Would you write if there was a machine that allowed you to create a movie directly from what's in your mind? i.e.: Is writing just the best way available to you to tell the story you're writing about? Or you enjoy the very act of writing.
Completely. I don't know about everyone else, but I see my characters and hear their voices way before I even start writing. Bits and pieces of scenes just rev up in my head and start playing. The only way I can keep them, remember them, is to write. And write fast. I actually enjoy writing more than I did two months ago. I'm working part time so I have time to write everyday.
HELL YEAH! That would be like my dream come true! If THAT could happen, I could be churning out oodles of movies a year! Alas, if it comes directly from my head, the side effect would be that there'd be no editing and it'd be pretty intense stuff that nobody's likely watch!
Except that movies are very limited in what they can convey, even though it *seems like* the experience watching a movie conveys everything you'd ever want. The choice of words, their juxtaposition, the playing with expectations... all these are unique to the written word. They are definitely related, but they are completely different disciplines.
Writing is my artistic outlet seeing as how I can't draw a stick figure correctly. The writing itself is my joy. I'd take the movie option if it made me some money, though.
I'd maybe make some fun little movies that way, but for me writing is a creative art and it's too unique to not do it. I like telling stories, but I love writing them down. Just because someone invented the cinema does not mean I stopped reading books.
To answer your question, yes, I would still write. Anyway, I think such a machine already exist, that's more or less what filmmakers do: creating whatever is in their mind into a movie. But I know what you are saying, think and the scene is ready on the reel. In that case, and if editing is not allowed, then mine will not be a movie but a mess. Seriously though, I think writing and film making or script writing or 'instant-movie making' (see, I have given a name to your machine already ) are different things and the experiences are quite different. I am working on a script with a filmmaker friend and I have to say the essence of storytelling is the same, but the experiences are different. I don't think I can ever give up the experience of writing, no matter what. EDIT: Just realize you already have a that same name for your machine :redface:
I've just made two short films, so here's my take on the issue, if you'll excuse the pun. I have mostly written stories which could be turned into movies, or rather, which sort of "played" as movies in my head while I was writing them. I usually didn't include a lot of thoughts, worries or fears in them, focusing on action instead, but this is changing. At the end of the day, films and written stories are completely different media. A film is meant to be consumed over a span of two hours (if you discout special extended versions of trilogies etc.) whereas the average book may take the reader a week or longer to finish. A film also floods the senses, and forces the brain to make obvious connections from the illusions provided to eyes and ears, while a book occupies the processing center of the brain and requires it to create in the reader's mind the sensations of smell, touch, sight and hearing. In a film, you can get away with sloppiness just by making it loud and fast. I don't think it's that easy in a book. So, if such a machine existed, I would certainly use it to make films, and I would still be writing also.
If there was such a machine, it would defeat its own purpose. Everyone would be too busy churning out their own fantasies to ever watch someone else's movies. I knew I would.
