
The last piece of the puzzle was both of my parents loved the theatre & the movies. We used to go to all sorts of local plays and performances, Shakespeare, musicals that come to town or if it was to the capital, Wellington, we would often drive to see them... One time, when I was about 10, we were on our last stopover returning from Italy, and we were staying in Sydney while the 'Phantom of the Opera' was playing. We went and I was completely blown out of the water. As a 10 year old, I had no idea what to expect. I didn't know anything about the story. It's still fresh in my mind - this amazing, huge experience - 100s of people performing and singing, the stunning visual effects of the fog, the mirror, the falling candellabra! I remember, I actually screamed when it started to fall! And at the end, I had tears streaming down my face as I applauded on my feet, whopping and whistling for the performers. Stupendous!
As a filmmaker now, I think it's a strength that I was an only child who grew up for the large part, surrounded by adults, traveling the world, being exposed to different cultures, different standards of living, people who spoke in completely different languages with different customs. It helped me to see outside the box. It fed my already active imagination. I was always asking questions and making up the background story to things I saw.
I had a completely over-active imagination. I could create a make believe game to keep me occupied any time, any where. I could sit quite happily, while the adults had dinner in a Parisian Restaurant catching up with old friends, and create a whole world to explore with myslef and the reflection of me in the mirror opposite the table. I had make-believe friends, make-believe families and even make-believe worlds I would frequently visit to ellaborate on previous adventures. I would happily bring along any friends I happened to have over to play at the time, and more often that not (I know this because of telling footage from my early years taken by dad on our video camera & from friends reports since we've grown up) I would be the one in charge, dictating the rules of the game we were playing, making up compelling and complicated twists and turns, creating a dramatic series of obstacles and challenges we would have to overcome to reach our goal...
I don't think I ever really grew out of that - that ability and desire to hold the entire world in my head, because that is why now I am never more at home than when I am directing a film or a piece of theatre. As a filmmaker, one of the things I absolutely LOVE doing, is spinning this imaginary world out of thin air and getting in there with my fellow creators and fleshing it out. Poking around in its insides. Asking the tricky intriguing 'what if' questions... What would happen if this happened? What would this character do if faced with...? Yeah, and then what if that happened...
I love reading fantasy and science fiction. I love seeing movies - any movies - good, bad, cheesey, block busters, art house, political situation flicks...
I love painting a picture, a living breathing world in my head and then bringing it to life on screen and in a darkened theatre. I love seeing the adventures and worlds that others have created.
I love seeing actors and creatives transformed as they tell a story - seeing the world, the life of that story, take them over. The inspiration that dances in their eyes and they way they can't wipe the smile off their faces when a breakthrough or realisation hits them in the forehead!
When I was a child, one of my favourites things was having sleep overs and that time after we had just been tucked up in bed. The light had just been switched off. The adults were in bed or watching telly. And we would lie there, whispering jokes and telling scary stories, spinning riddles and making up puzzles for each other, whispering utter nonsense into the dark... and one by one, in the middle of some wonderful world, often in mid sentence, we would fall asleep...
In short, I love films. I love moving pictures. I love telling stories in the dark. I always have, I always will.
And whatever I learn about it, I will share with you here. Whoever you are and however you chanced upon this blog, thanks for reading. I will share with you in the coming posts the places, things, people, realisations, gems & resources that I discover which make a difference to me. I hope they assist you in your journey too, in creating the life you dream of...
Love & Inspiration,
Miri
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