Weekend (Assignment 1: Place)

Nicolas Pflug

Prof. Wissmiller

Digital Cinema 1

Place Statement

January 26, 2011

            When a person thinks about what “place” means, they may present different definitions. Some may say, “Where something or someone is.” Another may say it’s a part of the landscape, like a forest or a city. Others may even say that place is a person’s social ranking. However, while all of these definitions are true, there is one more definition of place that is important. A “place” does not have to be concrete; many places are fictitious. What I mean is, “place” is also a narrative device, used by authors, artists, and storytellers to create worlds as vast as the universe and as familiar as your home town. Places do not merely exist in reality, but also in our minds.

            An example of how this is true: there are people in the world that make a living by  creating places and things that don’t exist. There are a LOT of people that do this. Any body who has ever told a story, written a song, created a narrative piece of art- these people, and more, create these worlds that are fictional. As to why they do it, the answer is a tad complicated. Some wish to make a point about society, some wish inspire others, and some wish to merely entertain. But one of the biggest reasons why is a simple one: escape. We, as humans, are escapists. We read books, watch movies, play games, listen to music, watch TV, play fantasy football... the list goes on. We do these things for a variety of reasons, but one fact rings true: that fictional places are as important to us as places we can see and feel.

            If you were walking down the street and you asked one hundred people one hundred questions, fifty about Czechoslovakia and fifty about Harry Potter, I can bet that more people will answer far more questions about Harry Potter than Czechoslovakia. This isn’t from ignorance, far from it. It instead illustrates just how deeply fiction has permeated the human race. As a race, we have been telling stories to one another since the invention of language.

            As an animator, I want to tell stories through the movies I create. I want to evoke in my audience that sense of escape, that feeling of total immersion into a strange new world. I want to create places and characters that my audience can relate to on a base level, while still providing new experiences and stirring emotion.

            For my short film on place, I will show how people can spend entire days enthralled in a place created by someone else, namely literature. People can sometimes rush through the menial tasks of reality (eating, hygiene, etc.) in order to return to a place created by someone else, that only exists on paper and in your head. I plan on taking this idea, and showing it in action.