Illusions of Less Grandeur and The Search For Magic

My mom told me a story the other day. I was in it. And in it, I was nineteen years young-- anxious and naive. I was watching the Godfather at home. Afterwards, I loaded up the documentary about FFC and the makings of his movie. The point of my Mom's story was that afterwards, I called her over and fast-fowarded to a specific shot and paused it. It was an image of Coppola's production notebook--a fat, four inch binder that looked like it was about to explode out of its covers. She said I pointed at it and said to her with that gleam in my eye and that confidence in my voice, "that's how I'm going to make movies."

Then I went to film school-- the best one in the world apparently, and they trained me not to do it that way. Not directly anyway, which was even more dangerous. They trained me to work in a system. To work diligently. To get along with people. To be a filmmaker instead of an artist. And I did it. I was able to make something halfway decent within the system. It made me believe I was on the right track.

Then I graduated. I moved away and began to create. I quickly realized there was a lot I didn't learn, but I knew that. So I taught myself. And things were conceived, written, and planned.

Turn the pages to last weekend, our first production day for Eat Your Heart Out. The day went as planned-- we shot at the stunning Takami Sushi in downtown LA on the 21st floor and then did the bedroom scene back at the apt. Beautiful images of the story were captured. We had a crew of three plus the two actors.

Something wasn't right though. It's hard to explain now, and impossible to realize on the day of the shoot. Quite frankly, it's not something I'd like to divulge, because it's the secret I know, the secret that's not a secret but is one because it's so easy to forget. The next day, I saw the dailies and the same off-feeling continued to blossom, but the rational mind is resilient. The filmmaker mind that was molded and trained at USC gave all the necessary explanations and language. But luckily, I am first and foremost, a ferociously emotional man. So as I drove home, something quietly exploded inside me. Three years of training and practice slowly became clear. Literally. And once I saw through all that, I remembered why I wanted to make this movie in the first place; how and why I wanted to make movies at all in the first place. And it instantly became very clear: This isn't good enough.

It's a simple concept, but it's the most crucial concept. THIS ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH. Only the director, the creator of a project can truly know whether this is true or not, it's hard to be honest with yourself about it. There are a million-- and I mean a million tasks as you go along that can be accomplished and discussed and executed, especially when you have such a small crew and you have the responsibilities of a producer/writer/director/casting director/director of photography/editor/grip/electric on a project.

It was a good feeling though, a comforting, reassuring feeling that after only the first day, when everyone else felt okay about the shoot, when the actors were positive and confident in their performances and in this project, when the images looked as stunning as they did, when the morale was high and we had momentum-- I was able to stop, fire the actress, put the entire film production on hold for at least a month and feel so angry at myself and the crew that I could have flipped tables. To be able to decide that it doesn't matter if you make some enemies along the way and that the priority of film making isn't about getting along with people-- because that happens afterwards when you know you did your part to the best of your abilities, but nothing good, nothing magical happens without some tension, and one has to welcome that.

I'm on the right path again. I remembered there's a road that leads straight to the magic of films, of scenes, of life and of the stories, situations and interactions we rarely find in movies-- the magic I forgot about but know. I realize more than ever now that it's a learning process, but I'm glad I'm at the right school of thought now-- the Kubrick and Coppola school of the thought. The THIS ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH lesson and the discovery and exploration of a way of thinking, a way of doing things as an obsessive, demanding artist that will not settle for anything short of his ability. The worse thing I could do to myself and to everyone involved is not to insult them or create tension-- it's to make a movie that simply isn't good enough.