The first time I ever heard the word euphoria was when I was a teenager and learned that was the name of singer Jimmy Buffett’s boat. I had to look up the word in the dictionary.
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary euphoria is:
1. a feeling of well-being or elation
I took the above photo Saturday in Annapolis on a 64 foot Yacht. It was a euphoric moment—for about five minutes. It’s not as glamorous as it sounds. I was just doing a quick tour of the boat.
Late Friday night I had to drop off a crew member in the DC area so he could fly back to LA from Dulles Airport after a week of production in West Virginia. Annapolis has always been one of my favorite cities and so I stopped by in the morning to eat breakfast and discovered the The United States Powerboat Show down at the marina.
I only had about an hour to walk around so I went to the biggest boat I could board and that’s how I ended up on the new Lazzara LSX 64 Yacht. On its website the tagline is INSPIRE YOUR EMOTION. Sitting on that $5.1 million yacht on a perfect late fall day in Annapolis did inspire my emotions.
Euphoria is a great word. And that’s what I experience— for about five minutes.
An hour later I was stuck in DC traffic trying to get back to West Virginia to finish shooting some beauty footage. It would take me almost two hours in stop and go traffic to break clear of the traffic. DC traffic is the opposite of euphoria.
Eventually, I broke free of the beltway and found my way to Davis, WV where I had a little available light left to get in a few shots at Blackwater Falls. A few more minutes of euphoria. Grab those moments while you can. And realize that they are moments.
I think one of the reasons we love movies, and stories in general, is we watch characters trying to get to a state of well being. But something keeps stepping in their way—conflict, conflict, conflict. We watch them wrestle with life. And sometimes that in turn helps up wrestle with life. To persevere and endure our own life conflicts in hopes of getting to a state of being where all is right in the world.
Screenwriting from Iowa 