Reflecting on the Non-Linearity of Progress (and the trust required)
A few weeks ago, I wrapped a shoot for a feature film proof of concept. (A proof of concept is a short film developed to show producers the…
A few weeks ago, I wrapped a shoot for a feature film proof of concept. (A proof of concept is a short film developed to show producers the intention behind a larger work worth investing in.)
After 20 hours of filming across 2 full days, the cast and crew left our set in high spirits. A few people expressed the sentiment gratitude that the shoot had been fun and exciting AND how well-organized we had run the ship.
It was non-conventional by nature. We played theater games to warm up for the day. We shot chase sequences in midtown Manhattan between traffic signals.
We wrapped on time and made sure people got solid breaks. We read tarot on lunch breaks. It was a hell of an experience as a director. And if you had asked me at 16 years old, I would have said Brandon the Capable Director didn’t exist.
My first attempt at film-making was a massive stinking mess, and it left me thinking there was no way I could ever touch a camera ever again.
Flashback to the Fall of 2009, my senior year of high school. I, along with my classmates, had been tasked to create a 5-minute short film for our Film & Literature class final project. My group had no specific ideas, but I came to them with a brilliant idea: We would start a shot with the camera inside someone’s car, then take the camera through the sun-roof and finish the shot on the hood of the car.
When my classmates asked what else I envisioned, I said it’s like a heist thing. Someone running down the street and we see them run down the street………..
I had nothing other than this cool shot idea. But one shoot happened to be more than they had thought up until that point, so they entrusted the creative vision to me.
Cut to two weeks before the assignment is due. My friend who offered to let me film in his car is two hours late. I don’t know how to work the audio equipment. I feel the buzz of text messages from my group. I’m freaking out.
We get to the shooting location and I realize I don’t know what to do. I had no sense of plot (since I didn’t think about making a script), no sense of character (since I only thought about the one camera movement), and no clue how to explain my vision to everyone else who was there. An hour later, I had my couple takes of the cool car shot (which didn’t look at all like what was in my head!!!! How frustrating!!!!), and a huge feeling of embarrassment. I literally had nothing else to offer my classmates and friends, after an entire afternoon of filming. We wrapped the day with one 10 second shot.
I freaked out and quit the project, telling my classmates I had no other ideas. I remember the confusion, disappointment, and stress in my classmates’ faces as I told them, a week before the project was due, that I wouldn’t be working on it. They’d have to figure it out themselves.
I felt intense shame. I told my Film & Literature teacher, Jillian McRae, that I wouldn’t be able to submit anything for my final project. She didn’t ask questions, for reasons I still don’t understand. I told myself I could never direct again.
And yet the yearning persisted, for years, under the surface. The shame of how I acted during the class project lingered, buried deep in my memory, but it lost intensity over time, like a fading photo. It took six years before I would attempt it again.
In those six years: I learned hard and fast about adulthood when I found myself without a safety net, I watched a TON of movies in all genres, I fell in love with writing, I took an acting class where my teacher told me I’d never be an actor, I got paid to act, I wrote my first stage play, I got stranded in a new city, I worked on myself with a therapist and coaches.
In 2015, I made another attempt at directing. A group of friends and I shot a three page script. This time, I had some clarity in direction and structure. It went well and it felt good to create with friends.
Then I quit a job, took a summer of major creative risks, and found myself nearly homeless due to financial irresponsibility (for the second time in my adulthood). I scrambled for work and spent 3+ years working multiple jobs, while writing on my phone in transit between jobs, leaving little space for any idea of directing a film.
It wasn’t until working with Yuko Kudo, one of my now frequent collaborators, that I had an opportunity to direct again. Two years later, and 3 solo shows deep, we’ve definitely created some great stuff together, along with Shino Francis and other collaborators.
Yuko’s most recent show, I Came Here to Be Love, allowed for an opportunity to mix both film and live theater on a virtual platform in a way that had never been done before. That show is currently available online!
Filming it felt like a strange dream, being nearly a year into the pandemic and a decade removed from that first high school experience.
Which leads us to this recent weekend of filming.
In the middle of the pandemic, in order to survive the stress and fear of lockdown, my roommates and I bonded over the strangest of thoughts. During one particularly fun random conversation, we riffed on turning one person’s experience with phone ads into a spy movie. The spirit of inspiration overtook me and I said, “Hey, what if we tried to make this movie, for real?”
They laughed and said it’d be cool, but didn’t expect anything beyond that. Most wild creative ideas fizz out. Yet, I felt excited and happy to write up a little script for a spoofy theatrical trailer. I wrote it and shared it with them, and they thought it was hysterical. I asked again, “Hey, what if we tried to make this movie, for real?”
This time they could see the possibility. I wrote a 20 page short script — something we could see ourselves filming over a couple weekends — editing and tweaking it based on my collaborators’ notes.
When the script was finished, we decided we wanted to take our time and not overwork ourselves — it would take 8 days to shoot the whole project in the way we wanted. But scheduling became difficult to coordinate and we only had so much time before the holiday season began. So I went back and developed a tight six page proof of concept, which we shot across 2 10-hour shoot days.
It has taken me five years since my last attempt to get back behind the camera, but that time since has been filled with valuable lesson I brought onto set. I had learned a lot about how to work with actors and crew (rule #1: make sure no one everyone is fed well); how to manage my time; how to make shotlists, lined scripts, and storyboards. I Came Here to Be Love taught me so much about how to communicate efficiently to the different experts on my team.
I felt like I was exactly where I supposed to be, and the process of the weekend flowed with so much ease. It all just clicked.
I share this story because it can be easy to gloss over the bumps and inconsistencies along the journey. We live in a world that values highlight reels and TL;DRs. If you haven’t gotten there yet, wherever “There” is, have faith it will come. Amanda Libretto once told me, “Sometimes, what you want isn’t ready for you to have it. If it was to fall in your lap today, would you be fully ready to support it?” The timeline doesn’t have to be as rushed as you might think it needs to be. Do what you can.
The path is never as linear as someone’s autobiography makes it out to be. There can be long stretches of doubt and uncertainty. Allow yourself permission to trust that what you want can happen if you give it the time and space it needs to occur. What if you had another decade to figure it out? 50 years? 100? 200? How would you operate?
If I hadn’t gone through a decade of creative struggle, I would not have been ready to show up as I did this recent weekend. Every setback and mistake and time I got told “no” offered me a lesson. This filming weekend taught me a few more things, too!
Who knows when I’ll next watch the monitor? For all I know, it could be days or decades. I do know that when it happens, it’ll happen exactly when it’s supposed to. It’ll be right on time. I have trust that I can navigate the detours along the way.
Hope despite all evidence to the contrary might seem foolish to pragmatists and cynics, but this trust fuels the way through the darkest of unexpected detours.
Wherever you are in your journey, I have faith that you can find your way to the place you aim for.