#even though...you know

I AM EMOTIONAL

Oh, X-Files. I love you so much and I’ve loved you for so long. It’s hard to say goodbye. 

I love seeing extras because I like to watch how things are made, especially things I care about. I like to hear the thought processes of the regular humans who are putting all this together, and see all their storyboarding crap and the coats they wear off camera and the dogs hanging around and all the trucks and the lights and everything that’s been schlepped around and brought to this spot at this moment and set up just so to get this one little moment on film. I don’t know these people, but they care about a thing, and I care about the thing. Not always the same way, but I appreciate being able to be present, in some way, for the thing’s creation, and all the excitement and hard work surrounding it. It never fails to make me emotional. And make me appreciate the thing more. Maybe some people *cough* feel like it ruins it, but for me it only enhances it. 

There’s this little thrill that I get, this surprise, every time I get involved in a story on TV or in a movie, and I hope that the characters will get out of it OK or whatever’s going on, and then I hear about something that happened on set or a prop glitch or whatever, and I get this little shock of, “It’s only pretend!!!” It’s like, I forget for a minute. I’m an adult, I don’t think that Ernie and Bert live inside the TV anymore the way I used to when I was little, and yet, this still happens. And it’s MAGIC when it happens, when my brain for a minute forgets all of this and that it’s only makeup and there’s a sound guy right out of frame and someone wrote these words and all of that. I know this is a silly and obvious thing to say, but it is. I suddenly realize that I saw a magic trick, and I believed it -- and every time that happens, I get that thrill. And maybe it’s just because I’m me, but seeing how the trick was done makes it all the cooler. Watching Gillian get into and out of character, hearing about story beats that were dropped, watching falls and stunts get rigged up and executed and everybody claps because it’s tricky and hard...I just love that stuff. And part of the reason I love it is that I’m reminded of how, when I’m watching it, it becomes so alive and real. Sometimes more than others, but it does. 

I tag “ddga” for David and Gillian and “mulder and scully” for Mulder and Scully. Sometimes with set photos or whatever I can’t remember if it was in the episode, or I can’t remember if they’re smiling because M&S were smiling or if it’s just them between scenes. Sometimes if it’s a deleted scene kind of a thing I tag both. Sometimes it’s obviously Gillian doing something goobery and then sometimes it’s clearly Scully being serious and intense -- but SOMEWHERE in there, Gillian becomes Scully, David becomes Mulder, a set becomes a place, a makeup effect becomes an injury, a guy in a plastic head becomes a monster, a line becomes heartfelt words. It’s alchemy when it happens. No matter how many angles I look at it from, no matter how much I know how it’s done, it still works on me. I love that. I hope I never get cynical enough that it doesn’t.