Saying No To Yourself
“I want it all and I want it now.”
Freddy Mercury first sang the iconic line in 1989 and to this day when I hear it I feel inspired to pursue all my goals. All at once.
The greatest hindrance to this is we all have a finite amount of time and most people cannot work on their creative dreams all the time. You have rent or a mortgage to pay. You have to put food on the table. You have to save because who wants to live cheque to cheque. Maybe you even have children or a family to support.
So you work a day job. It eats up your peak creative hours when your brain is the most proactive (and for most people that is mornings according to studies) so you are already drained when it is time to work on your own stuff. Or you run a production company, you serve clients, you work in the field you enjoy, but adjacent to what you really want to be doing – creating your own work instead of videos for others. You freelance, you write, you edit, you shoot, you crew on productions. The work is inconsistent, you hassle, you network, and then it all gets shut down anyway because 2020. What a year.
But even in better years there have always been those jobs you know in your heart you shouldn’t take but your mind says I need the money or it may lead to future work. The time wasters. The lowballers. The clients who demand strawberry sundaes but don’t have any strawberries for the recipe.
The Value of Micro-Shorts
“If you want to be a filmmaker, grab a camera and go out and shoot something, anything.”
This is advice I've heard multiple times during my decade plus long involvement within the indie film scene. This very same advice I have given, and still do give to new filmmakers, however the camera element can now be a phone and the filmmaker part can also be broadened to include 'content creator' and such. How times, technology, and thinking have changed.
Luckily, what has also changed and evolved over the years is my mentality towards the value of short films, as myself and most others once shared the idea that you made shorts early on in your career, then you graduated to features. Now you are a 'real director' – whatever that means. But this kind of thinking is limited.
How We Shot a Feature Film in One Night, Without a Script
Not only did we shoot a feature in a single night. And not only was it entirely improvised (without a script, without a shot list, without regrets), but we decided to do it on the craziest and most chaotic night of the year... New Year’s Eve.
The film is called Friends, Foes & Fireworks and it explores relationships, love, friendship, and the truths we try but fail to keep to ourselves.
We have been asked one question numerous times: “How did you actually manage to shoot this in a single night without a script?”
The second question, often unspoken, but lingering on lips nonetheless is “…and have a story and structure that actually makes sense without a script?”