College Student Possessed When Writing Movie Script

SPIN OF FABRICATIONS, a new independent film about a young girl who went horseback riding, fell asleep in the woods, and dreamed about meeting four different fantasy figures in her dreams! In her dreams, she was looking for, and found, the meaning of truth! See http://www.veradonir.com/, click on FILMS.

The script was written by an 18-year-old junior college student named Pete Baumann, whose professor gave the class instructions to write a three to five page paper about the meaning of truth. Here is young Mr. Baumann's story about writing his movie script:

Just like everybody, throughout my life I've been curious about the world. As a child, questions would keep me awake at night: questions like where did existence come from? Did the universe always exist? How do I know that what I see and hear is really true reality? What if it's all illusions? Is there such a thing as absolute truth, or is everything relative to experience and perspective? What is the purpose of life? Are we just supposed to live out our lives doing whatever we need to do to survive and function, then ultimately just die? Or is there some other purpose – some goal? And, of course – the big one that scares us all – is death an end? These questions, to me, as I suspect they are to many children, were not just a curiosity, nor did they seem like some spiritual quest. I just wanted to understand. And the more I thought about it, the more confused and even saddened I felt. Religion seemed to offer a convenient system of ideas, which tended to make me feel better. Yet, it all seemed so foreign, so odd. I wasn't satisfied with answers other people tried to give me. It seemed that these were the types of questions people have to answer for themselves.

Later, when I went to college, I started studying philosophy. It was a breath of fresh air, because it didn't claim to offer answers to these big questions. Instead, it offered tools, tools to help me ask them differently, to rephrase them in ways that seemed more plausible. In short, I felt for the first time in my life like I was armed with some knowledge that could help me in my undying need to answer these questions.

My philosophy professor gave our class an assignment – to write down our thoughts about philosophy, about the big questions. The assignment was to be a three to five page paper! I've never been so inspired by an assignment. I locked myself in a room and began typing. I hardly ate or slept for two days, barely spoke to anyone. My friends and family joked that I was possessed. It didn't feel like I was possessed, but I do remember not thinking about what I was typing. It never occurred to me what the meaning of the words I was typing could be.

I was aware that I was writing a screenplay with characters and situations, etc. – but they all seemed abstract. There's no doubt that this screenplay emerged almost entirely from my subconscious. In hind sight, this seemed like an odd way to respond to the assignment, but I didn't care. I had a profound feeling that these words would matter to other people, not only me. So, I turned it in. ALL 52 PAGES OF IT! Needless to say, my professor was surprised. He said that the poetry and metaphors seemed to him to express sophisticated philosophical ideas that I couldn't have learned from Philosophy 101. I told him how I had written it, and a ghostly look of confusion came over his face. Finally, he set the script down and said, "well, you've written something very cool here. I suspect people will read all kinds of different meanings into these words, yet it seems to me you must have been intentionally expressing certain concepts that I didn't learn until graduate school." He began to explain what he thought the words meant, and it was so weird – it was like he was explaining something written by somebody else – some other text. He suggested I actually make the movie, saying people would find it interesting. So, I asked my dad to produce the movie for me, and he agreed.

Now, six years later, every time I read the script I find new meanings in it. And hearing the lines said by the actors, new meanings emerge still. I hope that what we've made is more than a movie; I hope it's a tool, another tool people can use to inspire their own thinking, maybe even help them answer some of those big questions for themselves, such as, "What is the meaning of truth?" I know it has helped me.

Pete Baumann attended Rogue Community College in Grants Pass, OR, when he wrote SPIN OF FABRICATIONS. He then attended SOU in Ashland, OR.