13.07.26
Recovery
Friday’s session in the music studio was extremely helpful. It was of immense value to the project in every respect apart from music - we didn’t actually get any music done, we didn’t even discuss music.
My composer reviewed the film with me and agreed that it is not working. He heard my doubts and admonished me for being fatalistic, reassured me that there is a strong film here struggling to be born, and argued that the issue is that I haven’t fully committed to my own ideas. He asked me to restate my original concepts for the film and said, “These are all great ideas, but I’m not seeing any of them. You’re being too restrained, you’re not using the full range of your creativity, you’re stuck, and you’re stuck at a point in any project where people get stuck, and you know how to break through.”
It was such an important, encouraging and reassuring conversation. I’m grateful to him for it. He also said, “Look, try it a couple of different ways, take a ten-minute section and experiment with it, you’ll find the answer. But you need to be more radical.” He was absolutely right. I’ve been falling back on the very kind of unconscious, habitual approaches to filmmaking and storytelling that I’d developed over years in a context where I wasn’t stretching myself and I didn’t enjoy the work that I was making. At least I didn’t enjoy it all the time. Sometimes I did, but a lot of the time I didn’t. I’m still falling back on those old patterns and worn reflexes.
It was very useful to be able to reframe the whole situation, and basically I need to rebuild the film. Not from scratch, the core content is there, but it’s how it’s being presented and constructed that needs to change. I had thousands of ideas over the weekend and I’ve been making notes constantly. But the doubts have also been hammering at the door: “Will this work? Will it feel gimmicky? Is this idea a good one or is it in fact crass and shit?” I’m going to have to shut that voice out and focus on implementation.
The second tension, which has haunted this project over the last couple of months, is that a good part of my mind is occupied by what comes next. Anyone who reads this journal will know that the question of where money is going to come from has been dogging me. These twin motivations of trying to find a new method of earning as well as trying to make this film are competing. I need to get the film finished in order to get onto the money-making, but thinking about the money-making has prevented me from finishing the film.
I have to break out of this cycle, but I have this lingering fear, as anyone would do, that the money will run out, and it’s pulling me away from the film. The seductive thought is that it might be better to drop the film, sort out the income stream first, and return to the film later. But all my experience lets me know that, if you don’t commit fully to a project of this size, it won’t get made. Struggling to follow through on what I know to be true because of these fears is also why I’ve been making poor creative choices – I’ve been trying to look for the fast option. The more creative option, the new ideas, the experimentation: all those are time-consuming.
What came out of Friday’s session was that I’d been trying to take a safe, quick option, because it’s quick. Conversely, the quick, safe option actually costs time in the long run, because the film becomes unsatisfying and unsuccessful, and so it drags on. Whereas more time invested in the initially longer, more complicated option may ultimately help the film cohere quicker. These are the paradoxes that live within us.
A few years ago I visited one of the great music engineers and producers as part of a film that I was making. We were discussing one of the most influential American musicians of the ‘60s and ‘70s, who died young and who this producer made his name working with. In describing the musician’s ethic and ability, the producer said to me: “You know, if it’s not great – do it again. And if it’s still not right, do it again. You know? Do it the fuck again.”