So I tried tumblr. I didn't like it that much. felt too much like a bloated twitter for uber-nerds. (no offense to tumblr-ers.) So, I'm back here, even though I passionately hate this whole posterous spaces crap. But I miss blogging. I feel like someone could read this and find it useful...in several years, when I'm dead and they're trying to dig up crap on my brother in 100 years as he tries to become America's socialist dictator (he texted girls at age 10! Scoop!!).
Let's talk about my journey in cinematic arts since we last met. I've made two films. Rachel and Pecan Sandies. The former, was started and never finished because the script was terrible, the dialogue was atrocious, and the camerawork was downright damnable. It was embarassing. Maybe someday I'll find a way to cut it that makes it funny, entertaining and interesting, like it was supposed to be, but I cannot figure out how to do it. The latter was directed and written by David Faust, instead of me, and I got to act and edit. I enjoyed that. I could live the rest of my life editing and occasionally acting, and I'd be happy. Anyways, it went well, although it is rather pointless. But it's fun! It's based off a line in the American Dad! pilot episode. WATCH IT!
A while ago, I wrote a post about "for the next film" after doing the painful baseball documentary. We made another film (embedded above) and it was simple but at least we made another film. I saw this post today and thought Hey, did I actually follow this list at all? The answer is: not really. I think i'll take it point by point, about how my opinions have changed about them, why stuff didn't happen, etc. Read on for a long analaysis of Pecan Sandies (and kind of Rachel) in the form of answering past-Matt questions.
1. much more of a crew. i'm not just going to edit/direct/film. I want michael to be DP, me as director, david as an art director, madeleine producing, lots of cowriters.
THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED!!! EXCITEMENT! I co-wrote (at most) and barely did any camerawork. David directed and wrote (which is why I'm driving, coincidentally, on the same day I got my license... all david's fault). I edited. So this sorta happened. I still would like to do a project where I just film or just direct or just edit or just one of those two, but that might not happen for a while. I think this splitting up of the process really helps the film. Makes it much better. Wish we would have done it with Rachel.
2. I want it to be more marketable to my audience on facebook. this leads me to several subpoints, which i will continue with, but first let me say this. As much as i love having just david and madeleine act, there could be about 100+ more viewers if, say, two fb-friend heavy NWC kids were the main characters. Just because I have lots of fb friends that go to NWC and will watch my videos especially if there's lots of NWC kids in it.
This didn't happen. I got to act, but there was no NWC demi-god that took stage causing huge viewership. I would still like to have other people act then just the three (me Madeleine and David) and I plan on doing it, but I didn't do it in this one. We got Jonathan M. to act in Rachel, and he did fantastic, so we'll have him in another script.
3. It'll have a staggered release schedule. example: week 1: vimeo. week 2: youtube. week 3: facebook. (it'll be promoted on fb the whole time but it will actually be an fb video by week 3.) you'd be surprised how many people judge whether or not they'll view it based on where it's hosted at. most people will watch if its on fb, most will watch on youtube, some will watch on vimeo.... so it'll go on fb after the other two have reasonable view counts so i know people have seen it (since you cant tell with fb videos).
Didn't do this either. Too much work! This video took less time and was less of a project than the Fridge, plus it was schooltime and I wasn't motivated to promote it so its barely been posted about in the one place it's been uploaded. I still want to get lots of views on videos, but I kinda just want to make lots of movies until they're good enough that people watch without me being like "Please!?"... It's not that people dont' enjoy it when I do that, I don't have to stand behind their back, but they're not checking the YouTube for new videos weekly (which would be fantastic, but crazy--weekly videos with people who look for them!?)
4. actors will be actors. i'm not going to write parts for madeleine, for david, for zach, for jonathan. i'm going to write parts for actors unless i get inspired that way.
I guess we did this. It wasn't on purpose, if we did. I'd like to have other actors who have done some drama before that would have fun acting a character not much like them, and do well at it.
5. this one will be shorter than the bridge, longer than the fridge. both in length and complexity.
Noooottt really. Shorter than the bridge, for sure, and shorter than the fridge as well. It was much less complex than the bridge. The fridge had little talking, and when it did, the over the shoulders were jacky and mediocre, plus the plot was basic and the story was mostly running. This had a good conversation, cut and shot fantastically (for the flip), but it had those conversations, which were good, and then it kind of ended. The fridge had more plot points, even if one of them was "drink lemonade on dusty hill."
6. script will be incredibly organized... through CeltX (my script-writing application) I can tag props, wardrobe, actors, crew, etc.
hahahaha what a joke! no. didn't happen. too much work. restricts my creative process. maybe if we make some 30 minute not-really-short-short-film, we'll organize it that much, but if we're just making videos, just a script is okay. If we're making a project for someone else, depending on what it is, we might use a shot list (we were going to make a really cool music video for someone, but it fell through. we would have used a shot list for that, since we were tight on time and we needed it to be awesome). If our short is a little more complex, maybe a shot list. If it needs to be done in 48 hours but it has to be 6 minutes long, probably a shot list so we don't forget anything. But that's all too much work for a one day creative project like what we've been doing.
7. Madeleine and David will Produce and Art Direct, respectively, and they will be given more jobs since there is a more organized script. the two will be keeping track of what props/set dressing/wardrobe things we need and making sure they're there when we need them.
I want this to happen. I want madeleine to be the organizer and david to be more creative. David has started doing that, and I think madeleine is ready to when we do bigger stuff. But, we haven't been able to do that yet.
8. I want this to be quality... enough so that we could maybe enter it to a festival without it being a joke entry. like the fridge. we could enter the fridge to a festival, but that would be funny, not a serious entry. if we were to enter it, i don't want to necessarily feel "we're going to be a finalist" but i really would not want to feel "why are we spending 30 dollars on entering this crap?"
HA. NOW THAT IS SOME FUNNY stuff. No. This film is not festival ready. We're not festival ready! I think we'll need at least 5 more videos before we make something that we're truly proud enough to send into a festival, or not feel embarassed about when people mention (there's this weird feeling I get when people ask me about my videos, Its like...uck.... that wasn't good enough for you to have watched and liked. We'll do better someday) it. At least 5 more fictitious shorts to excerise and strenghten our movie making muscle. I have two or three ideas packed away, one that we'll for sure do over break that could be a monthly-webisode-talk-show-type-thing, another almost tv-show like that would also have several episodes, and one other little idea for a short. Then we might be festival ready.
9. I want to be proud of this. I was proud of the fridge, but I want this to be something I can show to some production office i want to intern at and be like "look what I did!"
That is what I was talking about just in the last one! Yeah, I would like to be proud of what we have made. I'm not extremely proud of fridge/pecan, i'm embarassed by the plots, I'm proud of all our effort in the baseball film but not entirely in the end result.
10. I don't care how long it takes.
Yes, I do. Past Matt, you're a dumbass. (can I say that here? Wait, it's my blog. Yes, I can. Besides, no one is reading this!) Time is a big deal. You attempted a different film, Rachel, and failed because you didn't finish in a day and then you were unmotivated because your script was crap (as I talked a little bit about in the intro to this long post). These silly ones have to be finished in a day, otherwise critical me wakes up and says "THIS IS CRAPPY. WE'RE NOT DOING THIS." even though it would have been good experience. So... I do care how long it takes now.
If you didn't read any of that, I understand. So read this conclusion here if you even bothered to scan through. I am being heartfelt in this wrap up. I love filmmaking. I want to do it forever. I loved making Pecan Sandies and I liked making Rachel even though it didn't go so well. I can't wait to make more. I plan on making more. I hope you'll stay with me and watch what I create. I hope you encourage me and give me ideas of what to create. I hope you tell people we make videos and they come to us. I hope you get the hints here. Anyways, this is what you should learn from this post, in a short list. It's pretty film centric, but you could figure out how to apply it in life, I'm sure.
- Don't overthink it. Don't overplan and overorganized.
- Don't hype yourself up on how great it will be, you're setting yourself up to be upset in the editing room and you will never like what you turn out with.
- Get lots of people involved, so they get to enjoy it and make it better.
- Keep creating and trying and you'll get better. Don't delete anything, so that you can go back and see how much better you've gotten.
