Who'd be a Filmstar!
@owlwings (43897)
Cambridge, England
May 17, 2016 7:30am CST
Everyone, it has been said, has a story in them somewhere!
If you were making a movie based on your life, what particular episode or passage would you choose? Would you play yourself or would you have an actor play your part? What kind of movie would it be - romantic, comic, gritty or what?
I think that I would base mine around my experiences working in a second-hand bookshop (but it wouldn't be like either "84 Charing Cross Road" or "Notting Hill"). Of course, I'd have to 'fictionalise' it somewhat, so that there was some kind of story line, but there are plenty of incidents and amusing characters (including some quite famous people). I suppose that, if I had to classify it, it would be a rather gentle, down-to-earth story, a little whimsical and with some humour and maybe a bit of a romantic sub-plot.
How about you? Don't demur! There is a story in you! What is it?
21 people like this
19 responses
@ElizabethWallace (12069)
• United States
17 May 16
I think taking high school foreign language students of trips to Europe. These were language trips, we did not cram in lots of places in a short period of time. By doing what we did, they way we did, these were life changing events for the kids. They came back self confident world travellers who all went on to college and have had wonderful professions.
7 people like this
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
17 May 16
That would certainly make a good screenplay. I can see plenty of opportunity for all sorts of problems and hair-raising scrapes with ingenious and satisfactory resolutions, scope for some good scenery with local colour, perhaps some love interest and a strong message that 'Travel broadens the mind'.
3 people like this
@ElizabethWallace (12069)
• United States
18 May 16
@owlwings I have a very long list of such memories. My favorite was chasing and catching a train with three taxis. We were flying though little roads just below Neuschwanstein Castle. It was lots of fun, a little scary, and exciting as heck. We pulled into an abandoned train station, and a taxi driver pointed just as the train came around a hillside, "Da kommt der Zug!" Such a blast.
2 people like this
@JudyEv (382104)
• Rockingham, Australia
19 May 16
@ElizabethWallace I can imagine this as we've to Neuschwanstein Castle. What wonderful memories.
2 people like this
@ElicBxn (64169)
• United States
17 May 16
It'd be a mix of fantasy with dull. I haven't seen the new Walter Mitty movie, but something sort of/kind of like that. Except "I" wouldn't be daydreaming "real" adventures, mine would be fantasy ones. And - NO - I wouldn't be playing myself, I'm too fat and old for that now.
3 people like this
@toniganzon (77183)
• Philippines
17 May 16
I would play the part of my mother who was murdered. What genre would it be? Drama. Both parents were murdered when I was 13. So, it's not hard for me to think of what kind of movie my life would be.
3 people like this
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
17 May 16
That sounds good fun! Brass bands are always stirring, especially in the open air. It brings back memories of a summer fete with straw hats and flowery summer frocks; the smart (but hot-looking) uniform of the bandsmen and all of it reflected brightly in the polished instruments, especially the tuba!
1 person likes this
@thesids (22180)
• Bhubaneswar, India
17 May 16
A very simple movie of growing up. That would be my contribution. I know, it is all messed up but still, it has a fantastic screenplay. As my grandparents are no more, I will have to find some actors playing them and also I know I will not be appreciated on-screen... so maybe one for playing me too.
Genre? I think it would fall under Family/Drama (well most of it), but there are twists too so it can very well qualify as a mystery too.
2 people like this
@changjiangzhibin89 (17240)
• China
18 May 16
An interesting topic! I am afraid my experience isn't worth turning into a movie,which all runs of the mill with no dramatic plots.
1 person likes this
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
18 May 16
A lot of people are bound to think that, of course, but what may seem ordinary and humdrum to you may well be fascinating to people from another culture and country.! I remember, as a child, we used to have a book by Chiang Yee called "Lo Cheng: The story of a Chinese Boy", which I found fascinating. Chiang Yee was a Chinese artist who lived for a long while in Britain and America and wrote several books about those countries from a Chinese perspective (the "Silent Traveller" series).
1 person likes this
@changjiangzhibin89 (17240)
• China
18 May 16
@owlwings There is something in what you said .To my shame,I am so uninformed that I don't know who Chiang Yee is until reading your comment and search online.He was artist, poet,writer and calligraphist,all rolled into one,what is more ,where he lived is just 136 miles away from the place I now live .
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
17 May 16
I found it difficult to 'see' my movie for quite a while but I do have a fairly visual memory/imagination (when I'm reading a novel, for example, I very often see it as a film and when I remember things, they come as short and quite vivid clips, often with my younger self as an actor in them), so I only had to wait a little and some of the scenes flashed up on my 'inner screen'.
I have enjoyed reading other people's responses here and quite a few times I have seen 'stills from the movie', so to speak, as I've read them.
1 person likes this
@jaboUK (64346)
• United Kingdom
17 May 16
I should think a film about your bookshop experiences would be fascinating.
I suppose mine would have to be when I was a child in the 40s. I remember it so well, the bombers coming over, the queueing for food, the street games we played.
1 person likes this
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
17 May 16
I think that a combined film about your and @maluse's childhood, cutting between the two, would make a very strong film. I was very sheltered from the war. If my father read a paper, I don't remember ever seeing it and we didn't have a radio until 1948 (though my older brother had a crystal set). I remember planes going over and my father having to go fire-watching and rationing, of course, but I was only 5 when the war ended.
2 people like this
@jaboUK (64346)
• United Kingdom
18 May 16
@owlwings I was only 6 when the war ended, but I remember from when I was 3 or 4. Regarding Maluse:
She and I were born to be foes,
Our ancestors caught in the throes
Of a war they'd not sought,
On opposing sides fought,
Oh those were the times of such woes.
4 people like this
@crazyhorseladycx (39503)
• United States
18 May 16
i've penned many a tales'f the years i've been'n this earth. some'f which could possibly be quite interestin' if'n they were put'n the "big screen". more 'long the line'f drama i reckon?
1 person likes this
@CRK109 (14556)
• United States
20 May 16
Mine is very easy to imagine. It would be the love story between me and my husband, from how we met online to our 2 year courtship and our 17 year married before his tragic passing. But I think I'd leave that part out. I wouldn't want a sad ending to my movie. I'd leave it with happily ever after.
1 person likes this
@puddleglum (1380)
• United States
17 May 16
Great discussion!
Mine would be a Bildungsroman (I really wanted to say that word). It would be a slightly clichéd coming-of-age movie about my late teens/eighteenth year, when I realized real life was real life and couldn't be escaped through books forever. Maybe I would make it s musical too, just for kicks.
2 people like this
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
17 May 16
@puddleglum You need something far more catchy for a musical! Something short (which trips off the tongue, fits easily on the side of a bus and doesn't cost a fortune in light bulbs) ... How about "Oh, Chloe!"?
1 person likes this
@owlwings (43897)
• Cambridge, England
17 May 16
I think I need a German lesson! I knew that 'Bild' is 'image, picture, illustration' and 'Roman' is 'novel', so I was expecting 'picture novel' or maybe 'comic book'. I should have known that 'Bildung' means 'education' (apparently nothing to do with pictures) and so the whole is 'a novel about one's formative years'. I can see why you were dying to use the word!
By all means, let's have a musical! Have you a catchy title for it?
2 people like this
@puddleglum (1380)
• United States
17 May 16
@owlwings Isn't it a fun word? Gotta love German.
"Baffled Expectations" is the working title, but I'll keep thinking. I always title things after they're finished anyway. Haha
2 people like this
@LovingMyBabies (85923)
• Valdosta, Georgia
17 May 16
It would have to be the time we were homeless, it has a very happy ending and it taught us many lessons too. God led us to our church now, they helped us so much and we are helping others now. It is amazing! I would not play my own part, I would want an actor to play it.
1 person likes this
@Tampa_girl7 (54715)
• United States
18 May 16
Not sure what it would be about. I'd have to think about it
1 person likes this
@Jessicalynnt (50523)
• Centralia, Missouri
17 May 16
Perhaps the time in college when I wrote a play that was produced, and lost my grandfather production week
1 person likes this
@Poppylicious (11134)
• United Kingdom
18 May 16
Mine would be a psychological horror with a teensy bit of comedy, probably using my twenties as a backdrop. :)
1 person likes this
