videophage.com

Making a movie is hard. The world around doesn’t stop when the camera starts rolling. I still have to get enough sleep. I still have to go to work. My friend/collaborator has summer classes. My skin still acts up, closeup or not. I don’t get to tell Mr. DeMille when I’m ready, he’s waiting and ready to go already. But it’s going well. It’s exhausting, but I love it. Sweating our asses off in my room with no air conditioning while we’re surrounded by a dozen candles burning and a television going is worth the serendipitous magic moments when things go just right, perfect and unplanned.

Almost all of the art and posters that were on my wall were taken down, and I like the empty walls. It makes you think about space differently. My life really is a movie. My bedroom, the set. I think I’ll keep my room this way until my lease expires end of July. It’s a document of change and anti-inertia.

I wanna get this done around the end of June, and I just recently realized that a July 4th release would really nail home the points I’m trying to make with this movie. It would’ve been a whole lot easier if I hadn’t picked up those two extra shifts this week, because I’ll be even more exhausted. Maybe I can channel that frustration and fatigue into my performance. (I am a very serious person and actor 🧐)

No, but I am quite anxious about being in front of the camera. Not because I can’t control what goes on behind from there (I fully trust my creative partner and he’s taking it all seriously, but it’s still fun and loose, I fully trust and respect his input, judgment, and ability), but because I don’t know how I’ll act around another person, even if it is just one. I’m not much of a performer, but I know I could be. It’ll be an interesting test. Something to be proud of, that’ll help me going forward when we’re all done here. We resume shooting for night two of production after I get off work, and those will be the first moments where I am onscreen. We’ll see how much we get done, I have an idea of what I’d like us to accomplish and I think it’s certainly feasible if I don’t run out of steam physically or with my own image.

I can’t believe I’m actually making a movie. Finally. The two shots we got and the rest we planned yesterday really turned out great, so I’m excited for other people to watch it. It’d be cool to cut together some trailers as a sort of virtual audience test screening. There’s so much to do, but I think I gotta forget about the rest for right now and put my energy into this project. I won’t mind others’ reactions too much, as long as I impress myself. So far, so good.