Real Life Adventures 18 (Failure) (2005) - In late 2004 and into the first half of 2005 I attempted to make a feature length film for my BFA terminal project. Almost all the filming I did during this period was either for tests or production of the actual film. Early in the process I began writing a script for a TV pilot. The pilot expanded to the point where it became a film script centered around a sci-fi plot where everyone in the world had become 20-25 year olds, thus solving the problems both of finding a diverse age range of actors on a university campus. However, as the script progressed, it became clear that the effects would require a greater time commitment from the technicians I had hoped would help me in creating them, who also had their own projects. In addition, the dramatic material, which attempted to deal with the trauma of the world thrown into post apocalyptic chaos in a very real psychological way, seemed beyond the actors I had at my disposal, most of whom were amateur actors and friends. I didn't want to cast through the university theatre program because my experience showed that the best actors tended look down on film acting, or worse, tended to project as if they were still on stage, and at the time my confidence in my ability to direct actors for film was somewhat lacking. I dropped the script, though it may appear on this site once I have a draft I feel is a bit stronger. I began to produce a film of a very different source. It centered around a voyage of self discovery in a modern world turned magical, and eventually took on the name "The Knight." I cast myself as the lead, and began shooting with the aid of friends and family. However, as friends graduated and moved out of town this project also stalled, and I was left with half a film's worth of material and nothing really to show for it. I shot footage for several more documentaries, and out of this came Real Life Adventures 18, which was hastily constructed as a project to graduate. Looking back on the process the ammount of work I did, my professor was right in passing me despite my not achieving my own goals. Quite frankly, to make a feature length film at a school with no film production program at the level of quality that I wanted turned out to be an impossible task in the timeframe that I had. Learning this was itself, perhaps, worth the degree. I had produced several short experimental digital film tests, an artistic exhibit on the state of the art in digital video, and a documentary about my frustration in making the film. My thoughts about the frustration with Real Life Adventures 18 are documented on the video that follows it, Real Life Adventures 17, which I purposefully numbered one number below it, so that people could watch the commentary on the film, and then watch the film itself if they decided to watch the documentaries in numerical sequence. big version smaller version Click here to return to the documentary menu. |