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October 3, 2011

Submerging Visions

I landed in New York fraught with unexpected nausea over the new movie - in particular, the latest draft of it. This wasn't just an imaginary affliction: I'd learned over the weekend that one's intestines contain significant neural pathways, complex enough to give literal heft to the aphoristic gut instincts I tend to rely on. I came to understand that there were over 30 neurotransmitters firing at my brain from this enteric nervous system in my gut, telling me that my screenplay in its current state was deeply flawed on multiple levels. The situation was much more dire than I'd previously thought, and a new draft was due, and had been due. I stayed up too late not working on it, thinking about it, hating it, exerting an egregious amount of emotional energy over it, got up too early feeling likewise, read a thin novel from the F to the B to Lincoln Center, snagged my Emerging Visions badge from a young lady who already knew my name, was almost immediately given an injection of that most potent antidote to creative woes (anticipation - on the part of others, that is, as my own expectations for my film had until that moment hovered somewhere between non-existence and existential dread) and gradually found my anxiety evening out a bit. There's nothing like peer encouragement to coax your lower intestine into properly regulating your seratonin levels.

A tremendous thanks to IFP, the Film Society at Lincoln Square and RBC for hosting me and my project, believing in the latter and reminding me to do the same. I'm off to get some food.

Posted by David Lowery at October 3, 2011 10:12 PM