Julie Gray, multi-talented scribe and reader, host of "JUST F*ING ENTERTAIN ME", had a recent post about her travels. She hit Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Ecuador in one month, for different reasons. In Ecuador she taught a writing class to a group of students.
I can't put the story into a nutshell, it's a wonderfully inspiring post about seeing the world and how it opens a different set of eyes (read it at her link above).
What I would like to address is how travel and your life experiences fit into screenwriting. If you're age fifty or so, have grown up in a rural area, and are new to screenwriting, I wouldn't say you need to hit the road for the next few years to gather experiences. You know how people talk, what they do, the quirks -- write your story.
But if you're in the same situation and say, age 20, there's a "road less traveled" ahead, and you can take it, and gain a lot of experiences that will add more to your writing than you could ever learn from watching film or sitting in class.
A lot of kids in Europe are great at this -- they will live in other countries for a few months as exchange students, or go some place with a group of friends. Many hit the road for a year, "jobbing" where they can. It used to be an integral part of an apprenticeship -- as a "Wandergeselle" in Germany you would take to the road for a year, working for other companies within your trade, gathering experience.
As Julie mentions, the feeling of being at an actual armed checkpoint is moving. I can tell you firsthand that it's not as exciting as in the movies, yet so utterly surreal that it's hard to put into words. But if you live it, you'll have a different way to write about it in your film.
Here's to getting out there!
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You make a very good point. I have limited travel experience, but I feel like I learned so much with every new place I ventured to. I can't wait til I get to a point where my man and I have the time and money to travel like we really want to.
ReplyDeleteHolly, your wedding getaway sounds like it will kick off an eventual long series of trips ;-)
ReplyDeleteI can still tell great stories from my trips through the US. Every of the 13 States I visited got at least one story to tell. A guy in Nebraska who thought we'd drive on the left lane of the road, a German family in Las Vegas who desperately tried to lend one of out chairs with their broken English and my sister telling them "Können Sie mitnehmen!" - his reaction was unforgetable. Or like being in the mid of nowhere, Monticello. I could go on and on and on... it's been altogether 6 weeks I spent in the US, I haven't got that much to tell about 22 years in Germany *LOL
ReplyDeleteLOL! My best stories in the U.S. were from my days on vacation here from Germany too. Maybe that's because everything seemed so foreign, not sure.
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