I have a feeling most of my posts are going to start with a note to the effect that “it’s been a while since I made my last post”. My new years resolution was to update all the blogs … it’s now the 10th and I’m starting the first. Still, like my lovelife, I’d rather be sporadic in publishing than poor in quality. Although I may end up being both.
And I have something good to share for this one. A lesson learned without bitter tears which was nice for a change. Actually my tears are more salty and the last time I remember crying was when we lost the world cup rugby to the “mother country” because they had some Heath Ledger look alike with the midas boot.
The point is, if you were to publish just about everything Ari Gold says and cut out everything about anal or deviant sex you would be left with perhaps the quintissential “Art of War” as it relates to the business of making moofies. In Entourage Season 3, Episode 2, One Day in the Valley we get one of the best. Ari tells E (as he usually is when he is delivering gold – pardon the pun) “Expecations, you beat em by a dollar life is great, under by a dollar put a gun in your mouth and make sure I’m standing behind you”.
Now, don’t shoot yourself if you don’t make your box office projections but the rest of it is something I’ve been repeating like a mantra over the last six months as I was finishing the edit of a crazy stupid little low budget zombie flick. I’d made the move of booking the cinema once I was confident I had all the scenes fully covered and using the deadline as a way of making absolutely sure I completed post on time. By the way that’s not a move I would recommend – it worked for me but talk about a stressburger.
When not just one but two childhood sweethearts (and still total hotties – thank you facebook for putting CIA style background checks within the reach of the common man) found out about it (we had good viral marketing) and bought tickets online I realised that if this film sucked I would have made a dick of myself in front of not only everyone who is important to me but everyone who ever was.
I only had ten grand, an ageing Powermac G5 and, it has to be said, the best female lead a first time director could dream of, a brilliant co-director who just happened to be a stellar DOP who could get the absolute most out of an HDV rig and three hundred of the best extras that have ever been in any movie. But even with the wealth of human resources I was still well aware of the statistics regarding feature films made for no money and how many of them end up being … how do I put this delicately … shit.
The way I kept myself sane was by setting myself the achievable goal of having the film be “better than expected”. And when you are up front about the fact that you’ve made the film for nothing, it’s fair to say expectations are not high. So even if I didn’t end up pulling off one of those indies that stand up as a film and warrant a place on the racks at a DVD store (even if it’s one facing squeezed in between Street Kings and Columbus Day) people could still say “it was better than I expected”. And look whether that be someone’s assessment of my work as a director, producer, chippie or lover I’m happy with that.
It was also the perfect place to work from. In the initial weeks of post I was occasionally paralysed with Hunter S Thompsonesque “fear” at what I had put myself in for but once I had a goal that I knew I could achieve I was able to do the most that I could with each day towards that goal.
The end result was a film that not only beat expectations by a dollar but by a lot more than that in some cases. All the x’s (I don’t say that to brag – I have a lot of x’s and no current – nothing to brag about but most are still good mates) came out with a smile on their faces and perhaps more importantly most of the people I didn’t know seemed to have a really fun night at the movies. Well you can see the comments on our facebook page which you can get to via – www.iambish.com
