A Haunting House.

I have spent the past few days shooting a film. For me, the most memorable – and odd – part of the experience was spending Sunday, through to Monday at 11 am, shooting in an abandoned house far from Kuala Lumpur.

It is a horror film cliché, that a house is somehow “haunted” – well this house was haunting, for anyone who stepped within it. It had been abandoned since 1998, according to the last revealed page of a calendar on the wall. It was heaped with dust and decaying junk. Books and papers had rotted away, to become powdery ghosts of themselves. It has a strange smell, that was not quite comforting – a musty malodour on entry that one couldn’t quite define. Even more perturbingly, it had seemingly been squatted in, in the past fourteen years, since one room had a mattress free bed, heaped with clothes, that seemed rather newer than the house – and, in an unnerving detail, a baby’s nappies. Who on Earth would try to look after a baby in such surroundings? It should be noted, further, that the electricity had been put back on for the filming. So, whoever had been squatting there, had done so in a house without electricity. It couldn’t have been much fun, living in a rotting shell, in the dark, at night. As for us, filming, it was spooky enough, even with a whole film crew present, throughout.

In a darkly humorous gesture, nature provided an augmentation to the general spookiness. At several points throughout the night, a very loud dull thump was heard, as of a human body falling from a great height. It turned out to be from some kind of fruit tree outside, with very large fruits about twelve to fifteen inches long. God knows what it was, but it certainly added an element of surprise to the ill lit night.

For me, acting is often about experiencing the unusual. It has placed me in very unusual circumstances which have given me memories I could never have expected to have. This last weekend is prime among them.

It was a long night. By the time I got home, after the shoot, I had been awake for over 32 hours. Yet, it had been worth it. The director, Ignas Versinskas came up to me at one point in the night and remarked: “You have really created a character...I can feel it.” That was a cheering compliment and one that lightened the burden of the hours. Thank you Ignas.

So, despite the hours and the consequent tiredness, despite the darkness and general spookiness, I had succeeded in creating an interesting character, on screen – and no-one watching would have a clue about how long I had been awake or what hour it was during filming! I actually rather like the character: a detective who has seen it all and come to terms with the worst of life, but still managing to care, when people come to harm.

I look forward to further filming experiences, though I doubt that any will ever be as haunting as this one. I will write of some of them, in future.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.) 

On avoiding a trivial life.

By happy chance, I was saved from a trivial life, not by success, but by failure. I should clarify that - not so much failure, as not abundant success.

I shall explain. You see, there is nothing more trivial than the modern actor, as conceived in the filmic world. It doesn't have to be this way - but it is. Modern film actors are almost always substanceless beings, devoid of real meaning and real artistic worth. Many of them cannot truly act, but are there for their natural gifts of appearance and charm. Those who can act, are often not allowed to, by film vehicles that require them to be little more than living props to special effects. The result is that few modern actors get the chance to be truly something worth being: a creator of "real" people.

I have been an actor. It is something I used to enjoy very much. I acted on stage, tv and the odd film - but, luckily, and I say this with great personal gratitude, it didn't take off in a big way. I did not become a star of film or tv. I am glad that this is so, because, I realize now, it is too easy to be tempted into a shallow life, if one is successful in such an arena. The opportunities on offer are not really creative opportunities and so it would be easy to waste one's life being uncreative in a supposedly creative way. By this I mean that the demands upon the modern actor do not usually admit the possibility of much creativity and even if they did, that creativity is secondary to the script and to the work of the director. The result is that actors do not, generally, have the chance to be what I term primary creators: builders of something truly new and unique.

The actor's life is a seductive but ultimately empty one, if that is all that you are doing. There is the fame, the money and the adulation that go with a successful actor's career - but these are all, in the end, shallow things if they are not accompanied by true creative accomplishment, which, in most cases, they are not.

I have had a lucky break, therefore. I was lucky enough to have the chance to act in diverse roles, but not so lucky as to be ensnared by the seductive life that could have developed, indeed, would have, had it taken off in a big way. Thus, I have managed to enjoy what acting has to offer, as an art, but without having to suffer the emptiness that follows upon making that one's sole lifelong pursuit.

There are other more worthy means of creation than acting. Writing is one which I enjoy. Scientific research is another - which I also enjoy. Then there is art, music, philosophy and so on. There are so many other ways to express one's humanity which afford more opportunity for creativity than does acting. I am lucky in that I presently pursue two of these other areas: science and writing. They give my life more meaning and substance than acting alone would have done.

That being said, there is merit in combining the life of an actor, with the life of another type of creator. That would be a more balanced, though rarely chosen course of action. Most actors, though, don't make such a choice largely because it is not possible for them: they don't have any other means of communication and creation, they are stuck within their own narrow facet of life and its observation.

For me, an ideal life has at least one form of true creativity as a significant part of it...preferably more than one form. A life without creativity is not, as far as I see it, a complete one. So, too, an actor's life, without another form of expression, is also incomplete and unsatisfying. Most actors, though, would disagree with me. They find wholeness in their partial creative lives. That is their choice and their understanding, but it is not mine.

I wonder, now, would I be pursuing research and writing had acting taken off in a big way for me? (I lacked the contact base to make it so, but in a way that seems fortunate now). I cannot know. I hope I would have had the wisdom to seek greater completeness of expression, but I cannot know, from this vantage. I only know, now, that this way has merits the other does not. So, in the end, life has brought me to a productive place that is worth being in. It is just that, at the outset, I could not see that I would get to this particular place at all.

I must say that the life of an actor is not the only shallow choice. A pop star, for instance, is another choice that seems glamorous but which is ultimately hollow. So, let it not be thought, that it is to acting alone that I direct the observation of shallowness: there are many areas to which it could apply.

It is funny to think it, but I am happy to lack great success in one area of my interest. That is a thought, I would once never have thought it possible to think - yet I do. How about you, too? Are there are any areas of your life that you now, in retrospect, find yourself happy not to have succeeded more fully at? You might be surprised at what some honest reflection reveals. Write your reflections below, please.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to:
http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/
Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/
Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

IMDb Starmeter: up, up, up and away!

The IMDb Starmeter is a very interesting idea. It is found on the Internet Movie Database. What it does, quite simply, is measure the interests of the global internet audience - more specifically, WHO they are interested in, and by how much.

Everyone who is included on IMDb, the Internet Movie Database, has a Starmeter reading. This ranks them in relation to every other celebrity, tv and film professional in history. Well, almost. You see, it is a funny thing, but almost everyone who has distinguished themselves from the 20th century onwards has ended up on television at some time or another - as a result, they have ended up on IMDb, too. The IMDb Starmeter measures the number of people who click on a person's home page on IMDb and tallies up the global interest in that person. Then each person is ranked with respect to every other person. The result is an ordered list of whom, in the world, everyone is interested in.

Not only does the IMDb Starmeter rank people, but the home page of every person listed shows the change in interest in that person, week on week. This is a direct measure of fluctuations in traffic to that person's IMDb page.

Now, a couple of months ago, someone began a listing for my family because of a tv show we had done in the UK. Since then, I have noticed something I think is unusual: every week, our Starmeters have risen. Thus, for a full consecutive two month period, interest in reading our IMDb home pages, has increased week on week. In the last week, for instance, interest in my home page has risen 122% and interest in Ainan's home page has risen 182%. These are pretty big gains considering that in the last eight weeks or so, there have been gains each and every week of anything between 11% and 639%.

So, if you would like to check out our IMDb pages - which are being updated over time, with new credits and listings as and when they are approved, please take a look at the links below. If you would like to track them over time, just take a look every week or so. They are updated at the beginning of the week, US time.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to:http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals.

If you would like to look at my IMDb listing for which another fifteen credits are to be uploaded, (which will probably take several months before they are accepted) please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ As I write, the listing is new and brief - however, by the time you read this it might have a dozen or a score of credits...so please do take a look. My son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, also has an IMDb listing. His is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley, has a listing as well. Hers is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)