Musings of an Idiot

Movies and Restlessness

The thing which is most frustrating for me is when I am waiting for things to happen or for anything to happen. I think by nature I am really restless when nothing is happening and I am feeling so today. As a film maker - one of the most painful period is when you are waiting in between projects - thats when you think about everything under the sun and also question your own existence and place under it.

I picked up the copy of 'Kumara Swami' from Tessa, for which I did voice over work, today morning. It was her idea of making a puppet out of Kumara{sweet potato} and use it to make one of her assignments interesting. I don't think I can post the video because it has copyrighted music in the background but I must say the concept is really funny. I will try and post a really small clipping from it once I am able to rip a portion of it off.

It has been a lazy sunday - watched 'SAW' and it was a good watch. Some bits and pieces were over-acted {by the two main characters chained up in the room - especially by Leigh Whannell, who also wrote the film} but on the whole it definitely keeps you on the edge. It was made for US$ 1.2 million and shot over a 18 day schedule and it went on to earn about US$ 102 million worldwide. Maybe thats the reason they hastily put together a sequel 'SAW II' which will be releasing soon - hope that it is half as good as the original {even though it has 4 times the budget of the original}. The reason I am discussing the figures is because of an interesting discussion I had with one of the people who saw 'Memories' and was comparing it to 'Saw' - arguing how you can make fantastic story without a budget and how 'Memories' would have benefited from a better script and better acting {which I thought was a ridiculous comment}...I had to point out that our budget was NZ$ 15,000 , which happened to be about NZ$ 1,65o,000 less than the budget of 'Saw'. The thing is that NZ audiences tend to be really critical and probably not accepting of independent movies because they compare them with hollywood blockbusters. So it is hard to try and make an independent film aiming for a commercial market, without getting panned left and right {those have been quite a few of those from industry people, though never from critics - some of the NZ critics/reviewers chose to ignore the movie completely because it was from an unknown person and wasn't an art house offering and/or wasn't government funded}.

I think people here expect independent digital films to play more to the art house or that they look like an independent digital film {badly lit, bad/average audio}. I think 'Memories' did suffer quite a bit because of daring to cross that line of not looking like an independent digital feature. It has been a double edged sword - people really like the cinematography and what we achieved technically but then they forget that we did this without any budget and start comparing it to budgeted movies. A good thing in a way as it is a compliment to our technical efforts and I do want to make our movies look good - you don't expect to pay 14 bucks odd to see a crap looking film {exceptions like 'Blair Witch Project' are far and few inbetween} but a bad thing for the overall prospects of the film. It then shapes up to be a marketing and publicity game, which then either needs money or connections. I think I will definitely try and get a publicist from next movie on. I definitely need to save time in that department, something which took a good part of my time and energies with 'Memories' and also causing heart ache and pain when the rejections or refusals by lots of portions of press to give us any publicity came in.

Film making is definitely an interesting challenge and I love it - the craft, the people, the medium. I have just started off on this pathway and have heaps to learn, experiement and prove. If there are any people reading this who intend to go down this path - all I can say is that it is creatively satisfying and gives a feeling of being complete but it is not without heart aches and disappointments.

Speaking of film making, I came across a really interesting and extensive interview with Joss Whedon, the writer/director of 'Serenity'. You can read it HERE - an engrossing read and must say you could get tired reading the whole thing in one go.

I am going to bed for now.
Amit

posted by Amit @ 10:45 PM