If I knew five-plus years ago how hard it would be to be a professional screenwriter, I might have tried a little harder to understand the Star Trek-like technobabble that was part of the editing classes at film school. At the very least I would have been employed much more contiguously in these post-film school years.
I doubt that I’d be as happy and content as I am now, though. When I look back, I can exclaim – just like those Hallmark cards or chain-email-angels insist – I’ve come a long way, baby!
My trick to surviving, I think, is my ability to be wilfully short-sighted. Take the short film, for example. I thought I had a pretty straight-forward project: five talking heads, no gun-fights, no car-chases, a half-dozen locations, and a nine to ten-minute running time. The devil is in the details.
- Inside or out? We had just one interior. Everything else was either on the street or in the car. As the shoot approached, I realised how vulnerable we were to weather. I worried a lot. And slept little beforehand. (But it worked out.)
- Location variables. So you think you’ve picked a reasonably quiet street, right? It was quiet when you recce’ed it earlier, it’s away from busy roads – and it’s a cul de sac, for pete’s sake. All those things doesn’t stop someone within microphone range from blasting away with their weedeater. Or a truck pulling up across the road from you and unloading a mini-dozer and heap of wood. (The dialogue’s gonna be re-recorded, and the truck/dozer-driver was a sweetie and we worked around each other.)
- It’s just some people talking in a car. Did I mention that the car’s travelling at the time – like, the car is moving – it’s on the road – while the actors are delivering lines and the camera is rolling. When the budget doesn’t stretch to a low-loader (a really low trailer towed by a truck) ablaze with lights and possies for a camera and attendent crew, you make do. (And I’m really happy with what we got – no make-do‘s about it.)
I obviously like to kvetch.
In the end, in the heat of of any stressful moment, I’m always struck by two thoughts:
-
- I’m reminded of Ed Wood where Johnny Depp is on the phone following the release of his first film:
ED WOOD
(into phone)
Really? Worst film you ever saw.
Well, my next one will be better.
Hello. Hello.
- I’m reminded of Ed Wood where Johnny Depp is on the phone following the release of his first film:
- And I flash on a Sandman preview where a dreamer has nightmares about falling – analogous with the situation they’re in at the time – and learns by story’s end that:
Sometimes you wake up.
Sometimes the fall kills you.
And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.
