Roughed Up

The rough cut is...cut.

I'm exporting the files for Ben and Hunter right now, which by the way feels really official because I'm uploading them to the server at Aspect Ratio (the pro trailer house that Hunter works at) with a client login and everything.

So I'm really excited to see a new trailer from Hunter and to start hearing some awesome Ben-music. It's already pretty good without music, so I really can't wait to see it (hear it) with it.

But yeah, the rough cut is good. I watched it with Cyndil last night and we both liked it...and while biased, we're both pretty critical people too so I think that speaks well for it. I never really know though. I'm always pretty skeptical, and try and be realistic with my expectations (sometimes brutally so), which I think keeps me going and never settling for something less. I mean I can very confidently say we did the best with what we had. It feels like a real movie. It's certainly not a secret that it's a low budget movie, but I think it definitely shows we maximized our potential and that if quality scales with money then by any professional standards, as a group I think moviesauce looks like it has enormous potential.

...which is really what I was out to prove with this project. None of us had ever tried a feature, even though it's kind of what we're all after. In a way it's almost been sort of an elephant in the room. We all think we can make features and want to make features, but this is the first time we've really tried it, and maybe naively so, but I feel like it was a really important step to take. Now we know. We know we can do it. It wasn't some huge disaster that doesn't approach anything like feature filmmaking. It's actually an impressive, creative, and ambitious project that among those things is also a very watchable film. I really feel like I made a movie that I would want to see. It's really hard to detach yourself from something you put so much work into, but I really feel like if I saw a trailer for this I would really want to see it and if I saw it I would like.

Like if we got it as a submission to the Moviesauce Film Festival, this would be my top pick. I know it seems sort of pointless for me to talk about why I like my own movie. I mean I'm supposed to. It should be obvious. But there's something different about this one. I don't feel like I like it just because I made. I feel like I really actually like it and that other people will too. Most of our other projects, while interesting, I think lean towards being inside jokes. They may show creative potential, but they lack that certain something in the execution that actually makes it a movie in the sense that most people know movies...and maybe it is just because it's normal length...in contrast I feel the majority of other aspiring filmmakers make films that are just too normal...just trying really hard to look like a movie, to show they can do what everyone else does, which is an accomplisment to a certain degree, but then it's also like, "well, what does that really prove outside of impressing your friends/family."

I guess I just wasn't prepared for a feature film to be such a different animal than a short. It really is more than just a scaled short film...and I'm glad I know that now. I feel like shorts and features are almost different mediums now. Shorts are more about displaying a concept, and displaying a skill set...they rarely actually exist on their own...and that's probably mainly because of their context and history of being "practice" and school projects. And I guess I never realized it, but shorts really are restricting. You can't tell very much story in them, and that can be a relief to some, but I realized it's been sort of a burden for me because I've wanted to achieve the effect of a feature with a short....whether that's through mimicking styles or certain types of scenes from certain films or whatever....but something that's a lot more clear to me now is that shorts are only ever really aspiring to be films. Even good shorts. They're just something entertaining and promising, but not fulfilling in the same way a full film is. A good example would be Pixar shorts. They're often really really good...but Pixar movies are better...and what you remember.

And so now that I've made a full length film I feel like I've opened up the door to something that I always felt I was trying to do, but was unable or maybe even scared to try. But I really do feel like I've succeeded too. Most projects I do are learning experiences, but probably none of them have felt as complete as this one does. The GOS short was probably the most movie-like thing I had done before this, but I obviously felt like it needed more afterwards.

So I guess I'm saying I like being a feature filmmaker. I'm not really interested in making shorts anymore (unless just for an exercise as that's all I feel they amount to now). And since I don't feel like feature films are unattainable, I'm really excited about making more. It feels right.

And that's something I really had to prove to myself with this movie too. I've always said I wanted to be a filmmaker, but it's a hard claim to make if you haven't made a film. Part of me was worried that I'd fail or end up too overwhelmed and somehow uninterested in fighting to make this into a career. That'd I'd realize the reality of filmmaking might not be worth it...but I ended up proving it's exactly what I want to do and I'm confident in moving forward and I guess confident that I have a place in making films too...I feel like a lot of people aspire to be filmmakers, but don't really justify the effort and resources to make their films...people that just want to be filmmakers, not really make films that contribute to the medium. Part of me was afraid that maybe that was me...maybe I didn't really have anything to offer the world. Maybe it would turn out that I'm just knocking off Wes Anderson because I really like his movies. But I'm confident now that I have something unique to offer, and that film is a worthy pursuit.

I feel like I have the means to pursue it too. Because on top of all of that, I've made a hell of a cheap film...and half of my budget was spent on equipment. So in theory I could make the same movie again for half the cost. But I could even very reasonably quadruple my budget and be at relative low risk in terms of the rest of the industry. When I imagine quadrupling my resources, I get really excited about the quality of films I could put out. And I think all in all that makes for some good investment potential.



But yeah....I'm really proud to consider "Getting Outer Space" my first film...and hopefully it'll be something I can look back on as the start to a film career.


Now let's fast forward a few months and see how much everybody hates it...