I'm a Film Star (sort of)!

Believe it or not!
Okay, I'm not really a film star, although I could pretend to be Johnny Depp's slightly chubby brother. I have been in a film, though. It was called Poppy Shakespeare, and was on Channel 4 on Monday night (31st March). It'll probably be on one of the digital channels again fairly soon.
I'll apologise here to my chums outside Britain who won't have the vaguest idea what I'm waffling on about.

Stardom
It's very wierd watching a film you've taken part in. When I watch a film normally I naturally suspend disbelief like any good TV-weaned automaton. The actual filming process doesn't matter to me and I treat the goings-on as if they are reality, albeit in a temporary and limited sense.
When you know the process it's very different. Firstly I was watching the film past the main characters to see myself and my friends who were playing the background parts. Secondly I remembered what happened in the actual filming and how completely different it was from what appeared on screen. Obviously that difference is down to the amazing skills of the crew and director, but it does give one a type of double vision.
I watched Harvey eat a little bit of banana in one scene. The important thing to know is that any scene is shot from several angles, each angle several times over. I timed one scene - 3 minutes (a longish one) - it took half a day to film. The whole scene is, therefore, repeated by the actors over and over and over again. The more people doing or saying something the more camera angles there are; the more camera angles there are the more the scene is repeated. Harvey ate a bite of banana in one scene: in reality he ate at least six bananas, very slowly, over a five-hour period.
Frankly, I feel ill for him.

Bunny
There are other things too. I know that the guy in the bunny costume is really a red-haired Scot, that the cameraman is called Zack and that my trousers were held up with safety pins. I know that all the cigarettes were herbal, but still absolutely vile, and that the director pinched a lollipop from one scene potentially cocking-up the continuity if anyone noticed.
Yet, despite all this insider knowledge I still found it all believable. Not just the film itself, but also during the making of it - it's that double vision thing again.

Acting
I make no claims whatsoever to being a great actor, but I like to think it's something I have a kind of raw talent for. I was cast as an unnamed mental patient in the film, and was told to be nervous and twitchy, subject to shocks; so I was.
In doing so, though, it became a temporary reality. When I heard "Action!" I was Mr Twitch, when I heard "Cut!", I was Seán again. It was less a pretending and more a momentary becoming - double vision again - and it struck me that what I've been doing is very much akin to Shamanism.

Shaman
I like the frog as a symbol of the Shaman. Frogs live in two worlds equally and neither entirely, they are a bridge between them. They need both worlds to survive.
The Shaman does the same thing. S/he ("He" from now on) moves between worlds equally, bringing the qualities of one to the benefit of the other. He has a double vision that sees the reality and necessity of both worlds at the same time.
The Shaman also does something else: he acts. To truly understand the creatures and people around him he becomes them in a temporary way. One of the ways a Shaman will honour his totem creature or animal allies is by dancing them, in other words becoming them temporarily.
I'm sure that many will simply pretend at first, but as I found, pretending with conviction turns into becoming.

Jazz
I'm back to the old Jazz cliché, Fake it 'til you make it again. If I can become a mad person in a temporary and controlled manner, what else could I, or anybody, be and for how long?
Can a human being become exactly that which they choose to be temporarily and then revert to some base state?
Can that be made permanent so that the new state becomes the base state?

I believe in Fake it 'til you make it because I know it works. What I'm finding fascinating is that should the Shaman/Actor be able to change the base state of their being then the base state must, necessarily, be impermanent. In other words, there is no true person except what (and if!) that person chooses for themselves.

Find your true will?

Love,
Seán