10.07.26
On failure
Yesterday was a tough day. I have about an hour of the film done (with gaps for animation sequences and for rostrum and graphics work). I sat down and watched what was there, all the way through. And to say that I felt dispirited is an understatement.
There’s always a point in any project where you become aware of the gap between what the film was in your mind when you started out, and what the reality of it is, as it assumes its form. When watching it yesterday, it became obvious that that gap was huge.
The main problem is that I just have such a paucity of material, and it’s struggling for coherence because the materials are so disparate, and because I’m not able to shoot original material that would give it a coherent through line - some of the animation is going to have to try to provide that. I’m trying to do two things at once: anchor the story to the events that are being narrated with actuality, and then add an abstract layer to give a sense of the themes and the emotional register of the film, which is really the core of it. I don’t think the balance between those two things is being struck correctly at the moment. If too much literal, representational imagery is used, it becomes like a bad true crime TV show; but if too much is abstract imagery, that’s a massive drain on audiences over the course of two hours. Finding the balance has been difficult.
In all honesty, I sat there and thought, “I’ve wasted everyone’s time. I’ve been incredibly reckless. This is stupid, I don’t know what this is, but it’s probably the wrong thing to be making. It’s the wrong format. I can’t do it.” Having slept on it I’m not so fatalistic, but I still have grave doubts. I think I just need to complete it, for my own sanity. I also looked at the number of the gaps in the film, and there’s so much work to be done to get these gaps filled, when I’ve already burned through so much time. It is a real worry. I don’t know what to do about that, you just have to plough on through to the end.
I just felt very, very low yesterday. I probably did the worst thing possible in these situations, which is to look back over a few films that I’ve admired recently, as references, and of course, it made what I was doing feel so artistically impoverished in comparison. But then those films were all Oscar nominees and Cannes winners, so the comparison is against the highest bar possible (although, I always think there’s no point doing anything unless you want to try to shoot for the highest bar possible). But, in any case, that exercise obviously didn’t help.
Today I’m off for a session in the music studio, and I’ll have my music collaborator watch it as well, give me his thoughts. The film certainly needs more space. The front actually works pretty well, but over time the inherent thinness of the visuals shows itself. It would be very good as an audio piece; maybe it has to be an audio thing eventually. I don’t know. We’ll see.
Anyway, music day today, and then back to it. I’m going to have to make a renewed push for getting all the archive materials in, which is annoying because it stops me from editing, and chasing these people around the block is a real time drain. But unless I do it, I’m going to run out of material.