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Today I saw the rushes of the video we'd shot. It was most certainly a 'woohoo' moment but...I don't know if it's because it's my first time or if all writers feel the same way...but watching a film based on your script is a little like searching for a person's baby features in a very mature visage.

Sometimes one sees a resemblance. Sometimes one misses it. But you know that it's there somewhere because...how else could it have become? I was on the sets when the video was sh...ot. I'd done some amount of directing. I was there as it happened. Yet when I see on screen the light and shadow fall a certain way, when I see the actor smile one minute and scowl the next, when I listen to the intonation of some other artist's voice, I wonder...how did it become his story? how did it become everyone's story? WHEN did it become everybody's story?

Looking back, I think I know. It was when the first camera was switched on. When, just like that, collectively, we trudged to a point of no return and stumbled right over. I have never been fond of the camera or anything related but when I see the film, I think about how BIG it is. Just by being there. Just by allowing itself to be handled but being obdurate enough to want what it wants. As a writer I was never behind the camera nor in front of it. But I "see" the camera now as I watched the finished film.

It was the vessel and the void where the baby grew up. (And as I'm one of its many worthy co-parents, I now want the kid to go and make some money.)

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