preface:
Before you read this at the risk of disappointment, please be aware that I have no history in actual theater nor have I ever made a true film. However, I have written songs of theatrical quality since at least 1987. And I have likewise recorded film concepts on paper since about that time.

It is fair to say that I have a philosophy of theater and film. And I have long dabbled in documenting my own original concepts for film and theater plans in significant detail. But it will be some time before I might be able to budget my artistic dreams on stage and in celluloid. Most of this began with theatrical styled songwriting, an area where I have much momentum. I have also invested much time in inventing and documenting characters being developed for a film or two. And I have recorded many ideas for camera manipulation.

Surrealism and the Moving Experience
My life experiences brought me to a state of surrealist thinking before I even learned what surrealism is. I do not think that surrealism is a single genre of art. Rather, to me it is the ideal state of almost any genre of art. Surrealism is, as I know it, something brought to the mind's eye from outside when looked at by the final viewer. Likewise something filters into the mind's eye of the creator from outside wherein the surrealist does not credit himself for any idea leading to art as in theater or film. Another element of surrealism is that it blurs the line between dream and reality. In one particular work in the design stage, I am trying hard to make sure the audience often does not know what is a dream or what is real. That work is a darkly comic vampire story.

In conventional thinking, idiots believe that the intellect is merely in the brain and not outside the brain. However the surrealist might tell you that the universe itself possesses a greater intellect. This philosophy is theistic, agnostic or athiest, depending on the particular surrealist. Is it madness to suggest that thoughts are derived from the ethereal realm? In my view, true pathological madness is evident in the botulism of lives enslaved to material gain, tribalism, family and country. Not that any of these things are bad. But intellectual ideas are almost always embraced by prejudicial subjective evaluations, by the popularity of the influences who offer ideas, by coolness, and by the safety of tradition. This might be especially true in America where heros and trusted icons serve as artists, new journalists and creative writers. In this model the end user lives a consumer lifestyle by choice or pragmatism and consumes ideology as he would a product.

No, it is not mad to say that the intellect can feed off of ethereal inspiration. Surely the mind is a powerful instrument laid bare in science. But science cannot and never will be able to rationalize the miracle of consciousness. For while the computational abilities of the mind facilitate consciousness, they do not rise up to being consciousness itself. A psychiatrist might explain the chemistry that leverages emotion for instance. But he is only babbling when he tells you that any given chemical or synaptic conspiracy amounts to actual emotion. Consciousness is spiritual whether you believe in a supreme entity or not. And there is a relationship between the psyche of the dreamer and concepts or realities that are vastly beyond the mundane. Surrealism is medicine against mundane thoughts and dreams. Surrealism is not simply fantasy. It is a relationship between the mind and all the perils of thinking and dreaming. Some define surrealsism as a process of producing fantastic imagery by means of juxtaposing incongruous things. But such a process cannot be fantastical unless the mind deeply suspects or perceives a meaningful connection therein.

Surrealist art of any kind including film or theater begins with inspiration or some compelling idea. It is one thing for a screenwriter or playright to outright invent scenarios and artistic executions. But the surrealist may endeavor into a daily walking transcendental meditation seeking to "receive" or know the fantastical elements of an ordinary experience for film. The surrealist is compelled within to be an oracle, a voyant and an objective viewer of the big picture.

One of my own film/stage plans in progress includes representations of child abuse. A TV drama or an ordinary film might be a tearjerker wherein we are voyeurs to tragedy. But a surrealist work might bring us to experience the horrid mental, emotional and physical reactions of the child victim by combining nightmare imagery, words in the thought stream, poetics and art to show the tenderness and beauty of the child's eyes and mind. When properly orchestrated the viewer might lose a grip on reality where thoughts are blurred with real events. This in turn can deliver the viewer to vulnerability and deeper receptiveness within the emotion and intellect in order to achieve a more lasting effect. In my personal opinion, the classic film Mommie Dearest could be called surrealist. It represents imprisonment of the human will through a personal dominance that exceeds the standards of reality. It's a living nightmare.

Down to Earth
Realistically, I am not a filmmaker because I have not yet had the funds to entrench myself in that working environment. However, I have copious experience in photography going back decades. Still photography is about "the eye". So is film except that film is motion and transition and order. It actively moves the viewer through a chain of experiences amounting to a singular experience.

I started feeling a sense of theatrical aspiration in the 1980s when I began writing songs with a theatrical bent. These songs were, sadly enough, largely brought on by heavily smoking marijuana. I ceased using pot in 1989. Thereafter the basic lucidity of my songwriting improved by relying on more genuine emotion and thoughts even though basic inspiration has always been quite ethereal given that inspiration has come from everywhere seemingly unrelated to the end product.

The mad genius Antonin Artaud is of mild interest to me for his groping to reinvent theater and his apparent "mental" perspective. I do not think revolutionary reinvention is always practical or necessary. But I feel that theater that relies on acting alone is quite difficult to absorb. In my scheme theater should combine acting with things like short film, abstract art, odd sounds, poetics, narrative, dark and mischevous songs, strange props, unexpected events and audience participation in order to achieve a deeper level of feeling. These combinations cannot be largely random. They are all part of a thematic tapestry.

The big problem for no-budget dreamers is that projects must attract at least a small cult audience in order to advance the artistic reputation of the creator. I do not have a local stage group to work with. I do not have a true editing environment for digital video. Nor do I even have the time to edit at a community facility. All of that should come together later. I simply compile concepts and write down elements of future films and stage plays. I am neither a screenwriter nor a playright just yet. The stage seems risky given that you either sell tickets or fail after you invest heavily in casting, rehearsal and production. Film, on the other hand has the flexibility to allow projects with little or no cast and the ability to engage production over a longer period of time.

I personally like stage because audience response is aimed directly at the performers in real time. The audiences punishes slack performance and rewards you if you penetrate. Film is also wonderful because film makers without any real budget can execute viable moving art that seasoned pros often would not or cannot touch. Sophistication can actually hinder the big time film maker in many cases. You have film festivals everywhere and they are easy to find on the Internet. If you fail with your film you can remake it when you are better suited. I also happen to believe that ordinary cheap digital video cameras and simple consumer level analog sound gear are enough to execute viable art in some scanarios. Films can be of a wide variety. I plan to make some that have no narrative so that an audience of any language could enjoy them as well as art party goers who like having films as a sideline to devoted activities. I have quite a few specific film plans on the drawing board that require virtually no cast and no money. And yet they pose the likelihood of riveting audiences.

Priorities
Film and stage are secondary aspirations for me after the writing of songs, poetics, essays and philosophy. Writing has the power to reach the unborn ten thousand years into the future. Film and stage are merely interpretations of writing usually suited to the present. Wherever film is strictly a visual art without narrative, it escapes expressive writing by being visual scribe and voyant of the present mind. A film made today can reach ten thousand years into the future. But the scribbles of a great scribe tend to have more to say. Film has yet another advantage however once you consider that language is constantly changing. Thus film can be a vital vehicle for literally timeless expression. If you design a film for the far future, then you also may achieve a wider present audience. We are buried in oceans of films. Thus the gambit must be to specialize.

For me that means to focus on the everyday mythology of the human experience and its hidden pathology within the mind's eye of the common isolated human or animal. Unhappy or mundane experience is copiously abundant everywhere in almost every life. Yet the common viewer does not percieve it outside of himself much less recognize the vapidity of his own life, as in consumer culture. That is opportunity for surrealist treatment through film.