Week Four
This week I initiated a reset on my feature film project. I stepped back from editing in order to acquire the materials that I will ultimately need to complete the film. I also had a full creative review.
13.07.26
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 not 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.”
14.07.26
This week has started with a reset.
It’s clear that I need to acquire all the archive I can, as quickly as possible. Post-producing the film incrementally (which I always do), leaving gaps for materials that are coming in over time, gaps for graphics and animation - I don’t think that approach is going to work with this one. What I need to do is build the film from all of its elements, as complete as possible, minute-by-minute as I go. That’s how I’m going to find its voice and form.
So I need to get on top of these outstanding requests, follow them up, and start applying pressure, including pointing to statutory obligations, because some of these agencies are just not acting in a timely manner at all. After that, I will be working with all that there is and committing to it, rather than guessing, speculating or hedging.
I spent a bit of time with inspiration yesterday - watching back through old films, going back over my notes and ideas, trying to shake off the assumptions that I’ve had over the last few weeks and look at the film from a completely fresh perspective. I’ll continue doing that today, reframe my mind from what is there now to something new.
15.07.26
Yesterday continued the reset, and the process of trying to gather in all materials now rather than leaving things open-ended.
I spent all day (and it was all day) on an archive hunt. I split up the archive into different batches for different parts of the film and mapped out the steps to address each in turn, with a resolution that I would not move on to the next batch until I’d come to the end of the first.
That process did bear some fruit. It took hours of scouring databases and reviewing filings, but I managed to track down a good 50% of what I needed for batch one. The big outstanding element from that batch is a critical set of photographs. The photographs are held in a library collection in the US, and it seems that the library may be relocating, a move which isn’t projected to complete until 2027 - alarming. As an example of the drift that has dogged the last few weeks of the edit, I’d actually emailed the library’s director of special collections back in May, and I haven’t had a reply, which shows you how these threads can dangle unless you’re on top of it all.
I finally called it in time to watch the World Cup semi between Spain and France, with a couple of beers.
Today I resume trying to pin down where these photos are.
16.07.26
Yesterday was another fruitful day in tying up these hanging archive threads, I managed to crack the library and extract what they had. I’ve got more requests in and logged with various agencies. I managed to do a sprint through newspaper articles and headlines that are relevant to the subject of the film. And so I’m building a decent repository of the archive I need, rather than it being a disparate process of waiting for material to trickle in while time burns.
Being more active and intensive on archive over the last few days has helped push it through, and will grease the wheels of editing. I probably should have performed this exercise sooner, but you live and learn.
This is also where an AI assistant comes in handy. I use AI constantly when doing this kind of work, it’s very good for setting up a prioritised action list, identifying the correct URLs, where I need to go, who I need to email, step-by-step walkthroughs on the databases so that it’s easier to navigate them, sign-ups and so on. I don’t have to constantly read FAQs and orientate myself around the various systems that I’m switching between hour by hour. It’s also very useful in tracking: logging what has been done, tracking what remains outstanding, and systematising everything. It can even do some downloads and file extractions on automation, if necessary. AI deployed in this manner can be a significant time-saver.
Still, it’s slow going, and it can feel like progress isn’t being made on the film itself, but this is all erecting scaffolding - I’ve previously written in this journal about how there’s a false economy in trying to work the edit and being busy in post without having sufficient materials. The reset continues.
17.07.26
More archive requests and chases.
I managed to get insulted by a Southern State official with the weary, ironic courtesy that is characteristic of the region:
If you really want that report, which provides no information…someone will have to search to see if the record was created and/or still exists. Such an old record would most likely be stored in somewhere in a cardboard box in a warehouse or storage facility which is not well organized, so it will take numerous hours to search for the right box and then to search through it to determine whether it exists or not. I have been general counsel to the City for more than two decades and my experience tells me that the City PD did not routinely create [those] reports. If you really want it, please send a check for $300 and upon receipt we will direct someone to hunt for the record. However, I need your written agreement that if we burn through more than that $300 in search of the record that you will reimburse the City for its actual cost in searching for the report. If it turns out that the report is easily found (which I highly doubt) then in that case we will refund to you whatever funds remain after expending the funds required to pay for the efforts of the lowest paid competent person we have who is competent to search for the report and duplicate it if it exists. On behalf of the City, we apologize for the delay in responding.
It’s frustrating and unnecessary, but goes with the territory. I responded to say, “look, do you want to just be reasonable?” We’ll see what happens.
Other than that, a huge trawl through the newspaper archives, which yielded a comprehensive record of news coverage for every part of the film. It’s interesting to see the story evolve through newspaper headlines over what might be a ten, twenty year period, you get a real sense of the arc and how the events were experienced and interpreted contemporaneously.
Today more chasing, more requests - we’re getting there; all coming together.