"It's A Mess..."

...this was told to my co-worker from a producer who just released a major movie today, by a major studio.

It'll probably make its money back, but damned if anyone knew anything. I worked on the dailies, and...well, from what I saw, I thought it looked...pretty funny. But the fuck do I know about comedy.

It's now been critically panned and audience disapproved, so it does prove that it wasn't just some sour grapes, but I'm still going to see it. Since I support anything I was a part of. Blahahaha.

It got me thinking about studio executives who stick their fingers in too many pies. Not that the executive who spoke those words contributed at all, but oftentimes you get a pretty decent script in your hands and you get stars in it, and for whatever reason, whether direction or non-direction or something...midway through, you just feel it to be disastrous. Not to integrate my tiny project into it, but my student thesis film was like that. It became overcooked.

I turned in the short film script to my professor. In his thick Eastern block accent he told me it was "good to shoot, jes git it approve'd by writing teacher." To which I did. Then when it came closer to the shoot, I went back to my typewriter (yes, things were written on these things), and re-did it. Changed things for clarity, worried about logistics. Added dialogue. Changed lines. Fucked it all up.

I turned in the final to the same teacher to which he gently added "why'd you fuck it up?" No joke. He said the first draft I'd submitted had all the elements needed to shoot. But because of over-thinking, over-worry and generally caring too much about input, it became...trite. The original script was written from feeling...the final was written from thought. And movies are about feeling. When you read it, it should feel like something. Anything. In his opinion, I'd stripped the "original concept" into something so banal, even he thought I should've pulled the plug and re-tool to get the original feeling of the first draft back. By then, I'd been too headstrong and went forth.

The movie turned out okay. I wonder what it would've been like had I stuck with the original. It was an ambitious project (unlike any the university really supported, since it felt "Hollywood" and the teachers were all hippie fucks). I set out to make a Disney movie.

Anyway, my point being, I was my own worst executive. I try really hard to not get too mental about things. I think because now that I have my own money sunk into projects, it's hard not to want to hit a homer. I believe this is why people often say "make the movie that you'd want to see."