Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.

This is jump-start v2.0 of The Naked Filmmaker, a blog on books, movies, and filmmaking that I hope might be interesting, useful or entertaining to at least one other person than myself.

Here's the backstory: once upon a time I read and wrote fan fiction, which, among other things, is frequently a copyright violation, an affront to the original creator's intent, and an enormously silly and addictive way for fangirls to live vicariously through the characters of their favorite stories. It's also where I started to learn how to write fiction, to establish a voice, to communicate my ideas lucidly in writing, and to observe carefully and analyze the things I read and watched. Sometimes, in middle school and even high school, I'd learn more about these skills by having my fan fiction critiqued by readers online (and offering those services in return) than I learned in English class or poetry club. Plus, the humming hive of fan information exchange often provided me with articles on the authors of my favorite books, or the directors of my favorite movies; the latter inspired me in many ways to become a filmmaker myself, and I'm currently studying the art and technique.

Well, I moved from email listserv fic-sharing groups to LiveJournal, that bastion of teen indulgence, following my fandoms to greener pastures of verb tense disagreement, the incorrect use of homonyms, and gaping chasms in canon continuity. I met a lot of great people there, many of whom stuck with me through much of the nearly three years I've been journaling and ficcing there. However, a lot of people came to my LJ to read fan fiction, and instead found irregular binges on fic regulated by typical teen angst and confusion and, once in a while, a book or movie review. Review is a pretty loose term - I've only ever written one Review, and that was for my current university's newspaper - what I actually put up in my LJ were responses and thoughts, sometimes a critical evaluation, sometimes a personal reaction, sometimes a light rave or rant.

For a while now, I've felt like I've grown out of fan fiction. I'll probably feel that way until my next huge obsession hits. In the meantime, I thought I'd pursue seriously one of my original goals in keeping a journal, aside from gaining fan fiction publicity - I wanted a place to collect those responses that weren't quite Reviews, and I wanted to do it publicly because I crave discussion and, yes, I think I'm very smart. I'd love to become even smarter by listening to the input of other readers and viewers on the intarwebs. Finally, I also want to encourage (in myself and others) the habit of briefly responding to every book you read and movie you see. It's a good way to grow your powers of observation and comprehension, and - in my own case - to combat the tendency to forget every last detail of a work as soon as you turn the last page (or hit stop on PowerDVD and wonder why it's made your computer freeze again).

So, just as I did when I took the leap from listserv to LJ, I'm moving to where I see the action - I could be wrong, I sometimes am, but I'm willing to give this a shot. I also wanted to start anew, with a blog dedicated purely to book and movie responses; a separate space from where I ramble about my Real Life entanglements or frolic in fan fiction fantasies. I'll also write here about my education in filmmaking and the projects I work on, in original writing, legitimate adaptation, and film production. In the next post, I'll copy from my recent LJ entry about The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte, and after that, I'll continue the blog with material unposted elsewhere unless otherwise noted. But I want to finish this introduction with the first paragraph from another book by Anne, Agnes Grey:

All true histories contain instruction; though, in some, the treasure may be hard to find, and when found, so trivial in quantity that the dry, shriveled kernel scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut. Whether this be the case with my history or not, I am hardly competent to judge; I sometimes think it might prove useful to some, and entertaining to others, but the world may judge for itself...

I'm not as shy as Agnes, and this post hasn't been as sentimentally revealing a history as hers, but I do hope it has entertained - enough to keep you around for more.