You Only Get One

A friend had asked me a fascinating question about where I thought I’d be had I not been derailed by personal problems. Would I have been successful in making movies? I’m honestly not sure. Probably the more accurate question would be, could I see myself making movies if I didn’t have a steady job? Could the life be that I just make movies? In a way, yes. It would be a gift if I was paid steadily for telling visual stories. In other ways, the anxiety in doing these things would drain the life out of me.

My friend works with big named directors. Like, guys who write their own ticket. It took them a while to get to that mountain, but they did it. What they had in them, I think is the mystery we would all like to know. One big named director is over the age of 70. I think about my Dad’s age. Where others have retired, he still travels the globe making movies. And his name draws huge young talent even now. On the surface, his personality is grating, some would say…abrasive. What I do know is…the guy loves movies. And he loves making movies. And he loves…pretty much everything about movies. I don’t know if you have to be born with that. But, man…it does take a general to move an army. I think generals and movie directors do share the same mentality. Moving large masses to overcome something. In that sense, there is a brotherhood to filmmakers. Tough hombres out of the trenches who can look one another in the eye and say “we got through it together.”

When I was in film school, my friend Doug and I were like that. He was a driven guy. Motivated to succeed and didn’t compromise. His brain moved so fast, I’m still in awe how he kept everything in his mind moving. His senior film project had us all going to Lake Tahoe and shooting a movie with a known actress. Yes, we did a road trip to the outskirts of God knows where. Not only did he convince his actors of the project, we lugged a 35mm film camera out to the cold armpit of Tahoe. This was AFTER we suffered through, I would say, one of the most brutal film shoots known to the history of Loyola Marymount. Our mutual friend had made a movie, that…I would say, still holds the record of the most expensive student film. The funding came from everywhere. It was one of the rarest Panavision shoots known to student filmmakers. And I got to be the cinematographer on it. Aside from the fact that I was having a rough time with my girlfriend at the time, we’d been doing at least 16 hour days inside a soundstage on campus. I was chain smoking the whole time. It got to a point where I would light up a cigarette INSIDE the soundstage after…pretty much every take. My lighting/gaffer buddy was getting really impatient with that. But being a team player, bit his tongue. I knew he was fuming inside. So, anyway, in Tahoe, we scaled a rock cliff to get a shot that, now looking back could’ve been anywhere. Well, except Los Angeles. I’m sure with the logistics of moving as many crew members as we had, it damn well could’ve been built. When on a road trip with cast and crew, you start to learn interesting things about people. Their threshold for discomfort, for one. I had a tiny one. At a certain point I wanted to club the lead actor, ‘cause…I have no idea. Only that I didn’t like him. I also developed an odd crush on someone on crew. I knew she knew. I knew she valued our friendship as much as I did. She just never saw me that way. We got the movie made, and returned to solid ground. Changed somehow. I doubt anyone can say how or why, but we were different. We all went our separate ways. The one thing that never changed is our stories. Our beautiful awesome stories of surviving so many things. The comraderie of set life. That if we didn’t even shoot a movie, that was okay too. I’m still friends with them to this day. Including the one I had a crush on. In fact, I was the first to be so happy she started dating a mutual friend. Because I cared so deeply for her happiness. I think the high profile director I speak of…I think he is fortunate enough to live in this bubble. To be in charge of the army that runs into adversity. I guess you could say that’s a born leader type. I dread leading. Not that I can’t. It’s that I do care about the outcome of my decisions may cause others pain. It’s really not up to me to decide. We forge a lot of history in such a short amount of time. Those guys talking at the awards shows, in between commercial breaks, I have a feeling they are sharing their war stories. In that sense…I would say, I value the people I do these movies with the same way I do family. They have faith and belief in what I am attempting. This type of trust should be taken with as much seriousness as it warrants. Not that movie making has to be, just that people who invest themselves in your projects MUST feel a certain level of competence in the entire process. We stumble an fall often, it’s always comforting to know someone will drag you up.