Failure to Launch

[Bar Louis in the Hotel Fauchere in Milford, PA. Sushi pizza here is the ultimate comfort food for me, and it is a good thing. See below.]

I can't even tell you how upset I am. Or rather, was. At least I can see straight now. Couldn't do that for almost three days. Ahhh, so many lessons learned this week. And absolutely nothing else accomplished.

I am still in the Poconos, staring at a sinkful of dishes and a mountain of food, much of it that will go bad if I don't give it away. Less than a week ago I was so far ahead of the game! This was going to be the smoothest shoot ever! Only two actors, instead of my usual cast of thousands, only 10 pages, only three locations, but the majority of it taking place in one house. I had had two great rehearsals with the actors, including blocking, and they had it down pat. I had gone to Sam's Club and put $350 worth of groceries on my card, the only one that isn't maxed out. 3 of the 6 people that were going to be on the shoot are vegetarians, but two eat fish, so what I saved not buying meat I spent on crab cakes and shrimp scampi. Had my car packed to the roof with all of this food, plus props, computer, dogs, suitcase, me... Got up here Saturday night, unpacked all of it by myself, took me about an hour and a half. Eric arrived a couple hours after I did, he needed to shoot some B-roll of a little town up here for his movie. We did that on Sunday, I talked to the grip, Kit, while she was on her way up, and when she was only a few miles away, I got a call from Michelle's girlfriend that she was sick and was not coming up.

No DP.
No gear.
No movie.

No kidding.

I don't really even want to talk about it, but this blog is for you, to show you the downs with the ups. I'm not going to go into detail about how I feel about the whole thing because I haven't really sorted it all out in my head myself yet. People get sick, can't do much about that. Kit was a good sport and I took her sightseeing the next day before she headed home. I was able to reach the actors before they got on the road. They were disappointed, of course. Disappointed doesn't begin to describe how I felt.

Eric had his camera with him but no mic or lights. He would have made the 7-hour+ roundtrip home and back if I had asked him to, he's a good friend like that, to get the gear, but it really didn't matter without a DP, and he couldn't take the next 2 days off work.

After Kit left on Monday, I felt like I needed to stay up here another day just to calm down, regroup, maybe come up with an alternate plan. But after thinking about it, I really have no time to do this all over again before the "Smalltimore" screening on December 9th. It is just too much. The DVD release is the priority now and I can't take my eye off that ball.

I got some emails taken care of and some other stuff related to the screening done, including final confirmations of the musical line-up at the post-party. Details coming soon, I'll save that for when I am in a better mood and can give you the news with the excitement it deserves. I'm calm now but quite depressed about the whole thing, and at the prospect of reloading the car with all this food. Giant pain in my ass. And nothing to show for it. Absolutely nothing.

I haven't felt this terrible since I was in the early stages of pre-production for "Smalltimore". I had been talking to someone about producing the movie for a couple months, I thought we were on the same page, and then he asked for money - money that I didn't have, and even if I did, couldn't see paying for production work. Production is hard work, it is a pain, and takes organization, connections, and patience, but it is not brain surgery. I'm not saying that producers aren't worth paying, I am just saying that I am capable of doing it myself. I wasn't sure of that back then, though, and I was terribly depressed because I felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me. I thought this person wanted to be a partner because he believed in what I was doing, but it was just a job to him. I had gotten myself into the mindset that I needed him to get this done, and some of that was because he made me feel that way, that I didn't know what I was doing.

But after I got over being depressed about the situation, I got pissed off about the situation, and I was determined to get it done and get it done well, so I would never have to be dependent on someone like that, and so no one would be able to tell me that something takes longer to do or costs more than it does because if I did it myself I would know. And now, I do, and other people are asking me to produce for them. I never wanted to produce, I wasn't really interested in that end of it. But here I am.

And where here is, is that I am still dependent, too dependent, on people who know how to operate a camera. That has to change. And it will.

Re-Gifting

Happy Birthday to me! It is midnight, the clock just turned to May 31st, and I am mumblemumble years old! I just got home a few minutes ago from hanging out with Eric in his neck of the woods, for what could be called a mutual birthday dinner, as he is a fellow Gemini, but what was basically just hanging out because we hadn't seen each other in awhile. I have done a complete turnaround from last night's rotten mood, which you don't know about because I was in too rotten of a mood to write, but trust me. Before I went to bed last night, I happened to check my horoscope online (Susan Miller is the best), and it said that come morning, Mercury would go direct (no longer be in retrograde). Now, I don't know exactly what "retrograde" means, as far as the physical sense of what happens to my ruling planet of Mercury, and just maybe after I finish writing this post I will Google it and tell you later (though of course if you are reading this, you either do know what it means or are probably Googling it yourself right now, so I may not bother). But what I DO know is that when Mercury is in retrograde, it not only screws things up for those signs like Gemini who are ruled by that planet, but for EVERYONE.

And Mercury has been in retrograde all month! So, if you have been in a bad mood, gained weight, lost a job, missed your flight, had a fight with your partner, kicked your cat, or gotten a speeding ticket - not your fault! Mercury was in retrograde!

But, finally, no mas! I'm in a good mood, all is right with the world, everything is coming up roses, and I can prove it! I had a VERY nice gift in my inbox when I got home (and NO, that is not a euphemism! Minds out of the gutter, please), and I am about to share it with you, and as you are such faithful readers, I am telling you FIRST. I am not calling Eric or Michelle or emailing all my actors, I am putting it out to you, right here, right now, right after I received this gift myself, I give it to you (and if those people love me anyway, they should have this blog wired somehow that a deafening alarm goes off on their cell phone every time I post something here):

"Smalltimore," has been accepted to the Philadelphia Independent Film Festival!

I can't tell you how excited I am about this! Best birthday weekend, and it has barely begun! Today I received a gorgeous floral arrangement from dear Mikey B., a box with gifts from my Mom, all from her recent trip to Russia, which included a fridge magnet, a bar of dark Russian chocolate, a silver ring, and best of all, a jar of real Russian caviar, of which I just indulged a celebrational spoonful! Plus got to hang out with Eric all evening, and tomorrow I am going to Charles Town Race Track with half a dozen friends for the Third Annual Duchess Stakes, a.k.a. Jeanie's (a.k.a. the Duchess of Mount Vernon) birthday, and have been promised several compilation CDs (my favorite birthday gift from my friends)!

AND my movie has been accepted at its second film festival!

Seriously, I need a moment (fans face with hands). And maybe another spoonful of caviar.

What is super-great about this, I hope, is that Philly is close enough that some of my cast, crew, friends, family, and fans can come to Philly and see "Smalltimore" in a festival atmosphere. I am leaving on Saturday for England, to go to our first fest, The Heart of England Festival, but unfortunately no one from the production could join me due to schedule and/or the expense. My friends Matthew and Jim are coming to Tamworth from London to see it with me, though, and I am looking forward to that.

But now I also get to look forward to seeing the film and having other people from the production (fingers crossed, I hope many of you will attend!) at a fun event that makes them feel like their efforts are appreciated by people other than me and our hometown fans.

There is something very special about having strangers approve of your creative work. Certain things in life you can only know if you experience them. There are some incredible, wonderful, exhilarating experiences that I will likely never have, and I know that no matter how much someone describes them to me, I won't get it - the birth a child, jumping out of an airplane, driving a race car 200+ miles an hour, winning the lottery... I can try to imagine it, but you just have to experience it. That doesn't make me jealous, I don't feel like I am missing out on anything, because those are things that, well, if you haven't done them then you don't know what you're missing so in effect you're not really missing out, in my opinion.

But, as an artist, I can tell you, if you are not an artist you will never know the joy of having a stranger "get it". It is wonderful to have your friends and family, all the people who love you, support you and tell you that you are wonderful and talented, and of course that counts for a whole lot. However, even if they are right, they are biased. They just are. But to have someone that you don't know from Adam tell you that whatever you created made them laugh, cry, or it somehow move them... feel it once, and you will live for those moments.

When I had my first B&W photography exhibit, my Dad wanted to be able to boast that he bought my first piece ever. He lived in Florida so he couldn't come to the show, so he had me pick out something that I thought would suit him. I chose an image of a stray black dog standing alone on a cobbled street in Pompeii, looking back at me over his shoulder. Something about his sad eyes, close to me in proximity but isolated, on some plane a world away, reminded me of my Father. It meant a lot to me that Daddy bought that picture. Over the phone I told him what the show price was and then told him the "family discount". He mailed me a check for the entire listed amount.

That was a special moment in my life, just like when my Mother more recently mailed me an unsolicited check to contribute towards the making of "Smalltimore". Those are things you never forget. But also are the moments you are totally unprepared for, like the first time a stranger bought a photograph of mine. Or the time that an artist, a good artist but someone I had never met before, bought a painting of mine, told me he loved it, had to have it. Within that exhibit I thought it was the worst of the bunch and was afraid it would out me as an imposter. Honestly, I don't even consider myself a painter. I couldn't believe it. I felt guilty taking his money, like I almost wanted to say, when you get home and realize it is a piece of crap, you can bring it to me for your money back. But I didn't say that, and I never saw the guy again.

I think most artists feel that way at first, and most artists have their first "stranger" sales burned into their brains. It makes you feel legit. At the "Smalltimore" premiere on May 3, in addition to all the love and energy that was created in that room by the people who know me and know how much I have put in and continue to put in to this production, I also got a charge and very much fed off of the good vibes I received from all the unfamiliar faces, many of whom approached me after the screening with warm, genuine smiles and handshakes.

So now I sally forth to Jolly Old England, not sure of what awaits me there. Will they get it? Will the American humor translate? I am excited, but also nervous. My game plan is that I arrive in Tamworth on Sunday, June 7th. This gives me three full days and nights to drink with as many locals as possible and bribe them to come to the screening. Marketing is a dirty job, but someone's got to do it. And since I will be the only Smalltimore rep there, I am the only one to do it!

I am so glad that the first (of many, knock on wood) domestic festival that "Smalltimore" will be screening in is in Philadelphia. I haven't spent a lot of time in Philly, but when I have been there, it seems to me to be a mash-up of both the best and worst parts of Pittsburgh and Baltimore. An observation, not a judgement. I like Philly, what I have seen of it. I am comfortable there and have always wanted to spend more time there, and now I have a chance to. That being said is simply a lengthy way of saying that, in addition to its geographical proximity to Baltimore, I think the mindset of people there is also similar, and I think (hope, pray) that a Philadelphia audience will "get it".

But I am fully prepared to get there early and drink with the locals in order to hedge my bets.


The Philadelphia Independent Film Festival is the weekend of June 25-28. Mark your calendars!

The Importance of Focusing

(I took this photo in Koblenz, Germany, in 2002. This and other photos of mine can be seen in "Smalltimore". You can see more of my photos at http://www.geocities.com/moxiegallery/home.html. I thought this site had been deleted a few years ago, but it is still up!)

Ugh, my eyes are crossing. Today I dug deeper into the glorious Without A Box website, looking into the details of about 150 festivals to see if "Smalltimore" would be suited to them. That may sound like a lot, and I have been working on it for about 4 hours now, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. I have thousands to go, literally.

I did find quite a few possibilities along with some tempting long shots. I am looking through them in the order that deadlines are coming up fastest. I think when I get through the first 300, then I'll stop and sort through the ones I have picked out as "maybes" and decide if I want to submit to them or not. The average submission fee is about $35 for earlybird, $50 or more for last minute, so it adds up fast. I've already submitted to 18 festivals to the tune of about $1000, so I am about tapped out and need to start becoming very selective.

I received a congratulatory email (about the Heart of England Film Festival) from my friend John Wood who lives in Germany. He used to live in Baltimore and was one of my closest friends here. He reminded me of one of our favorite moments together, in the context of, "who woulda thought it?", me becoming a filmmaker.

I think it was in the autumn of 1999 that I for some reason became very interested in photography. I had always taken lots of photos, but never with a manually operated camera. I wanted to learn how to do that, and how to develop and print my own photos, so I signed up for a weekend class at MICA. John loaned me his trusty old Minolta, and after receiving my first homework assignment, he spent an afternoon with me down at the harbor taking photos that played around with the depth of field. I had only ever operated a point-and-shoot camera before, with automatic focus.

We were on Light Street at Baltimore, and John stopped at the McDonald's to grab a burger. A block south of there, he unwrapped the burger and used a City Paper box as his table while I took a picture of him. I quickly pointed John's own camera at him and clicked the button, snap went the shutter. John asked, "Did you focus?" I replied, "I need to focus?"

I love that story.

Once he showed me how to focus, I actually took a very cool pic of him eating that burger. My instructor liked it a lot. I spent the next few years taking thousands of snaps, setting up my own darkroom in my kitchen, organizing solo exhibits and later group exhibits with some artist friends, and have sold many of the photos I took during that time, including the one above. It is one of my favorites, and John was also with me when I took this. It is titled, "The Wheels of Fortune." I was visiting John and his wife Anja while they lived in Trier, Germany, and we took a day trip to Koblenz. We saw these three little girls whose mother let them run around naked in a fountain on this hot summer day. They were so cute, and I loved the juxtaposition of this tiny, carefree girl and her tricycle with the wrinkled, scowling old man in his wheelchair.

Last year I sold all of my darkroom equipment in order to put that money towards the movie. I had lost my passion for developing photos (it is expensive and time-consuming) awhile before that, though I still love photography itself. So now I have a much more expensive and much more time-consuming passion! But at least with filmmaking, it is not me working alone in the dark. I enjoyed the solitude of that, but I am now enjoying the camaraderie and collaboration that is filmmaking.

One of the other big differences between photography and filmmaking is that photography is much more of an instant gratification; filmmaking is somewhat the exact opposite. I have always thought of myself as an instant-gratification kind of person. But here I am. I wrote the first draft of the script more than four years ago. I took a long break inbetween, but I have been working hard and continuously now for almost two years. And still have work to do.

The point is, you never know what you are capable of, but if you truly have a passion for it, as well as patience and perseverance, you will likely succeed. Filmmaking, like photography, is not brain surgery. It is something to be learned, and something with which you have to be using several different parts of your brain at the same time. And it is definitely something that if you don't love it, you're not going to do it well. It's just too much work to plow through if you are on the fence about it.