June 23 2009

Text By Greg Fallis

Let's pretend. It all comes from that, doesn't it. Let's play 'make believe.' Let's write a book, let's tell a story, let's make a movie. Let's create a different world and populate it with people who are not us. Let's say things we've never said and do things we've never done. Let's imagine ourselves in situations we've never experienced, under circumstances we've never encountered. Let's pretend.

Give us a character and a prop, give us a line of dialog and tell us what genre you want it spoken in. Let's pretend we're mutineers on a sloop of war in the blue seas of the South Pacific. Let's make believe we're Beat poets in a smoky Bleeker Street coffee shop, listening to jazz and snapping our fingers. Let's act like we're disheartened housewifes and underpaid bus drivers and shipping magnates and itinerant farmworkers.

Why? Because it's fun. Because it helps us to understand more about the world, and about other people, and about ourselves. Because when you do what you've always done, you get what you've always got—and then you'll never know anything new. That's a little like being dead, isn't it? So let's pretend we're other people living other lives, just for a while. Just for a while, let's pretend.

Editorial note: Those who are curious can learn more about the 48 Hour Film Project.