Time Out of Mind

Time is just one of those crazy things you don't think about until you realize you don't have much of it left. Unlike most things, like say, money, fame, or power, an abundance of time is usually seen as a bad thing. At best, saying something like “I got all the time in the world” is usually meant as an aside. Of course having too little time isn't very pleasant either, but you only bring up time when you don't have enough of it anyway so that's not saying much. Well, I believe I've reached the point where I'm talking about time.

It's almost April. We're only a little beyond halfway past March, but considering I started cutting the flick in January, April appears to have sneaked up on me. Back in January was when I sent a reminder to myself to enter a festival who's last deadline was the first of April, and here we are with a movie that is still not complete. I haven't even locked the picture yet. Oh man.

I was doing well to a point. After a slow start in the first few weeks of the new year, I started hacking away at That Thing like a mad man until late February, when that screening took place. Taking a break can be productive. You'll wear the brain down concentrating on something for too long, it helps to separate yourself from the work and eventually come back with a fresh perspective. However, I think I'm taking a break that's gone on a few weeks longer than it should have. I haven't looked at the movie since, but pretty sure I've figured out all that I need to, I've gone past resting and moved on to wasting time. It's that laziness at work again, preventing me from doing any work. That and still trying to shoot a few last minute pieces of stuff. Keep telling myself that once I get that stuff I'll get back to work. Hopefully I listen.

But yeah, an actual deadline is looming, I don't have all the time in the world anymore. I'm figuring if all goes according to plan there will be a point where I need to do two or three weeks worth of work in one. And that's going to suck. But maybe it's a blessing in disguise. If there was no deadline would I ever actually finish this thing? Or would I just meander about, forever tweaking and never finishing. Yeah, let's get this thing over with already.

BOHICA

Riding uptown on the... M5 bus, I think, after a nice afternoon of wandering about, I start getting calls. Calls I couldn't really afford to pick up since I was running low on minutes for my pre-paid, seven dollar cell phone I got a few years back on one of those day after Christmas sales. Nothing fancy, it has twelve buttons, a sixteen color screen that looks like something from the Windows 3.1 era, and the most annoying ringtone I could find since since the headphones usually do a good job of muffling the screams of anything less. Debit card has been maxed out for a while now, so if I were to inject a few more minutes into that cheap-ass phone it would result in my taking it up the ass in overdraft charges. Any other day and I'd just turn the phone off and wait until I got home to reply via e-mail or something, but not that day. That Saturday I was gathering some folks, trusted friends to check out a rough cut of That Thing and odds are that they would need directions, or to notify me of their running late (they always do) or something else somewhat important, so I couldn't just ignore it. Not much choice but to bite the bullet and BOHICA.

The M5 was an enjoyable ride up most of Manhattan, the headphones were spitting some enjoyable tunes, but I was trying to think of anything but this first screening. Wasn't succeeding, you work that hard on something and of course you'll be eager to finally show it off to someone other than yourself. If I were the type to get good grades in grade school I figure it would be like that feeling, wanting to show off your super fancy report card to your mom, or something like that. Except there's that F in spelling that you don't really care about, but mars the whole thing for her. I guess that's not too far off from what actually happened, though it was both more and less serious than getting an F in spelling. Bah, who needs spelling anyway?

You stare at something long enough and you lose all perspective on it. Repeat a phrase enough times and it loses all meaning, I think that's happened to me and this movie. I was starring so intently at the waves I forgot to look past them and take a glance at the ocean. I wasn't seeing the forest beyond the trees. It's been so long since I've taken a bath I've forgotten that I smell like shit. And insert another handful of cliché sayings if you so desire.

It was good to get a fresh perspective on That Thing. Nerve-wracking, but good. Constantly glancing around the room trying to gauge the reactions from the viewers faces, not really succeeding. I can't tell just by looking. Nonetheless, it was good to have fresh eyeballs taking a look and pointing out all the confusing, ridiculous, and otherwise bad looking and sounding things that were contained within those eighty minutes. I don't know if I took it well at first, certainly tried to put on a brave face but I don't know how easy it was to see past it. Inside it almost felt like the end of the world or something equally depressing. You know, spending all that time to create a pile of garbage and such. Oh man, if I wasn't so broke I would have liked to drown my sorrows away that night.

Time has a habit of healing all wounds, I have since become much more optimistic about the whole thing. Haven't looked at the movie since but coming up with a bunch of changes I'd like to make. A few extra shots I'd like to shoot, rearranging and shortening some scenes, uncutting a piece I previously thought wouldn't work but now might, that kind of stuff. Most importantly, the pacing needs a reevaluation. Aside from parts feeling unfocused, I can't just let the movie linger on, building up to something that doesn't resolve or relieve the tension.  I just hope I have enough, or am able to obtain enough in the next week or two footage wise to solve that problem. Like I mentioned before, part of me wants to move on. Just wrap That Thing up, take the lessons learned and make new stuff, but I can't leave it half-assed. Only another month or two of this is gonna be needed, can't waste all this effort without at least feeling like I've done all I can do. The screening accomplished that much, made me realize I have not exhausted the possibilities yet.

Really glad to have friends who weren't afraid to say my shit stank, would have been embarrassing to hop on the bus smelling as bad as the hobo who hasn't taken a bath in a few months. Sometimes you just have to bend over and take it. It's for your own good.