What If?: Directing My Own Movie

My favorite form of art is definitely film. I love the whole creative process that goes into it. Little things that people normally don't notice when watching their favorite movies are my forte, especially when it comes to camerawork, the sound mixing, and the cinematography. I make it my own personal business to dissect every film I watch and analyze the crap out of it. That's not to say that I don't simply watch movies for fun, and I definitely do, but I like to know all the nitty-gritty details.

So, during class today we watched a couple segments from "Apocalypse Now" directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Coppola is on my list of favorite directors, the top five being Stanley Kubrick, François Truffaut, Steven Spielburg, Orson Welles, and Coppola, so I was really excited about watching it. And let me tell you--Coppola never fails to disappoint. I've seen "Apocalypse Now" once before, and at that point it was 3AM and I wasn't paying attention to much. So re-watching even a couple of those scenes was great. Every camera shot that he uses is interesting; every prop he uses is made and detailed perfectly. The cinematography is gorgeous too. Examining these details, I got to thinking--what if I directed my own movie?

The first ten years of my life were spent in front of a video camera or singing on the stage. Even though in real life I hated being the center of attention, I always loved being in front of a camera or in front of people. It was only in the last five years that I became interested in the technical/backstage aspect of moviemaking and theatre, mostly because I realized that I really did not want to be in front of people anymore. For my mom's fortieth birthday, my aunt asked me to make a slide show of a bunch of pictures of my mom and her family and burn it to a disk for her. I agreed, but I had another idea in mind--I was going to film my own documentary about my mom. I cast my brother as my uncles Jim, John, and Matt and my grandpa, and I cast my two younger sisters as my four aunts and my grandma. I acted as the "strange ethereal voice in the background that gives random insight into characters 3 and 4 in scenes 1, 14, and 28". I bought a cheap $20 flip camera (it was essentially a rectangle that recorded things in 180p) that came with a crappy tripod, found an old blank DVD disc, and I got started. My early technique was very primitive--20 minute sequences with no stops, no script, no costumes, and no real plot. It was a hell of a lot of fun, but it wasn't very practical. I turned a 7-minute (edited) video in to my aunt, and she loved it. Thus, my fascination with film began.

Memories...

Last year in Academy, Sebas, Kali, Laila, and I were put on the Documentary team for our IDOT presentation. I was Team Leader, Sebas was Lead Editor, and Kali and Laila were interviewers and information gatherers. We all did a bunch of filming, both in groups and independently, and then threw what had to be six and a half hours of random footage into Sebas's computer. He definitely was our main man when it came to consolidating all that stuff into a watchable movie, but we all had a say in what went in and what we thought was important. It was during this project that I realized that I could actually film stuff for myself. I had done other stupid little video projects with my brother and sisters, most of them being parodies and little Python-esque shorts we had written in our basement. Jack was always lead man, Mid was always leading lady, and Casey was always stunt double (along with a couple stuffed animals). I was always behind the camera, and I did all of the editing. The IDOT project made me want to start writing my own plausible, well-directed and edited films and sequences.

So here I am, a Sophomore in high school with no free time, probably a life-savings of about $26, and barely any resources. How the hell would I write a film now? By film, I mean a real film--not a strange project about a German exchange student named Hans Dusseldorf who gets lost in Dominick's (That was a really early one).

"Hans Dusseldorf and the Trip to Dominick's" could have been the pinnacle of my film career.

First of all, I'd have to write a script. Writing scripts has always been a strong point in my writing skill book, so that would be no problem. Plus, my best friend is an awesome writer, so I'm sure I could get help from her and add her into my film as lead writer. What would we write about? I'm typically a comedy, drama, or action-adventure person. Romantic movies irk me unless they're full of black humor. Though if multiple people die at the end and I get to see terrible, sappy, unrealistically poetic dialogue at the end I get a kick out of it. I'd love to write a good drama. However, I know I'm not serious enough to do so, so I'd get my friend to write a hard-hitting drama about something somewhere really cool so that I could travel. Then we'd get to characters. I'm partial to character-driven plots and stories, so writing for that character would have to be spot on and the casting would have to be perfect.

I'm also incredibly lucky to have extraordinarily talented friends, so I already have a costume designer, choreographer (if needed), set designer, art designer, lighting technician, sound mixer, makeup artist, producer, and caterer (yes, caterer) in mind. I also know a large amount of gifted musicians, actors, and composers, so I'm sure that we could come up with something.

Once I had my basics, I'd probably start planning out the camera work. I won't pretend to be an expert on camera work, but I do know what works and I know what doesn't. I'd read all the books I could on film and how to frame people properly, and then I would invest in a really good camera. At the moment, I don't own any sort of good recording device, so I'd have to use my mom's little camcorder. I'd map out what I wanted certain scenes to look like, make some notes on cool things I could add in for other film geeks like me, and then try out some of those shots.

I think I could do it, honestly. If I had the time, and someone came up with a good idea and we wanted to film it, I would totally do it. It'd be a fun, awesome, creative collaboration that would be a blast to be a part of. Maybe we'll make an Academy movie one day.

Now I'm rambling, so I'm off to watch "The Graduate".

Night all.

GIFs of the day: