kjglkjasdhjkbaeg Film is frustrating me.

RAMBLE ALERT:

It's such a weird art form. What other art requires such a group effort to make a final product? Painters, sculpters, poets... They can all go into a locked room, totally alone, and come out with a final product. But for film to work? You need a crew.

Minimum: somebody behind the camera and somebody in front of it.

Ideally: Somebody behind the camera.
Multiple people in front of it.
Somebody making the people look good.
Somebody making the props look good.
Somebody lighting it.
Somebody making the music for it.

Which OHMYGOD is such a pain to find and organize and especially do on a whim. Especially if everybody you're hiring really just wants to direct themselves, which is pretty much the definition of too many cooks in the kitchen.

So I've been experimenting with other, singular outlets. I've started a novel, based (loosely) on a short story I wrote and loved back in college. I'm debating making a stop-motion short (based on my favorite comic... and in an ideal world it would go viral and everybody would fucking love it and Warner Brothers would call me in and say HEY ANDREW THAT WAS BRILLIANT I KNOW WE'RE ALREADY TURNING 'BONE' INTO A MOVIE BUT WOULD YOU WRITE THE SEQUEL PLEAZ).


....I don't know.


I'm also trying to figure out if 2011 was a lame year for film, or if we need to rethink how we're making films. I'm so sick of traditional structure... Of one main plot coming to light about 15 minutes in and carrying the character through some redemptive arc that all culminates in an action-packed and maybe boring climax. My favorite films this year were (somewhat atypical for a guy who swears by horror comedies and the long-lasting appeal of the Die Hard series) were Submarine and Tree of Life.

Submarine pinballs from plot-point to plot-point like it's nothing, and gets by mostly on how interest its main character's...

kjglkjasdhjkbaeg Film is frustrating me.

RAMBLE ALERT:

It's such a weird art form. What other art requires such a group effort to make a final product? Painters, sculpters, poets... They can all go into a locked room, totally alone, and come out with a final product. But for film to work? You need a crew.

Minimum: somebody behind the camera and somebody in front of it.

Ideally: Somebody behind the camera.
Multiple people in front of it.
Somebody making the people look good.
Somebody making the props look good.
Somebody lighting it.
Somebody making the music for it.

Which OHMYGOD is such a pain to find and organize and especially do on a whim. Especially if everybody you're hiring really just wants to direct themselves, which is pretty much the definition of too many cooks in the kitchen.

So I've been experimenting with other, singular outlets. I've started a novel, based (loosely) on a short story I wrote and loved back in college. I'm debating making a stop-motion short (based on my favorite comic... and in an ideal world it would go viral and everybody would fucking love it and Warner Brothers would call me in and say HEY ANDREW THAT WAS BRILLIANT I KNOW WE'RE ALREADY TURNING 'BONE' INTO A MOVIE BUT WOULD YOU WRITE THE SEQUEL PLEAZ).


....I don't know.


I'm also trying to figure out if 2011 was a lame year for film, or if we need to rethink how we're making films. I'm so sick of traditional structure... Of one main plot coming to light about 15 minutes in and carrying the character through some redemptive arc that all culminates in an action-packed and maybe boring climax. My favorite films this year were (somewhat atypical for a guy who swears by horror comedies and the long-lasting appeal of the Die Hard series) were Submarine and Tree of Life.

Submarine pinballs from plot-point to plot-point like it's nothing, and gets by mostly on how interest its main character's thought process is (and how fucking beautiful every moment of the movie seems to be). While Tree of Life follows absolutely no traditional storyline whatsoever, features a twenty-minute silent interlude about the beginning of time, and is totally content to just let the viewer witness two hours of beauty and peace.

Part of me wants to just raise a few thousand dollars through Kickstarter, take some friends to India or Thailand or some place amazing, and improvise our way through a movie for twelve months. And then cobble it together in editing afterwards, and see what happens. I have next to no solid ideas for a film like that, but I think that loose and improvisatory nature would keep it fresh and alive and it would at least be something new and if some sort of story happens then great but if not then I'm sure one year abroad would make two interesting hours somehow. (How's THAT for the worst pitch on the planet?)

I don't know. There's all these rigid forms and expectations in film that are just built in after a century of making movies off of the same basic template, and I feel like there has to be something new that can push the art form into the next century, and I'd really like to find it.

That said, I'd also like to make horror movies where girls in jean cut-offs and tanktops kill swamp monsters. But, you know. Maybe I can push that into the next century, too.