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When you go to a movie, do you go only for the special effects? I certainly do not. Don’t get me wrong: I enjoy them immensely. However, just ask any special effects wizard and they’ll tell you that their idea of a job well done is that you don’t even notice the special effect. It just blends into the story and makes the story more impactful. The same is very true for the musical score.
Even a man who loves special effects and has done some serious pioneering of them agrees:
“A special effect is a tool, a means of telling a story. A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing.”
– George Lucas
What does all this have to do with living your life? Simple:
Recognizing Special Effects.
When you look at your life as a story, you can imagine it in any number of formats: Classic myths, novels, plays. In our culture, we’re most likely to identify with a movie so let’s work with that a bit.
If we accept this premise, then it’s time to ask ourselves: Are we paying attention to the special effects, or the story? We’ve all done it. We go to the latest-and-greatest film and we pay more attention to how the movie was made than the story itself. We remain detached and don’t immerse ourselves in the experience. Thus, the question of where our focus lies is important because if we are focusing on the special effects to the exclusion of the plot or character development, then we might find ourselves rather disappointed with the movie-going experience. If, however, we relax and let the special effects support the story we might get more enjoyment out of them.
Spotting the difference.
To explain a bit of what I’m talking about, let me just set a scene from one of Lucas’s best efforts: Star Wars (Episode 4).
The hero is in his x-wing racing towards his target. He is looking at a targeting device, when he hears the voice of his mentor urging him to enter a state of flow, and act from his inner power. The hero turns off the device as the terrain speeds by. The bad guy has just been taken out by the unlikely heroic rogue. The hero takes his shot, and aims true. The enemy threat explodes spectacularly.
Special effects? Lots and lots of them. If you were to pay attention to each one, you couldn’t begin to pay attention to the story. Yet each is woven so as to support the story, not replace it.
Let me set another scene from earlier in the same movie:
Picture the humans and the wookie being compressed in the trash compactor. The score is tense, and heavy. The walls are being pushed in. One of them tries communicating with the droids, but there are problems. With time running out, the droids pull off a last-minute victory, shutting down the reactor. The music goes silent as the tension breaks.
Not quite what you were thinking when I said “special effects”? Perhaps not. The contracting walls were technically a special effect, but obviously I wanted to demonstrate the effect of the musical score on the storyline. Some of the most tense, playful, joyous, heartrending moments in film are as memorable as they are because of the accompanying score. How about the playful “Westbound and Down” from Smokey and the Bandit? Or the infamous strings of Psycho? As with special effects, the music is supposed to support the story, not replace it.
How it applies.
Let’s take this and apply it to the story of you: When you look at your life as a story, you can see elements here and there that act as score or special effects. You can see themes of triumph, or times of quiet solitude. Imagine if you were a filmmaker how you would represent this scene or that scene. Would the music be wistful? Heavy? Would you use a flashy special effect, or something more subdued?
As you spend time in this exercise, you can begin to notice times when you’ve focused on the special effects or the score, rather than the story. What do to, you say? Improve the writing! Here’s a few basic ideas to fire up your creative juices:
- Character Development. Look at the characters in your story. If you’d like to develop them more, do it! It’s your story. If you want your character to be more three-dimensional, then spend some time on introspection. If you’d like to add more characters or simply develop them more, then spend the time to get to know people.
- Add more plot elements. Like I said in “What are you waiting for“, there’s not much point in living your life on half power. Live your life. Take on a project, or a mission. Find your purpose and then work towards it. Do something, but don’t ever let yourself be bored by your own story.
- When all else fails (or perhaps before), add some comic relief. Don’t forget to laugh. Take the time to appreciate the humor of life. The old advice of not waiting until later to laugh over a difficult situation rings very true. Not too long ago I had a good laugh when I realized that I wasn’t able to outsmart a small piece of metal. I had bent all my abilities to solving a problem, but ultimately a piece of sheet metal prevented me from completing a small project. When I stepped back to look at it, I found it hilarious. It gets much easier when you can look at your life as a story. It’s funny, so laugh it up already!
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