Making movies is all I’ve ever wanted to do. 

Messing around making home movies about spies and superheroes with my friends, solidified my vision of making films for the rest of my life. Ever since I was making home movies about spies and superheroes with my friends, I knew that it was what I wanted to do for life. As my clothes became tighter my ideas grew larger, complementing my evolving tastes and maturity.

Hours passed, as my eyes danced across the flickering silver screen, drafts for characters, stories, and even worlds illuminated a lightbulb above my head. A silly b-movie, a feel good drama, ideas zoomed around the racetrack that was my 7th grade mind. Eventually, my ambitions grew larger by 9th grade and a behemoth of a project entered my brain. I had to remember, there was no budget for these tiny films of mine. That did not stop me.

My gigantic idea was a three part drama with 3 main characters that would be 30 minutes total. It dealt with problems I had absolutely no experience with, like drug addiction. To be honest, the only reason this was the basis for the story was because of how compelling a story Breaking Bad was. I wanted to inject my favorite music into the blood of the film. Some of these choices were purposeful, and others because it “was cool”. Artists like Kanye West, Frank Ocean, and Mac Miller blasted through my eardrums as projections of interesting shots made itself onto the page. The final line of the series creeped closer as days, and eventually weeks passed. Eventually, it was time to start production. It started fall of 2020, at the highpoint of the Coronavirus pandemic and extended its overly elongated arms to the end of December.

...

Waking up excited was a rare occurrence with the day to day monotony that hung over my head. My eyes groggily shifted to my bedside clock, displaying the time and date in full brightness. 7:30 AM on September 26, 2020. A sense of isolation fills the air as my brain puts together the pieces that I am alone. And I will be alone today. My lead actor was quarantined for another week while in the meantime, I would have to shoot my own scenes by myself. No crew. Playing an important role in your own film is also not the greatest idea. Setting up a camera by myself was a challenge, as my finger flipped the autofocus switch on, the image began to become clear, then blurry, then clear, then blurry. It would sporadically switch focus like my brain attempting to put all of the pieces together in this overly ambitious project. I didn’t care that my shots were messy. All that mattered was me actually making my huge movie. Not caring one day, would come back to haunt me in post. It would destroy my perfectionism.

By November we had completed both the 1st and most of the 2nd part of the movie. But we came up on the first shoot day of “Chapter 3”. For the 2nd time I leaped out of bed with a smile slapped on my face, that slowly and ominously faded as my self confidence got over the initial high. A switch had been flipped in my mind. The thought of what could go wrong? Came into play. The engine of the car revved as my careful hands gingerly placed my bag of gear into the trunk. The cold chill outside began to fade as my body began to fill with warmth thinking about my old elementary school, the location of the shoot. A sense of comfort filled my mind, that would eventually become interrupted. I looked to my right at the quickly passing suburban homes as the vehicle headed up the steep hill...and arrived at the top. The area became unfamiliar as thoughts of where to place the camera entered the cluttered mess of my head, all of my shots were planned by memory alone. 

My friend Kyle had gotten there first, he was always the first to arrive, despite having the least to do. He was always the friend that I could rely on, and he kept cool during tough situations. Julia arrived next, this was the first time that I was working with her on a project. I had never really seen what she was like in an environment like this, but she was always willing to experiment. Then, Jack arrived, he was also a new addition to the team and was always a sort of comic relief in any situation. Finally, we had Stephen...our most important character. Incredibly subtle emotion lit up his face when the little red light on the camera would turn on. The downfall was that he would do take after take in order to perfect the scene. Overall, it was a remarkably uncommon team. To be more realistic, a bunch of random teenagers who had no idea what they were doing.

As I clumsily zipped open the large black bag, the camera, microphone and single memory card revealed themselves. Wait. Single memory card? 

Then Julia asked, “when are we going to be here until?” It was clearly a question of curiosity rather than an attempt to escape the situation. Although, as the words rushed through my ears and struck my brain, it did not process it that way. I began to feel angry at myself, before we had even started. My second memory card was gone, stress started to build. Would I be wasting my friends’ time? If this doesn’t come out great, it would be hours and hours of their days for nothing…

Would it be days of my life gone, for nothing?

“Until after sunset, so probably about 6” I responded blankly. Just like that, we started working. A smile spread across my face as I glanced at the camera’s digital screen. After almost 15 takes, Stephen had absolutely nailed the line. The dialogue finally rolled off the tongue as smooth as ever. 

“That was great Stephen! I just want to do one more take to see if you can do it even better!” I enthusiastically requested.

“3, 2, 1...action!”

“I don’t need he-”

“VROOOOOOM VROOOM!”

We were interrupted by a constant roaring sound, as if someone was chopping down a tree with a chainsaw. Looking to my right, there were two dirt bikes and an ATV rushing past the opening in the trees on the property next to the school. There was a farm bordering the school, with its owners frequent users of obnoxious automobiles like dirt bikes and even monster trucks. My mind started to panic, how would we get the audio for the scene if this noise was constantly happening? I’m not going to ask them to stop. It was on their property, and we were shooting on public land with no special arrangements. We decided to go on shooting in between the noise, in short bursts. This method proved to be completely foolish. Now, each line had to be said in different shots, obliterating the pacing of the scene.

“How are you feeling?”

“VROOOOOOOOOOOM!!”

“I’m completely fine.”

Stephen and Julia had to make their lines slightly shorter to fit this constraint. The amount of times we were interrupted by the screech of dirt bike tires was too many to count. Scrolling through the hundreds of takes, an icon popped up in the top right corner of the camera screen “memory full”. This forced me to take up time during the shoot to delete the clips we would not need, a slow and monotonous process. Highlight...select...delete…

“Are you sure you want to delete this file?” Read the screen on the camera. 

I was 100% certain. But the audio and timing issue were the least of my worries. As the sun started to pass below the horizon, our view was obstructed by the dark and menacing clouds. It was not supposed to be cloudy, and I was not letting my annoyance show. We did not end up getting the shot. Time was running out, my personal deadline kept getting pushed and pushed by these circumstances, and the troubles were decreasing the quality of the final project little by little.

In the weeks to come we ran into hundreds of small problems, and the exact same thing happened every time. With each shoot day I became more and more stressed, my head was spinning. The last day was so cold that most of our shots were completely out of focus. These thoughts of regret and disappointment stayed with me throughout the editing process. Having to fix so many audio tracks and shots made me discouraged that I wouldn’t get into any festivals. I finally got the courage to release the film to my friends and family. They all enjoyed it, but I wasn’t convinced. There was a voice in the back of my head saying.

It’s not good enough, it’s not good enough!

I remembered what Stephen had said to me when we first started shooting, “I don’t care if we even release this, it’s pretty fun doing this kind of thing!”

And I realized...all this time I had missed the point. I was letting the quality of the film hinder my actual experience. I completely forgot the fun I had with my friends on set, and was so focused on the perfection of the outcome. I didn’t get into any of the festivals that I applied to, but it doesn’t matter. There are still aspects that I am proud of about the film, but I will never forget the shooting process. The most disastrous moments can lead to the best memories. I learned that this was something that all filmmakers go through, and now I know that I am a real filmmaker.