Through the Looking Glass

Peter asked me to write about what it's like being in front of the camera, as opposed to behind it. In some ways it can be the same: I can't see into Peter's head so I've got some basic direction and then I more or less wing the rest and hope it works out. As far as differences go, well, imagine if you were asked to describe the difference between kicking a soccer ball and drinking a glass of milk. The kind of thing where you might be tempted to say "well, they're just....not really alike!". When I'm taking the photos, I get to see the whole picture. I'm worrying about lighting, composition, and how much the people I'm taking pictures of hate me for having them hold awkward poses. On the other side of the camera, I'm not quite as sure of what I should be doing. I'm not an actor. Yes, Little Worlds is essentially tableau, but I don't mean "I can't remember lines" (actually, I can - or I could, once). I don't have that drive to inhabit the mind and body of another being in the search of greater truths, nor do I particularly thrill in the artful deception of others. I don't by any means dislike acting, I just don't think I'm the acting sort.

I have some other, more mundane worries when I'm in front of the camera. Most of them boil down to "is this going to look good/right in the comic?", but so far playing Hal has required me to perform actions that I'm fairly good at - namely climbing up onto things and goofing around. I don't think we have an established physicality for Hal yet, of course (I think that if he just climbed things he might end up being too much like Derby, so I expect some amount of differentiation in future).

This particular shoot felt very streamlined. Perhaps because we had comparatively few characters, perhaps because we knew the location from our previous visit, or maybe we really are getting into the swing of things with Little Worlds. And speaking of the location, I think these abandoned(?) tracks behind the refinery are my favourite place to shoot so far. It helps that we've only ever been there on extremely nice days, but it's quite literally 5 minutes away from our costume supplier (read: Value Village), it has really nice views of downtown Halifax (being on the Dartmouth side of the harbour), but all of the pipes and valves and steam give it that awesome grungy-but-cool feel that I love. That Little Worlds as a whole embraces this aesthetic (or tries to wherever and whenever it can), so much the better!

Will update with pictures in an hour or two