Falling Behind
My productivity is laughable. Can I say right off the bat that I am struggling figuring out where to go from here concerning filmmaking?
It’s 4:15 a.m., a terrible time to have self-doubts and draw conclusions. But the story’s been going like this:
I haven’t been able to get a job on a film set since July. I’m not sure if this has to do with the strikes, or if my resume’s formatted wrong, or because I’m being selective about what I apply for. It’s probably the last one, and if I’m that selective about gigs, how can I really expect to grow my network anyway? I’m so hungry for narrative on set experience. I would take a production assistant job on any kind of fiction film tomorrow. I really enjoy watching and learning, and when you’re at the bottom rung and you’ve finished stocking your crafty and cleaning up lunch, you can learn so much by watching everyone on set. I’ve been thinking about doing Hollywood CPR, but I have absolutely no interest in being a technician. In a cinematography course I’m taking with Tal Lazar, which I’m really enjoying, he showed the opening scene from Bing Liu’s Minding the Gap, which I had seen before. The opening scene knocked me out then and it knocked me out again, and I wondered — how did Bing know to shoot the opening footage the way that he did? And then I go onto his IMDB, and find out the dude’s a camera operator when he’s not making his own stuff.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me, man. I just feel like I’m in deep, deep trouble. My last film didn’t do very well on the festival circuit. I know the next step is to focus on your work and make the next one, but the only route for me seems to spend another five figures on a short again, which I have absolutely no interest in doing. I would rather pull a David Lowery and make a feature for that amount of money; I would rather make a short confidently with the knowledge I can do something with the material. But after how much I fucked up Carol, Roberta, and Teri, and how much I’ve learned since then, I’ve come to the conclusion that when it comes to directing film, I have no idea what the heck I’m doing.
That realization has been further impressed upon me by my pre-screening gig. I’m watching an average of seven shorts a week, and I’m quickly realizing what good film directing looks like. There are subtle blocking decisions these talented filmmakers are making that blow me away, and they seem to know instinctively where to put the camera. And I think of how I covered the previous short and feel like I’m so out of my depth. Knowing what I know now, I honestly don’t know if I even would have shot the movie. PreGame was so dynamic partly because of the blocking, because I consulted with the main actors on real basketball moves. The shots were designed around that, and (D.P.) Charles’ excellent framing and camera movement gave the film a production value that made it feel like you were in the match with them. With the same script that I had written, and the limitations to the location of shooting in my house, I’m honestly not sure how I’d enhance the material. The only thing I’d think of is to do better blocking choices, which would change the coverage, but then the blocking wouldn’t communicate the subtext of the script I had written, so I’d have to change the script. I’d probably make it way less yell-y, and much more of a simmering tension. I’ve honestly found that in all the films I’ve watched as a screener, such an approach is usually way more effective.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I need to grow some balls. I need to say that part of the reason why I feel so torn is because I don’t want to stop writing. I’m not writing enough, but if I had to remove screenwriting from my life, it would devastate me. I mean, it would tear a hole in me and I wouldn’t be able to function. And I’m trying to write every day while I’m unemployed, because it means something to me. It’s important to me. And then I think about how I’m not in the industry and wonder how I’m going to make the right connections, and I get bogged down by the noise. I am so close to finishing this screenplay, which is an indie dramedy that will likely crack the 160 mark when all is said and done. At press time, I have one piece of work ready to go that I’d feel comfortable submitting to agents if they’d asked. What the heck am I worried about breaking in for?
I am terribly, terribly worried. I am going to be 35 next year, and am worried that I am completely deluded by continuing to pursue this. And I’m also terrified of not pursuing it, because like, this is the thing that sets my soul on fire. I felt during Tal Lazar’s lessons today that I was starting to get (to some degree) how to translate subtext to the screen, and it just felt like my soul was flying. But is it totally off-base to say that such joy shouldn’t be an excuse for making stupid decisions?