I Am Out With Lanterns Looking For Myself
The Birth of a New Project
I recently leapt into a project that has since taken on a life of its own. A long gestating piece I’ve flirted with for years that until now never quite lined up, I somehow managed to wear several different hats and collaborate with a small but wonderful team of talented people to bring it to life. At least for this first phase of the journey.
As with all grand adventures, it’s managed to grow and morph into something much larger than I’d first imagined, with lots more yet to do before it’s released into the world. Right now I’m deep in prep to shoot more material for it late next month.
As with all things, “be careful what you wish for.”
For this first component — a test film if you will — we shot for a single day on a small blackout stage and saw a parade of actors come by one by one to have their time in front of the lens, before I feverishly spent the next few days wrangling post production tech to cut and tweak what we’d shot. At the same time I was liaising with the composer to land on the perfect track. Is it a film? Is it an art piece? I have the sneaking feeling that somehow it’s neither and both at the same time. I’ve always loved work that stops you in your tracks and makes you wonder what exactly is you’re witnessing. As much of an experience as a story.
The biggest challenge after I landed upon the structure and technical approach of how to shoot to tell the story I wanted, was casting. I posted a public call on an LA casting site then waded through three hundred wonderful submissions, happily landing on twelve amazing final subjects. After a bit of back and forth, juggling availability and schedules, locking in insurance and more gear, extra hard drives, some more gear, compiling the call sheet, insurance, food, parking, and triple checking everyone’s paperwork, we had our shooting day locked.
If I’m being evasive about the exact subject matter of the project, it’s because I’ve grown more superstitious about talking about work before it’s done and out in the world than I’ve ever been. That being said, alongside pieces of other wonders that shake me awake, I plan to chart as best I can the course of bringing this piece to life via this newsletter.
And there’s much more to be done. More days to shoot, more casting to be compiled, more hard drives and paperwork to be filled, stages to be scouted, cameras to be tested, crew to be recruited. With this new project, I have sense of how I think it should come together in full, mostly because anyone I mention it to thinks it’s such a strange idea — “you can’t do that in a film, can you?” Perverse, but in my experience, the thing that people repeatedly tell you to change usually becomes the defining signature of the work.
Again, be careful what you wish for.
The biggest reminder that diving into this project has given me, is that it feels like there’s a light in the creative world again. The unmistakable flash of remembering that every time we do this, it’s ourselves that we set ablaze.
Or as Edith Wharton said:
"There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it."
May we light our own way.
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Beautifully put.