Artists, Operators, and Warrior-Poets
Friday started as a good day. I'd brought my idiot bag, crash mats and other assorted gear to a house in suburban Atlanta, where I was doing fights for a short film. I'm not at liberty to discuss much, but as a general overview, I had 2 scenes to rehearse and troubleshoot that day:
- One where a 20 y/o man strangles his mother to death, and...
- One where the same man tortures and murders a stranger with an assortment of knives.
I'd read the script several weeks beforehand, done the meetings and gone over how effects would work and shots would happen. And I arrived at the location ready to go to work.
And in between setups, I saw on my phone the news pieces coming in on the attacks in Connecticut and China.
I kept my game face on. Worked with the actors and the director. Went over options, solved problems, and arranged that all and sundry would be good to go by the time the cameras were rolling.
And fought the urge to hurl a good bit of the time.
****************************************************
There is no drama without conflict. That's a pretty universal rule of storytelling, and one I suppose I should be grateful for, as I wouldn't have a career without it. By the time my services are needed, the stakes have been raised. Character objectives will only be achieved through grievous bodily harm. And I get to work plotting how those achievements are attempted, while keeping the mentioned bodily harm in the hands of the characters as opposed to the actors.
That said, stories come from life. And life hits hard.
"They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious.
'Peace, peace,' they say, when there is no peace."
- Jeremiah 6:14
There are three different kinds of people I interact with regularly in my trade.
The first are the Artists. The people of the pen. The storytellers. Those who seek to rouse their audience, whether to laughter, tears, introspection, something else entirely or all of the above at once. Their thoughts are on the story and the emotions it rouses.
Putting a sword in an artist's hand is all too often a prelude to a smile. The shine in their eyes telling you that they're seeing Hamlet, or King Arthur, or Anne Bonny. The sense of rare adventure washes over them.
And then there are the Operators. Ever heard of something described as "Operation: Clever Name?" or "Operation: Non Sequitur?" Those engaged in such are operators. Military, yes, but not exclusively. Law enforcement. First responders. Security personnel.
Not to say that operators are above stories. They'll be told. Often. There are a great deal of long stretches of boring in between the excitement, and stories fill the void. Whether it's some rather astute social commentary scribbled on the walls of a porta-shitter, a rambling epic of their erotic exploits, or out-loud speculation of the situation at hand, operators are no strangers to art, though they may not realize it.
Operators couldn't give a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut what an emotional objective is. The objectives that concern them are what and who they have to rescue, raid, occupy, obliterate, or any number of very active verbs. They don't have to look good doing it (though they don't complain when they do). They just have to get it done. Stories are for after the operation. There's too much to do during it to be concerned with how it will be told.
Then there's the hybrids. I won't go so far as to say they're rare, but warrior-poets are certainly uncommon. Knowing both life and art, particularly the violent side of both, is not an everyday skill set. More often than not, they consist of one who becomes the other. The operator who retires before writing a book. The artist who joins up when the recruiters come calling. And in seeing both, they find an odd kind of both synthesis and oddity all at once.
None of these are hard and fast categories, but broad strokes with strong truth tones.
Operators and Artists aren't quite polar opposites, but they come close to it more often than not. And it doesn't come up all that often.
And then an atrocity hits. A mass shooting is the most prominent, but there are others. And the voices start to cry out.
The artists rail against the crimes of humanity's darker side with all the passion their calling can summon. They do not understand how such a thing could happen. They do not understand another human being's inhumanity. After all, they've only seen such things in stories.
They cry. They call out. They DEMAND. Demanding that SOMEONE do SOMETHING! Because they're no longer safe. And never have been. And that fact has been thrust in their face, and they call out for something to drag it away.
They cry out for help. Better parenting. Better treatment. Better security.
More safety.
More control.
Because who needs this gun or that magazine or that feature? They personally don't need it. Why does anyone else? What possible reason could they have for it? Take it away! It hurts! It kills!
They plead for a magic wand, a genie's wish that such a thing never, ever happens again.
They hope.
The operators... they take it personally. They feel an itch in their hands. They feel jumpy. And in moments of introspection they admit it to themselves.
They wish they had been there.
They wish they could have been on the scene. That they could have run towards the shots. Done something. Helped someone. Even one person might have made the difference.
See above, re: flying fucks not given, emotional objectives. They lament, but often in silence.
And then the operators hear the cries of the artists.
They see a mass of confused humanity calling to do the impractical. The impossible. The useless. The dangerous.
They hear the artists call out for what would make the artists somehow feel better, and make everyone less safe.
Less free.
The true artistic medium of an operator is criticism.
Their own calls sound off. And the scathing derision comes in waves. Operators are used to snark and derision being used as tools to make one better. They beat someone with words the way a smith beats Iron.
And so they cry, "from my cold, dead, hands!"
"What part of 'shall not be infringed' do you not understand?"
But you can neither forge nor shatter someone over the internet.
Flames fly, warming nobody and consuming nothing.
And there ain't much room at a podium for any voice of reason. Though there's plenty yelling on every corner claiming a monopoly on being the reasonable one.
It's easy for an Artist to scorn an Operator. What kind of person would harm another human being? Who would do so regularly? And still feel good about themselves, and what they do? The more they hear an Operator's descriptions, the more an Artist thinks about what went on in the mind of those who committed the latest massacre, and how similar to the Operator's thoughts they could have been. MUST have been.
It's very, very easy for an Operator to look on an Artist with amusement at best and disgust at worst. The artist gets swept up in the romance and the adventurous spirit that stirs their imagination when picking up a sword, safe in the vast distance of history. An Operator sits back and watches a deadly weapon being waved around like a fucking dance baton by someone who turns up their nose at firearms, as if it finally occurred to them that there are weapons that killed someone today.
Hard to take serious someone who seems to think blood smells sweeter from a sword wound than from a gunshot. Someone who thinks that wearing tights and speaking in iambic pentameter somehow means you won't piss and shit yourself in your final moments. That using a fucking bullshit term like "theatrical prop" somehow hides the fact that you're holding an example of something that's killed hundreds of thousands over the years, often in cruel and painful ways.
It's hard to be the voice of reason.
Hard to tell an operator, "Don't be a fucking asshole. People just had the shit scared out of 'em and don't know what the fuck's happening. Quit acting like you're talking shit in the smoke pit and show some fucking bearing. You're a motherfucking professional, act like it."
Hard to tell an artist, "Godsdamnit, admit, for just one moment, that you might not know what the fuck you're talking about. Your own blood tastes neither like corn syrup nor zesty mint. Go run some laps or get laid or something, work off the energy, and come back when you're clear-headed."
Hard to do it.
But I'm trying.
I might wind up being a warrior-poet yet.
Friday started as a good day. I'd brought my idiot bag, crash mats and other assorted gear to a house in suburban Atlanta, where I was doing fights for a short film. I'm not at liberty to discuss much, but as a general overview, I had 2 scenes to rehearse and troubleshoot that day:
- One where a 20 y/o man strangles his mother to death, and...
- One where the same man tortures and murders a stranger with an assortment of knives.
I'd read the script several weeks beforehand, done the meetings and gone over how effects would work and shots would happen. And I arrived at the location ready to go to work.
And in between setups, I saw on my phone the news pieces coming in on the attacks in Connecticut and China.
I kept my game face on. Worked with the actors and the director. Went over options, solved problems, and arranged that all and sundry would be good to go by the time the cameras were rolling.
And fought the urge to hurl a good bit of the time.
****************************************************
There is no drama without conflict. That's a pretty universal rule of storytelling, and one I suppose I should be grateful for, as I wouldn't have a career without it. By the time my services are needed, the stakes have been raised. Character objectives will only be achieved through grievous bodily harm. And I get to work plotting how those achievements are attempted, while keeping the mentioned bodily harm in the hands of the characters as opposed to the actors.
That said, stories come from life. And life hits hard.
"They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious.
'Peace, peace,' they say, when there is no peace."
- Jeremiah 6:14
There are three different kinds of people I interact with regularly in my trade.
The first are the Artists. The people of the pen. The storytellers. Those who seek to rouse their audience, whether to laughter, tears, introspection, something else entirely or all of the above at once. Their thoughts are on the story and the emotions it rouses.
Putting a sword in an artist's hand is all too often a prelude to a smile. The shine in their eyes telling you that they're seeing Hamlet, or King Arthur, or Anne Bonny. The sense of rare adventure washes over them.
And then there are the Operators. Ever heard of something described as "Operation: Clever Name?" or "Operation: Non Sequitur?" Those engaged in such are operators. Military, yes, but not exclusively. Law enforcement. First responders. Security personnel.
Not to say that operators are above stories. They'll be told. Often. There are a great deal of long stretches of boring in between the excitement, and stories fill the void. Whether it's some rather astute social commentary scribbled on the walls of a porta-shitter, a rambling epic of their erotic exploits, or out-loud speculation of the situation at hand, operators are no strangers to art, though they may not realize it.
Operators couldn't give a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut what an emotional objective is. The objectives that concern them are what and who they have to rescue, raid, occupy, obliterate, or any number of very active verbs. They don't have to look good doing it (though they don't complain when they do). They just have to get it done. Stories are for after the operation. There's too much to do during it to be concerned with how it will be told.
Then there's the hybrids. I won't go so far as to say they're rare, but warrior-poets are certainly uncommon. Knowing both life and art, particularly the violent side of both, is not an everyday skill set. More often than not, they consist of one who becomes the other. The operator who retires before writing a book. The artist who joins up when the recruiters come calling. And in seeing both, they find an odd kind of both synthesis and oddity all at once.
None of these are hard and fast categories, but broad strokes with strong truth tones.
Operators and Artists aren't quite polar opposites, but they come close to it more often than not. And it doesn't come up all that often.
And then an atrocity hits. A mass shooting is the most prominent, but there are others. And the voices start to cry out.
The artists rail against the crimes of humanity's darker side with all the passion their calling can summon. They do not understand how such a thing could happen. They do not understand another human being's inhumanity. After all, they've only seen such things in stories.
They cry. They call out. They DEMAND. Demanding that SOMEONE do SOMETHING! Because they're no longer safe. And never have been. And that fact has been thrust in their face, and they call out for something to drag it away.
They cry out for help. Better parenting. Better treatment. Better security.
More safety.
More control.
Because who needs this gun or that magazine or that feature? They personally don't need it. Why does anyone else? What possible reason could they have for it? Take it away! It hurts! It kills!
They plead for a magic wand, a genie's wish that such a thing never, ever happens again.
They hope.
The operators... they take it personally. They feel an itch in their hands. They feel jumpy. And in moments of introspection they admit it to themselves.
They wish they had been there.
They wish they could have been on the scene. That they could have run towards the shots. Done something. Helped someone. Even one person might have made the difference.
See above, re: flying fucks not given, emotional objectives. They lament, but often in silence.
And then the operators hear the cries of the artists.
They see a mass of confused humanity calling to do the impractical. The impossible. The useless. The dangerous.
They hear the artists call out for what would make the artists somehow feel better, and make everyone less safe.
Less free.
The true artistic medium of an operator is criticism.
Their own calls sound off. And the scathing derision comes in waves. Operators are used to snark and derision being used as tools to make one better. They beat someone with words the way a smith beats Iron.
And so they cry, "from my cold, dead, hands!"
"What part of 'shall not be infringed' do you not understand?"
But you can neither forge nor shatter someone over the internet.
Flames fly, warming nobody and consuming nothing.
And there ain't much room at a podium for any voice of reason. Though there's plenty yelling on every corner claiming a monopoly on being the reasonable one.
It's easy for an Artist to scorn an Operator. What kind of person would harm another human being? Who would do so regularly? And still feel good about themselves, and what they do? The more they hear an Operator's descriptions, the more an Artist thinks about what went on in the mind of those who committed the latest massacre, and how similar to the Operator's thoughts they could have been. MUST have been.
It's very, very easy for an Operator to look on an Artist with amusement at best and disgust at worst. The artist gets swept up in the romance and the adventurous spirit that stirs their imagination when picking up a sword, safe in the vast distance of history. An Operator sits back and watches a deadly weapon being waved around like a fucking dance baton by someone who turns up their nose at firearms, as if it finally occurred to them that there are weapons that killed someone today.
Hard to take serious someone who seems to think blood smells sweeter from a sword wound than from a gunshot. Someone who thinks that wearing tights and speaking in iambic pentameter somehow means you won't piss and shit yourself in your final moments. That using a fucking bullshit term like "theatrical prop" somehow hides the fact that you're holding an example of something that's killed hundreds of thousands over the years, often in cruel and painful ways.
It's hard to be the voice of reason.
Hard to tell an operator, "Don't be a fucking asshole. People just had the shit scared out of 'em and don't know what the fuck's happening. Quit acting like you're talking shit in the smoke pit and show some fucking bearing. You're a motherfucking professional, act like it."
Hard to tell an artist, "Godsdamnit, admit, for just one moment, that you might not know what the fuck you're talking about. Your own blood tastes neither like corn syrup nor zesty mint. Go run some laps or get laid or something, work off the energy, and come back when you're clear-headed."
Hard to do it.
But I'm trying.
I might wind up being a warrior-poet yet.
