Milestones
Every once in a while, I stop and look back to where I started and where I am at present. I highly advise doing this especially on days that you feel like your artistic career is going nowhere. You will always be amazed realizing how far you have come. Day to day, it often doesn’t seem like much, but then one day you look back and think, “Wow, look at me!”.
Today, I was thinking about when I decided to make my first feature, ACT AS IF. (Well, technically, it is my second feature but I’ll get back to that in a minute.) I knew a number of actors who were all looking for work and I thought I’m just going to cast them all and see what happens. It was very empowering. I couldn’t get funded and they couldn’t get hired so we just did it ourselves.
The film is lacking a bit in technical aspects but I realized something when making the film and that was, I could do it. I could produce it, I could direct it, I could work well with actors and I learned that I had a good eye and timing for editing. It was a film with no script. I just gave the actors each a piece of paper with their bios and what they thought of each other (to be kept confidential) and then threw them into scenarios. Everyone told me it would be a disaster but it wasn’t. I had it all planned out in my head. I didn’t write an outline. I didn’t save the cat. I didn’t worry about the structure. I didn’t even create a shot list. I went with my gut. And I realized I actually could be a great filmmaker. Sure, I had a lot to learn and was nowhere near great but I started to trust myself and know I was on the right path.
The biggest issue I had was that the film turned out to be a long (too long) short. Back then a feature needed to be over 70 minutes and the film came in at a dreaded 54 minute mark. It played a couple of small festivals and then sat in a drawer for a few years. I went on to make a slightly higher budget (i.e., much higher) second feature, MY LIFE AS ABRAHAM LINCOLN, that I four-walled so I could get reviewed. It was amazing. I had written a bizarre script that was high concept and everyone thought it was no good, confusing and would be panned. It got great reviews and I have to say looking back on it, I really love the film. Don’t get me wrong, it does have writing issues and I get why people thought it would fail because how it would be cut and the structure was all in my head. I think it was well received because it was so authentic and weird and just me. It was like any other film. And for me, it was another moment of “Oh, I have something here. I should keep going.” So I went back to the first feature (that wasn’t really a feature) and I added a character to sort of give the film a better structure which it needed. I learned a lot between those two films. (if you ever watch it, it’s the character of the playwright.) I recut it and lo and behold had a second feature that was really the first.
I went on to be hired to direct and edit a film called SUGAR!. It is a much more mainstream film, but I was confident I could pull it off because I knew I could lean on my own aesthetic to make it more than what it was on the page.
Recently, I made a very micro budget film, DETENTION 101, during the pandemic just so I wouldn’t go crazy. I love this film. It’s small, it’s not going to be a commercial success, but it is very personal (and funny), authentic and mostly created in post.. If you told me when I was 21 that I would make a film like this , that I would dare to say, I can do this with no crew, basically two days of shooting actors remotely and I could go shoot my own b roll and piece a film together with additional found footage, I would have cowered in the corner and said “not me.” I’m sitting with it now wondering what to do with it. Do I put it online in pieces? Do I self-distribute it as a full feature? Do I do both? Who knows? But I did it and all because of those milestones that told me I could.