Do you know what my favorite part of the game is?
The opportunity to play.
-Mike Singletary
Yesterday marked the end of my self-imposed one-year sabbatical from movie-making. I made the decision when the cast and crew of The Spider Babies was wrapping up the last day of shooting. We had staged a party scene at the edge of a pond at a ranch in the middle of nowhere. Craig had taken the rest of the production design budget and driven to a fireworks stand. He spent all of it and came back with a trunk full of fireworks. Craig was on the other end of the pond staging a damn impressive fireworks show. We got the shots we needed, but there were still fireworks left. So he kept going.
I told the camera guys to go crazy and shoot whatever looked cool. I grabbed a beer, sat down in the tall grasses and watched the explosions of light bloom over the surface of the pond. It was the end of three hellish weeks of production where nothing had gone right. We were wrapping production but we had not completed the script. We were still missing a big chunk of the third act and everybody was worn out. Also, I wasn’t sure how good the stuff we had in the can actually was.
As a director, this is a complete and utter failure.
You failed at your primary task: you didn’t get the movie in the can.
So as I watched the fireworks explode, I made the decision to just STOP. Maybe forever. But definitely for a year. I had spent years trying to get movies made and so far all I had to show for it were a few short films and Sex Machine. I was tired and was wondering if it was even worth it. I was bone-tired and broken-hearted. Maybe I could just get a job and enjoy life like regular people. I decided on a one year cinema sabbatical. I would still watch movies, but I wouldn’t even allow myself to think about making another one. A weight lifted.
I’ve spent the last year rebuilding my financial situation and recovering psychologically. There have been some hits and misses, but overall it’s been a success. I also spent a lot of time just watching movies — reading books — recharging my batteries. One year later, it turns out that I love movies even more than I thought. I not only want to make more of them – I have to.
In the short time since we started The Spider Babies, the independent film landscape has completely changed – and it continues to change on a daily basis. Anyone who’s been paying attention has seen this coming for awhile now. The medium-sized movie has all but disappeared. Instead, the big movies are getting bigger and the small movies are getting smaller. The middle ground has all but disappeared. The days of making an indie film, taking it to Sundance and getting a killer distribution deal have been over for awhile now. DVD sales are plummeting. The foreign markets for cheap, schlocky movies are drying up. While the independent film world implodes, the studios are focusing on big-budget sequels, superhero movies and building new franchises. The slate of summer movies hasn’t looked this boring in a long time.
I enjoy a well-made Hollywood blockbuster as much as anybody, but I’ve always been drawn towards smaller, more personal films. My focus for the past few years has been on making progressively bigger movies – each one would have a bigger budget than the last, so that I could prove that I could turn a profit at each level. The end goal was to eventually direct some big movies. I think I got this brilliant idea from Dov S-S Simens’ 2-Day Film School™. That plan doesn’t interest me anymore.
Right now, I just want to tell good stories. These stories don’t need millions of dollars to be well-told. I don’t want to spend years planning projects only to have them fall apart. I don’t want to screw around with distributors. I don’t want to do things the way they are supposed to be done.
So, I’m going smaller.
And I think I have a pretty exciting plan.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I love a good cliffhanger! I can’t wait to hear what you are going to tell us.
Awesome. I can’t wait either.
Chris – Atta boy!!!! (P.S. Bonus points for quoting Mr. Singletary.)
You make me feel not alone. I was an actor on the NY circuit, doing extra parts and such when I was 18-21 and seeing it as a whole that I could be 41-43 and still doing the same parts, I wanted to break the mold a bit. Trying to get my first productions off the ground I hired people who use the formula you speak of and in a reality where I want to create it doesnt work. Alot of the time you end up with soul less money saturated work. Some of that does work but mostly its pulp. I think you hit the nail on the head. Good stories, going smaller is the way. What you wrote above is almost controversial to what the norm practices. Everything having to be so big. Its what makes getting into and successful in this business is like a lottery where the odds are almost unbeatable. You and Mr. Eggleston honor the idea that the small filmmaker with a crappy camera and tons of vision, ambition and a little money in his/her pocket can make something. Can express themselves. It seems that filmmakers lost that along the way. The audience became almost too important, where they should be equal.