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Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Thoughts on Tanning, Stunt Doubles, & Playing God

Was it the Victorian Era when it was hot to be pale?  I kind of miss that mentality.  Trying to get tan is too much work.

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I know a lot of work and training and blood, sweat, and tears must go into one becoming a stunt double.  It seems like only the craziest would want to get into that line of work, throwing themselves out of windows and driving cars too fast into walls and leaping dramatically away from massive oil tanker explosions.

But there must be a lot of bravery in that, too, and finesse.  You need agility and grace to outrun a freight train or to defeat the villain.  You have to act hurt or sad or scared when the flames die down and the smoke clears, pretending you're some big-name celebrity as they struggle to overcome the aftermath of a catastrophic event.  You need to keep your wits about you, go through rigorous training and stay in shape, and hold onto your ability to reason and plan.

Yet you also need to be a daredevil - you need to embrace the childhood need to roll in the mud, to get dirty and laugh about it afterwards.  You're in danger, maybe, to an extent.  But at least you're enjoying yourself.

Stunt people are part actor, part impersonator; half child, half adult.  And they are incredibly, incredibly daring.

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Not many people get to play God.  Doctors, maybe, or researchers, specifically, sequencing DNA and building ideas for new and impossible creatures.  Police officers and firefighters hold people's lives in their hands on a daily basis.  But science hasn't yet caught up to our imagination and those who protect us preserve what we have, unable to even think of creating something new.

I think writers (fiction, of course) are the only people who truly get paid to play God.  Think about the amount of creation that goes into crafting a short story - creating the world, setting the scene, bringing characters (in all their imperfection) to life.

I guess I need to give props to screenwriters, too.  It's kind of like fiction, right?

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