Everything is about to change starting today.
I'm not rehashing some positive thinking jargon nor have I finally discovered "the secret".
Starting today everything begins like tumbling dominoes on production for "Things I Don't Understand"...
You may wonder what I've been up to since I last left you with an ode to my love and respect of actors. Or you may just wonder why hot dogs come in packages of ten but hot dog buns come in packages of eight, this being the Fourth of July weekend and BBQ season and all.
I've been running all over God's creation, casting, meeting with DP's, setting up some fundraising ideas and investor meetings, doing some freelance and construction work in the beautiful, humid summer. In an odd bit of de ja vu I'm reliving my summer of my eighteenth year right before I moved to NYC in a lot of ways. I've been working a job whilst rediscovering the ridiculous classic rock of the the 60's and 70's I used to indulge in. I've also got a bit of a kick and confidence, a cocksuredness I've been lacking the last few years in my step... or maybe it's just all the AC/DC. It juices you up, mullet or no mullet, I swear! I've also been catching up with a few old friends, making some new ones and having a bit (a shit ton) of Summer fun before it all starts now... and I go away for a while into exile and give myself up to the film Gods... it all starts.... Now.
Tonight... with the rewrites....
Now, I've been doing some rewriting here and there over the last few months, but have really been putting off attacking the script with a final pass and rewrite draft. I think a mixture of time away from it, fear of screwing something up or just waiting for certain things to fall into place for casting, production, etc;... There's also the fear of the reality of making it concrete, locking it down and beginning all the other phases around it.
This project is important to me in a way that my first one wasn't. I didn't really feel like I had to prove anything with the last one other than simply answering the question: "Can I really make a film?" or "Can I commit myself so completely to something; body, mind and soul?" And those were just to me.
The last film was such a mission, such a war and a personal story. This one has all those meanings to me and what it can do for my future and those involved in it... but this time I have something to prove.
I aim to push myself and stretch my abilities, move out of any and all comfort zones, trust instincts and try to make something that really holds up in every sense of the word. I don't have the goodwill cloak of a first time effort, something self-financed in a ridiculous way that shouldn't have been finished at all. No "aw, gee shucks it was about the guys life... pat him on the back at least".
We had saviors, angels and miracles---perhaps some Devil worship, goat fornication over pentagrams and human sacrifice... that one PA we shall not speak of--- on the last project... I don't want miracles and angels this time... I want full-on attack and spot-on precision. (we may still have satanic orgy. we'll call it a "wrap party")
I twenty-four years old when we began shooting "...Around". I was inexperienced, figuring out how to be a leader and learn on the job things I maybe should have known. I've grown a lot in the last few years and put together a whole new bag of tricks during the making of my last film... I plan to use them.
I'm not chasing perfection... I don't think such a thing really exists. If it did it probably wouldn't much fun or entertaining; more kinda clinically scary, cold, metallic and inhuman... like Bjork. I just want to go further, do more. I want to tell this story without any real compromise or sacrifices. I want my voice to be heard loud and clear, amplified by the talent and hard work of those who come along for the ride of this production. I want to take my time and get microscopic in the details and ingredients of the recipe... I don't want good. I want FUCK-ing great...
Hence, maybe, mayhaps, the trepidation in now revisiting the script and trying to do it... the pressure... the perchance of choking....
I've always done what I do because in it's simplest form I want to entertain. I want to show a different side of things that interest me, that I've learned or that I question. I want to make people laugh until their ribs hurt and their sides burst, tears streaming down red faced cheeks and hoarse silent gasps of guffaws. I want people to well up and cry, to feel and to care about everything that is going on. I want people to relate, to find some small increment or truth or honesty in what's going on in the story and connect the dots back to them, to bring a sense of urgency and higher stakes. I want people to think about their beliefs and their lives, not to question but to examine and think about them and the challenges the world places on them.
I want to make this great. To finish this story in it's written form once and for all because very soon Im going to the do the one thing that makes me truly happy and alive. I'm going to go off this winter and tell stories with my friends and "family"... and a few months later sit in a giant. dark room and watch the end product of those stories with them and with a new bunch of strangers who after a hundred and twenty minutes are now intimately connected to us.
The next two-three years of my life will be this project and while there's always bit of fear and realization of just what the truly entails, of being the captain of a ship and prepared to lead her to paradise of go down to the icy depths... I'm extremely excited. So full to the brim of excitement I might do a sexy, Irish jig... or mildy disturbing, almost seizure-like hippy-hippy shake (you say tomato, I say tomahto)...
And I'm ready to disappear into it too. To give myself to something mind, body and soul again... maybe the only thing I can ever truly commit or tie myself down to...
I'd be a shitty, shitty, shitty, shitty rambling, out of town-out to town gypsy of a boyfriend to just about anything other than what I'm working on. But to her... I'm monk-like in my devotion.
What's on the horizon for this month...
I'm greatly looking forward to meeting the actors who've made the cut for callbacks for the film and reading them in person, trying some stuff out and seeing where they can fit into the project and other things I do in the future. The decisions I'll have to make this time will make the last round look like an easy shooting gallery, I'm sure. I'm also touching base with previous talent I've worked with and seeing if I can reunite some family for this, both in front and behind the camera...
Speaking of behind the camera I've also chosen a DP that I'm itching to start collaborating with on this and many more things. I'll announce the name and stats later, but a truly good fit to add to the Wandering/Cut family, a great mixture of youth, eagerness, ability, ingenuity and enthusiasm. I tested that mixture out once before in a never-having-produced-line-producer and all around indie savior to ridiculous results. Lets see if the hypothesis holds up this time around...
I'll be heading out towards the end of the month, tentatively, for some time in Lalaland, catch up with some old friends and also hit up some investors with the finished script and a business plan I'm currently adapting/working on...
I'll have more as the dice begins tumbling and I start writing... lets hope the muse is shining on me tonight...
ps. does anyone happen to have a couple hundred thousand just lying around... it's not a cup of sugar, but it'd help... more on that later. Same bat-time, same bat-channel.
D.
