An Articulation of Certain Principles (Patreon)

Going into this upcoming feature film project, I have certain ideas in mind that I would like to explore here:

1) The Question of Habitation

I can and do appreciate many films which are made using extensive awareness and mastery of greenscreen, CGI and other methods of special effects, but as I conceive of my overall cinematic ethos, what I feel most comfortable in is not a wholesale rejection of more expressive techniques, but simply a conscious decision to not use them for the sake of both budget and sanity.

I want my frames to be controlled, but to be open for incidental elements which may emerge in the course of shooting, and I do not see much point in trying to manicure everything using digital effects as a sort of makeup -- if there's a 'flaw' in a person or an animal coming into the shot, or the sun goes behind the clouds, or anything that I have no control over, I want to try and embrace those aspects when they work instead of blindly insisting on a preconception that I have previously formulated.

The process of constructing a film is a series of prismatic layers -- the percolation stage, the writing stage, the storyboarding stage, the shooting stage, the editing stage, and finally the releasing stage. At each juncture, my ideas are mutating beyond their original boundaries and I think that is ultimately for the better -- I think it is important to not be too attached to things like a certain composition, or a line of dialogue, to be totally willing to throw something out if it isn't working. One lesson I have learned from my years as a Dungeon Master running tabletop games is this: you make a plan so you can then throw the plan away. You shouldn't NOT have a plan, but when you do have one, it shouldn't be a prison, but more like a map with necessary blanks in it which are slowly filled in over time, and even when I release this film, there will still be blanks that have to be filled-in by the audience, so in my opinion the movie is only ever 'complete' when someone else engages in the activity of watching. You have to plan not by trying to account for every single contingency, which is impossible, but by leaving room open to figure things out in the process instead of at the beginning, so that then what you desire is a tempered flow and not a brittle rigid ideal.

2) Turning Annoyances into Style

I wanted to start directing because of my observations as a film critic. I began having the experience of asking myself 'why did the director shoot it like this instead of that?', becoming more and more aware of the technical considerations and aesthetic modes that these artists operated within, and thus knowing what tools would accomplish what ends for what reasons. It is not that I seek to 'correct' the work of other directors, but that I wish to take the things I like the best and try and make something which hasn't fully existed yet, to transform these fragments into a more cohesive whole that can be judged within a certain context and tradition.

My major priorities with this next project are non-synchronized sound, a naturalist/observational expressionism, and a willingness to linger.

Non-synchronized sound: to create an audio landscape and story that interacts with the visual component, but is neither dependent on it nor metatextual, rather, a sound-image which indirectly speaks the voice of the film itself, and not the individual parts of it. What this means is that I do not want a person's spoken dialogue to always be harmonized with what is heard, I do not want music which only exists as a background participant, I do not want a realist identity to emerge where you just assume that the visuals and the audio reflect one another most of the time in a quasi-natural emulation of the human experience of being in an environment. There will be music, there will be voice work, but they do not require the realist prerogative in order to manifest themselves -- all elements of this film will be used towards the end of atmosphere, and it is an atmosphere of exploring other realms which are only available to cinema as a medium in which images and sound can be interrelated while still remaining free and independent.

Naturalist/Observational Expressionism: expressive film language which does not require the conditions of studio lighting, but which leans into digital artefacting and careful framing to draw the strange out of the mundane. This will be a film where there will be few gimmick shots, and the priority shall be to focus on a sustained engagement with daily life and nature. It is my opinion that the world can be made strange not by imposing effects on its surface, but by clearly and generously embracing the non-human qualities of the camera itself, which is already inherently expressionist without having to try. The camera eye, I insist, is not identical or even closely related to the human eye, and its autonomy should be respected by me as a filmmaker. Rather than trying to emulate the impressions of human consciousness, I would like to express the camera's consciousness as a detached device that does not blink, does not move on two feet, does have characteristics which are alien to the human experience, so instead of trying to run away from these things, why not embrace them instead? Nature, when put through the prism of the camera, will come out on the other side as a new essence that can broaden our perspective instead of showing us what we already know or expect. After a short adjustment period, the viewer can enjoy this parallel world equally, as the boundaries between the fantastical gaze of the camera and the quotidian life it documents begin to seem less important than the sheer texture of the art object being engaged with.

A Willingness to Linger: operating in feature-length time and inside a narrative space allows me more bravery when it comes to staging, blocking, and how my models move in the frame. Although I can enjoy works by artists who do this sort of thing, this will not be a film of 24/7 close-ups, shallow focus, fast-cutting or a fancy mobile camera. I want to set the camera down on a tripod or a flat surface and let things play out without obtrusion. I honestly do not think you have to do that much to tell your story -- my inspirations for this project, mainly the films of Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Tsai Ming-liang, Jacques Rivette, Kelly Reichardt, Orson Welles and Henry Hathaway, all understood that filmmaking itself is an economy and that you have to perceive only what you think is necessary, so that if one composition does not reflect the priorities of the whole project, it should not be within the film, it should be rejected. What I want above all else is texture and atmosphere, so anything that gets in the way of that is what I am intending to jettison: no shot/reverse shot formulaic compositions, no trying to speed-up the pace to match a theoretical attention span, no sentimentalism or pessimism, no false boundary between consciousness and body, no tonal realism, no vulgarities of generic expectancy.

3) Having Process Mirror Result

I am making this film for what is essentially a zero budget and less than one week's worth of material, and I do not want to shy away from that fact, to try and direct something that 'looks more expensive than it is' -- not only couldn't I do that if possible, but I WANT the ruggedness, the misshapen edges, the small divergences, the dead air, I want as much of that as possible to remain in the film. I do not wish to create a sleek-looking project like you'd see put out as a mass Hollywood release -- if I am working on my own terms, I want the film to reflect the conditions of its creation, and I do not want to be embarrassed about that. What others see as defects is what I want to turn into my strengths: this project requires dedication, but I also want it to be a fun time between myself and my partner, we are going to have a good time hanging out and celebrating the week of her birthday, and I am hoping that energy of anarchic enjoyment shows up in the final release.

4) To Document My Choices

As I am nearing the completion of this film, I will be writing several posts about how and why I did what I did, my thoughts about the mistakes I will make, and my choice of collaborations. I will be commissioning a poster for the film from a friend who is an illustrator, which will be shared on here before I share it with the public, and I am hoping to get a music producer friend to do a once-over of the audio mix to make sure it doesn't sound uneven or harsh to the listener. These people, as well as all of you will be credited inside the film itself -- I wouldn't have been able to do any of this without you guys, and I am proud to feature your names as producers.

This is where I stand on March 9th, 2025, and the shoot will begin on April 6th, 2025. I am so excited to see where this takes me, and I hope it is a step towards creating a methodology I can carry forward into future projects!