In my first feature-length movie, I wrote a scene where a character breaks down and yells at her roommate (formerly her best friend). I’ve only got one camera and so in order to get good coverage of the scene we had to do several takes of the scene from several different angles.
It took the better part of four hours.
After we had wrapped, I was having some pearl tea with the lead actress and I asked her how she managed to stay in that emotional state for so long. I hadn’t done it and I was exhausted, almost on the verge of tears. She said something to the effect of, “That’s what I do. That’s what acting is.”
As I research computer hacking, I find my more mischievous personality traits, the ones that got me into so much trouble as a kid, wanting to creep back into my life. You see, in order to write HACKER, I’ve got to get inside the head of the lead character, a “gray hat” hacker. I need to know how he thinks, why he does what he does.
I need to know what his motivations are for everything that he does so when it comes time to talk to +Xander Jeanneret about the character and we decide how he’s going to play Hacker, I’ve got answers.
My natural tendency is to completely submerge myself in my work, to become a hacker for a little while. The problem is, many of the things the gray hats do are illegal. Since I don’t have any major moral compulsion to follow the law for its own sake, this could cause me some trouble.
So, if you’re a hacker in the Los Angeles or Orange County area and you’d like to talk about what it’s like to be you, hit me up. I can’t go there with you, but I’d sure love to watch and learn. And, if we end up working together, you will be credited, unless you prefer to remain Anonymous.
If you want a preview of what Hacker is like, check out the following video: