Thursday 29 September 2011

The Early, Funny Ones: Your First Experiences Making Films Are By Far The Best

You'll never have as much fun as those first films. Everyone comes together and feels the possibilities. You shoot at 6am all the way through till 4am and no-one cares because you're in it together, doing something, and everyone had forgotten what it was to do something.

And you scoff down a bar of chocolate at 2am and a cake at 2.04am and get talking to some bearded helper about your cinematic influences and you chat to the pretty girl who's helping out just because it gives her something to do and she tells you how she secretly wants to write scripts.

You laugh like crazy because the acting is so bad and no-one knows what they're doing. But everything is so important, it's like bomb disposal. You must must must make this movie because life depends on it. You run down the steps holding some cable and feel all buzzed up on life.

You take a break between scenes in some freezing cold field and everyone is eating bananas cos' you asked people to bring food and Michael brought fifty bananas because he's crazy.

Everyone is crazy, jumping off houses with cameras and climbing onto houses that belong to strangers; all because the shot is needed. The film is everything. We were sleepwalking through life and now we're movie makers, and this could be a masterpiece.

It's the last night of filming and we've snuck into some farmer's barn and everyone is in love with everyone and Paul has a crazy idea to film it upside down from the hole in the roof. I want to impress the girl, the girl wants to impress the bearded guy, and the bearded guy wants to impress upon us his greatness. So we all dive in and climb our way up to the roof and balance the camera using sticks and bananas and hope.
Filming ends and no-one wants to go home, because we all have work or school or unemployment in the morning. It's back to something and it isn't the movies.

You never get this back. The pure joy, the wonder, the naivety. It's everything.

Care to share?

2 comments:

  1. The same sentiment could apply to many other fields. For example, I go to work, and during breaks and lunch and late at night after kids are in bed for the duration, I write the words. A few today, longer tomorrow, character write-up, outline notes, searching for inspiration. You live for those moments, knowing that you'll return to the job, the paycheck, and watch the clock until the next time to grab the pen.

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  2. Word..... It's the journey...not just the destination.

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