No Expectations

I’m about a week out from shooting my next short. It’s a sad romance called “Slow River”.

This one has me pretty excited. The production is small by design, both to ease the work and add to the story’s intimate feel. The actors are two very talented friends (Jim Dougherty and Rhonda Tinch-Mize) who I’ve been wanting to work with again for a while. My partner Randy DeFord will be manning the camera, allowing me to work more closely on performances. I’ve even brought my lovely wife in to work as my script supervisor. Also, we have photographer Polina Osherov joining us for the still photography. I recommend that everyone check out her work.

But I do need to address my expectations with this one. After the problems we ran into on the feature we were doing earlier this year, I discovered that I was basing my happiness on the success of the project and when it all came to a halt, I was pretty bitter.

I do believe that we’ve taken as many precautions as we can to ensure that this one goes smoothly but I need to caution myself against getting my hopes up. Not because something could go wrong but because even with great success, I shouldn’t be any happier. There’s a big difference between being happy with your work and being happy because of your work.

And that is all today. No “what have I learned”. I’m just watching my thoughts.

Maybe that’s what I’ve learned.

We’re rolling

Well, it’s underway. The big project. El Filmo Kahuna Grande.

I spent the weekend with my partner Randy and a couple of our actors getting some scenes in the can. We’re taking a purposely slower pace on some of these just so we don’t wear out our actors. We realize that talented actors are gold and we want them to be happy.

When we finished our last scene on Sunday, we were pretty excited until someone (yeah, OK,it was me) said, “three down, eighty-four more to go”. Still we got some great stuff and the film is off to a hell of a start.

This weekend, I’ll be conducting rehearsals with three actors (one of which, The Drama Queen Mother, is blogrolled over on the right – check her out, she’s awesome) on what are my favorite scenes because of the level of character interaction. This is a thriller but these scenes set up the friendships in the film and even touch on the transience of friendships. There are some great moments between the women in this film and I know our actresses will impress.

So what’s to learn here?

Well, although all things should be this way, film making is very much a Middle Path thing for me. When I write, I get caught up in the emotions of each character. I need to do that to make the story work. I feel that if it doesn’t work for me, it’s not going to work for anyone else. So I laugh and cry and ache and fall in love right alongside my characters. But when it comes time to commit it to film, all that has to go. It’s about understanding the story and knowing what must be done at any given time. Little in the way of wasted movement. No emotional involvement. Randy is good that way. When I do pull one of those “I have an idea” things, he’s good about grounding everything quickly.

I need to learn to put into practice the ideas about practice that I’ve been able to pick up and abosrb. Actually, I need to learn even more basic things than that. Like how to better appreciate people. Making a film is the most non-solitary sport I can think of. It’s ALL about teamwork. Everyone has to work to make it all come together. You simply can’t pull someone else’s weight. In the case of Microcinema, where everyone works for the fun of it, the exercise itself – where everyone works for free – all of the people you work with deserve as much kindness, respect and compassion as possible.

And food. Lots of food.