ReBirth Redux

In more artistic, thinner, lazier days, I used to make short films/videos. Those were days where I had no responsibilities to speak of, and I had the time and freedom to express myself, get a degree along the way and end up a successful director or something.

Then I left college aged 21 and entered the real world.

Daily life and getting by became my focus as it became increasingly apparent that I wasn't going to be working for the BBC in a hurry. The focus for my creativity became music, as has been for the past 10 years, I've even become pretty good at it. Along the way, by a strange twist, Lady Fate laughed in my face a few times and I got commissions to write music for other peoples short films. Of course, movie making thoughts have never been far away, but never amounted to more than just that - thoughts. Until recently. I've hit one of those walls that creative people have from time to time, I don't even bother to sit down and start anything in my music studio anymore because I simply can't, and anything I come up with sounds forced. I haven't finished anything half decent since very early this year. Musically, I can't get it up anymore.

Barry is one of my closest and oldest friends, we met at college and dabbled in the moving image together. Our best attempt was a short film called the Birth. It was a decent enough script with some excellent moments, but looking at it now there's a lot wrong with it, some of whats wrong can probably only now be revealed to the eyes of a wizened and brow beaten 31 year old. Other shortcomings can be blamed on lack of time, resource, discipline and others at my own over ambition and lazy casting.

It was Barry's birthday on Wednesday, and we met up for a substandard pizza at a well known pizza chain, and had a good chinwag about things. Barry has just left his partner of 8 years and is looking for new challenges and feels he would like to dedicate more time to creative pursuits again. In short, one of the things he would like to rekindle is moving making. Funny, so do I. We're going to remake the Birth, all things being equal, and he's coming round on Thursday so that we can discuss how we're going to do it. At the moment, I feel I have said my piece in music, expressed as much as I can aurally. I still have plenty to say in moving pictures, if not more than I did when I left it 10 years ago. I haven't stopped thinking in moving pictures, maybe thats why my music always sounds like its describing a space.

I really feel this could be a second phase for us. Time will tell.