One thing that has always interested me is the fact that movie directors, when pontificating on their work, will often discuss lesser characters, like the main villian’s third henchman, as if a lot of thought went into these characters. A director might say something like, “It was important to understand the motivation for Lightning Soldier Number 3. What was his motivation? I came up with a back story that he had been raised in a southern ghetto without a father figure and his life of crime had come naturally. I think [actor] Thomas Dobswell did and excellent job of bringing this to life in his 4.3 seconds of screen time.”
For a long time I was baffled by this. And, as a fiction writer, I was intimidated. Did I need to be developing a deep sense of character for my accessory players, many of whom come across as rather one dimensional anyway? Lately, I think the answer is no. Movie directors (and writers) are just being pretentious fuckwads on this subject.
Well, you’re a dope. You know those cute little Comedy Characters in my Acid Logic articles who come in from out of nowhere to make a little joke and then disapear? I spend hours on those people and they are as real to me as my Family and Friends. Just this morning I was working on a little Italian Man who works as one of Dario Argento’s Production Assistants in my forthcoming article. Although he is unidentified in the article, his name is Fredi Guglioni and he is a thirty eight year old alcohalic from Naples with a tattoo of Donald Duck on his left arm. In 1997 he fell in front of hippo in a Circus parade and was squashed while Dario Argento cried “SOMEBODY GET THIS SHIT ON FILM!!!” Remember this while reading my article and that joke will be even funnier. Oh, wait. I decided to cut that joke out. Oh, well – Fuck you Fredi!