Yesterday I was filmed 'being a writer', for the Windham Campbell Prize, which is having its ten-year anniversary this year. It was a slightly freaky experience: I've always had this fantasy of myself as someone who would be quite good at being normal and relaxed on camera, but it turns out to be the hardest thing in the world, and everything good you had to say just unravels immediately into chaos. At one point, during the interview portion, I heard myself describing myself as a stingray. I have blocked the context from my mind. Anyway, a big part of the shoot was filming the B-roll, where I had to be shown 'being a writer': typing at my desk, weeding the garden, reading/stroking my own books (we do this), and at one point fondling a fern in the rain and looking up into the sky from left to right. I struggled with the bit where I had to write at my desk. How do you hold your body so that you look like a writer? Usually I write in bed, or reclined in my armchair with my feet (in huge socks) up on a wheely chair, so it felt unnatural to sit at a desk 'writing'. As my fingers and face were being filmed while I was typing, I tried not to think about my fingernails (scungy, bitten) and figured I might as well try to write something. It was this weird exercise in trying to unfreeze myself while being looked at. I don't think it succeeds at all, but it was kind of an interesting exercise.
B-roll
B-roll
B-roll
Yesterday I was filmed 'being a writer', for the Windham Campbell Prize, which is having its ten-year anniversary this year. It was a slightly freaky experience: I've always had this fantasy of myself as someone who would be quite good at being normal and relaxed on camera, but it turns out to be the hardest thing in the world, and everything good you had to say just unravels immediately into chaos. At one point, during the interview portion, I heard myself describing myself as a stingray. I have blocked the context from my mind. Anyway, a big part of the shoot was filming the B-roll, where I had to be shown 'being a writer': typing at my desk, weeding the garden, reading/stroking my own books (we do this), and at one point fondling a fern in the rain and looking up into the sky from left to right. I struggled with the bit where I had to write at my desk. How do you hold your body so that you look like a writer? Usually I write in bed, or reclined in my armchair with my feet (in huge socks) up on a wheely chair, so it felt unnatural to sit at a desk 'writing'. As my fingers and face were being filmed while I was typing, I tried not to think about my fingernails (scungy, bitten) and figured I might as well try to write something. It was this weird exercise in trying to unfreeze myself while being looked at. I don't think it succeeds at all, but it was kind of an interesting exercise.