I know so much, and yet nothing at all. Hear what I'm saying?
So, one thing I've been doing lately has been amassing large amounts of information about cameras and where that sort of technology is heading. The nerd in me doesn't need much of an excuse to come out, it craves information like I crave a slice of pizza every afternoon. Just one ain't enough, lets try all these toppings and the fifty different pizzerias between where I work and where I live. I crave it, I obsess over it. That ain't a healthy way to live, in more ways than one.
I have a knack for remembering the most inane of facts, camera model numbers and perspective ratios of various lenses when mounted on cropped image sensors, all that shit. Google doesn't help with this problem, the answer to every question I ever wanted to ask is just a few seconds worth of typing away. This is a bad thing, right? Of course it is. All the knowledge in the world won't make a good movie. Not that I didn't already know this, but it was something I kept pushing aside.
The original moderately crazy plan was to write, shoot and edit a movie before the Sundance 2012 deadline, which would be September. Ambitious, I know. I sorta finished a first draft, but forget that. My head was already racing ahead to trying to figure out a budget, ration off enough cash for a new camera and a few lenses, a computer for editing stuff, a bunch of audio shit, lots of nerdy shit. Lots of numbers, trying to squeeze as much bang for the buck by going over hardware specifications and countless reviews. Stressing out over trying to raise the production value but hey, I didn't even finish the script yet!
Last week, tried to push all that technological stuff aside and focus on starting the second draft. It takes a few nights of starring into a blank piece of paper before it finally hits me; this script ain't it. Sure, I could add a few more scenes and try to convolute everything, that was the plan. Wanted to pack the flick full of crazy shit, but in the end all that would accomplish was to obscure the actual root of the problem.
Strip away all the words and what do you have?
Rip the 50mm f1.2 lens off the latest Canon HD-SLR that's sitting on the dolly tracks surrounded by a few thousand watts of lights, and what do you have?
It finally hit me, a movie, at least the movies I want to make, aren't necessarily about what's on the screen. It isn't about the words the characters are saying, it isn't about how good it looks, it isn't about how expensive or low the budget is. It's only about striking some sort of emotional chord in the viewer. Making them actually give a shit about what they're seeing. If you don't get that, then it's all nothing but a masturbatory exercise in flaunting a prowess over technology. Not to say that the craft should be disregarded, far from it. But without that core story everything else that comes after, from script to the final cut, is pointless. It all needs to serve that unexplainable something that makes a good movie great and makes a mediocre movie forgettable.
Decided to kill the script, at least for now. Being on the other side of turning words on paper into a feature length film, it would feel irresponsible to take what I wrote and make a movie out of it. Perhaps after a few years worth of perspective I can look back on it and see if I can scavenge anything from it. I'll probably find another use for those words, but for now I feel like I need to start from scratch again. Try and make something new. Something worth watching. Heh, just wish I figured that out sooner.
