A few months ago I found my self standing alone in the rain with a small video camera thinking about "The Five Obstructions". I was doing a 48 hour video marathon, and I felt like someone up above was pissing on my already low value production. The game went like this; Friday at noon they released the topic of the film, it was "surveillance". Then every participant or group of participants had 24 hours to shoot and 24 hours to edit a three to five minute film. Sunday at noon the film was due.
I recalled from the film "The Five Obstructions", that Lars von Trier was trying to force Jørgen Leth to make a bad film by giving him obstructions. Apparently Trier thought there was a kind of Cathartic value to producing shit. As a fan of much of Trier’s work, it was a consolation to think that my piece of shit film might in some way enrich me for future work. It least it was enough of an excuse to keep going with an acceptance of the inevitable result. I had my obstructions without needing Trier to invent new ones for me. There was the time constraint, which had not become easier when they announced the topic, which nullified most of the ideas I had hoped I would be able to use. On top of that I was alone thousands of miles from my usual production crew.
Now I am back in California working on a thirty minute plus short film, we just postponed our shooting schedule by one month to allow for more thorough script work. Though I am no longer standing alone in the rain, there are still limitations to work around. How do you make the story work when you cannot afford to block off a city block for filming, or get a helicopter for that perfect aerial panorama shot? You have to write fitting your resources, which at times strains the imagination. I am glad I am not back in the rain. It was a fun game, and I brought lessons from it, the most useful probably being identifying resources and limitations. I finished my film in the alloted time, something I know will not be the case with the next one. There are still story nuts to crack and cracks to mend. I added subtitles to the film, and you can check it out below. I would also encourage you to check out "The Five Obstructions".
This is a little game deviced over on Blog Cabins and round about The Movie Whore, I got tagged to play along. The object should be self evident.
Alien
Babette’s Feast
Chinatown
Dancer in the Dark
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Fog of War, the
Godfather, the
Hoffa
Illusionist, the
Joy luck club, the
Kiss kiss bang bang
L.A. Confidential
Matrix
Night of the Living Dead
Once Upon a Time in the West
Pi
Queen, the
Rain Man
Sword of Doom
This is Spinal Tap
Unforgiven
Vertigo
X-files, the
Yes men, the
Zentropa
That should make for a good mix.
I found this site helpful.
“Two men with a mission have traveled back to an impure time before Catharsis. The end is in sight when the love of one man endangers the fate of the world. He doubts that certainty can transcend time and overcome love, but duty to the greater good is hard to overcome, and a battle of wills erupt between the two men who were once like brothers.”
We have been working and postponed this project for a few months now. The third draft of “Catharsis” will be done on November 14th, and then enters the process of final edits. James Freeman will be directing this next Last Rockstar Productions film, which according to plan will be shot in January and February. This will be our biggest project to date with the final film ranging from 20 to 30 minutes. Most of the parts have been cast and fundraising has and location scouting has begun. We are very excited and will keep you updated with our progress as it comes along, and perhaps even ask for your assistance.
Still in the process of scripting Catharsis with its time travel theme, I thought it might be beneficial to see how others had dealt with the problems, and learn from it, so I watched Dejavu. Dejavu is in essence a movie we have all seen before, but you should be warned that this rant contains spoilers. As I re-watched this movie (forgetting that I had seen it before, but getting that sense of dejavu as it progressed), and wondered why it did not make a bigger impression on me the first or second time. It had a good cast, plot potential, and a big budget, but in the end it fell for the classic Hollywood sin of a forced happy ending.
When you open that door
Dejavu falls into the category of science fiction with its time travel plot, and it even dives into a short overview of some time travel theories. This creates the assumption of scientific validity in the audience’s mind, and the anticipation that the movie will show which theory is correct. When you open that door you have to follow through, but Dejavu fails by breaking the rules of all the theories and therefore not answering the question either. So the audience is left with the sad feeling of unrealized anticipation, and in its place is served a happy ending.
The Happy Ending
Happy endings do better at the box office. It is a sad fact. So I blame greed, when a movie, that had aligned it self with the deterministic view of time travel up until the last 15 minutes, suddenly changes course and steers straight towards the happy ending. This movie could have been a shocking tragedy with an unsuspected breach of Hollywood formula. It could have followed its own rules, followed through on its setup, and given its audience closure, but in stead they went straight for your dollars. I feel confident that Catharsis will not suffer from these mistakes.
What started as an innocuous night unraveled into a thing of bleeding ear drums and disappointed hookers. Thursday night I get a call from a fellow classmate, she invited me to a short film viewing at a local bar. why not I think, I’ll call the LRP crew up and we’ll head out and check out the competition.
The place was the ‘Toad in the Hole’ and I got kicked out. We show up, say hi to the hostess and order a round of drinks; there was no hard liquor, only beer and wine. Thirty minutes later our last member appears after taking an $80 cab ride from the next town over. I see a cute girl chatting it up with my crew, I buy her a drink and next thing I know, she’s 18, her boyfriend is the bartender and I’m out the door.
I thought she was young, but god damn, I must be getting old. after about 20 minutes of calming the boys down from torching the place I found the manager and talked my way back in, bought a beer and continued to enjoy the evening.
Things got worse. The evening began with musical acts that were reminiscent of chainsaws splitting your head in half and of hysterical cries of a madman eating his testicles.
The first film came on, it was a cute expose of a mother and daughter battling over which dress to wear to grandma’s.
the second was some experimental piece of crap that made me long for napalm and cyanide.
As for the third we saved the show, with our film,’keeping it cool’. The crowd laughed and we went home, not before I made the suggestion that hookers and blow would be a good idea, my boy went on craigslist.com and found what we were looking for.
In that moment I felt dirty and cheap, like the perfume samples from people magazine.
The pimp wouldn’t let her go alone and I didn’t want a pimp in my house. needless to say, everyone went home and I jerked off and went to bed.
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Nov 30 2008