Wow, things went sideways really quickly. So the whole of Europe is, basically, in hibernation until the virus blows over – which would be awesome if I wasn’t desperate to get out in the sand and start work. Getting people to follow me to Spain was a big ask, even without everything else that is going on, and it now seems that I’ll be without a full crew or, more worryingly, my cast.
Which is a pain.
I’m thinking that things escalating thanks to the Corona virus might have something to do with me – every time I try and do something the universe goes all out in trying to fuck me over, so when I attempt my most ambitious project to date…
Yes, the ego. Insufferable, isn’t it?
There are so many reasons that I shouldn’t be happy.
Firstly, there now looks to be very little in the way of cast or crew from Italy, France, or Spain available for the foreseeable future, which is an enormous pressure on an already tight schedule. I have neither the time nor the inclination to rush around securing alternative people, given that so much of the planning was built around three people who are no longer in the running at all. I’m not sure if this is a minor or massive delay as yet, and holding out hope that things get back to normal as soon as possible is my current strategy.
And if I haven’t mentioned it before I really, really dislike lugging a giant bloody camera around. I need a camera operator.
Then there’s the fact that I don’t have access to a vehicle, which was a setback I didn’t see coming. This is one of those problems which, if I could stop freaking out (which had led to my right eye flaring up in protest), would likely be a fixable issue, but at the moment there’s no way around it.
And the amount of money I’m dropping on getting everything together is, quite frankly, obscene. This is the biggie – the single most terrifying, insurmountable, overwhelming aspect of the entire plan. Once the money is gone I’m going to have to bust my ass or figure out what else I’m willing to sell. At present I am of the mindset that it is preferable to sell a kidney rather than any of the comics or books.
I can’t rely on selling more stuff to fund things, and I’m not sure that I can sell more – the British comics are not going to go (they are earmarked for many, many things which require their presence in future), and I can’t imagine getting rid of any of my vintage SF books. They took a ridiculous amount of hunting down, and so few of them regularly come up for sale that I would never be able to rebuild the collection.
Without the footage in hand by the end of the year I’m not sure how things will go.
But…
I. Can’t. Stop. Smiling.
There are moments I catch myself in a reflection and am reminded of Gwynplaine, yet I can’t help myself – there is currently a mountain of stuff I need to sort through properly and pack neater for transportation – I ordered most of this a while back and had put it all to the back of my mind. A significant portion of the costumes are here, a few trinkets and ornamentation, and a lot of equipment – it was all waiting for me at the post office, which explains the pile of “sorry we missed you” cards.
I still haven’t got a bone flute, the bullroarers, or all the fake furs which are going to be needed, but the amount of items to have already been shipped is slightly staggering.
I’m not used to such efficiency.
That bone flute, which needs to be present by the start of shooting no matter what, is giving me problems. Porcelain replicas look awful in comparison to actual bone, and the thought of having to sculpt and paint a prop is giving me the shivers – that, right there, would be at least two or three weeks work, if not more, to get it looking completely right. Then there’s the larger instruments (including a particularly difficult-to-describe horn I want made to look like an antler), which are going to take a lot of money throwing to get right.
Finding people to create things not in general use for thousands of years is a pain.
I’ve been hunting through various strange and obscure corners of the internet looking for people who have non-standard fabrics in an attempt to get some of the costumes rounded out, but that’s proving to be as frustrating as everything else. Mammoth-fur wraps, for example, aren’t a thing. Not even close to being a thing. I’m fairly certain that someone, at some point, has attempted to recreate what they would look like, but all of the photographs, and the ones mocked up for museums, aren’t doing it for me.
Costumes are incredibly important to get right, and nothing can appear on-screen which remotely looks modern. I’m keeping as far from the look of 1981’s Caveman as possible.
Already acquired in preparation is:
- A monitor that was on offer, and so beautiful I couldn’t help myself. One of the most expensive items, but which can be calibrated to reproduce exactly the footage fed into it. As I’m not completely sold on using digital after the last week’s fiasco, and as the temptation to shoot on film is so strong, this input might be from a small secondary camera, or for use shooting inserts.
- Old glass lenses, some still having yellowing stickers attached from when they were originally bought / last used. I’ve always had it in the back of my mind to use as much traditional things as possible – looking specifically at the way some all-time classics were shot – and I’ve noticed the lenses in behind-the-scenes footage. Even if I only get to use them with some incidental footage they will be worth it.
- Awesome headphones which, I’m sad to say, cost about the same as my laptop.
- A clapperboard – and seriously, when did these get so damn expensive? It was one of the items I wanted to get quickly, so I wouldn’t overlook it in the rush, and goddamn, is it ever the most expensive thing per square inch. For its size it is remarkably loud, and the LED letters are certainly attractive, but I’ve questioned how much it is really worth since dropping coin on it.
- A light meter. Actually there are two, as I decided the first was good enough when I saw it, and it didn’t cost too much money (a concern that isn’t going to disappear), but then saw an amazing one that I couldn’t pass up. It looks like it belongs in a SF film, and it feels more comfortable in my hand – the slight expense incurred here is worth it.
- A tripod. I’m not completely convinced it’s suitable – I nevertheless picked it up because it was old extending tripod with really neat little feet, probably from the fifties or sixties. It looks slightly underwhelming, and there’s serious doubt in my mind as to its ability to take the weight of a full camera rig, but it was so adorable (and somehow sad looking) that I had to buy it. I’ll find a use for it.
- A bounce board I was gifted from a lovely chap who shot a bunch of fan films back in the day, and who has since upgraded much of his equipment. Free stuff is better than nothing, and I’m not going to pass up anything at the moment.
- Three cases in which all the equipment needs to be crammed. These were sized according to space aboard the yacht I had expected to be available, although at present the cases are holding a disturbing number of books. The shipping cost was a lot more than anticipated though, which makes them decidedly not a bargain.
There is also a weird wooden handle in the box that the filters arrived in, and I’m not completely certain what it is for, but it is with the rest of the equipment at the moment. Actually, there are a few things which are a slight mystery to me, though I’m trusting that all of the things I’ve decided might be important will come in handy, so I’m not going to start culling them from the equipment list as yet. I’m certain that once things get rolling they will find their role.
There’s also a small stack of folders so I can organize everything obsessively up until the last moment. And stationary. Lots and lots of stationary, because. C’mon, who doesn’t love reams of paper, shiny new pencils, gel pens, and note paper?
I don’t know, for sure, how much that little stack came to, but it seemed like I needed it given how much planning and information dissemination was on the cards.
Although there’s no need to splash out as yet, I’ve also been looking at top-of-the-range computers on which to edit everything, and which I can utilize in the FX process – it will be a few months before I need to make a decision on how I’ll approach this, but I desperately need to upgrade this computer already. Having only had it for the blink of the eye it is already starting to show signs of not being up to the task of coping with me. The bottom corner of the track pad is slightly warped, and there is a slight depression on a few keys.
But… the stuff – the amassed “things needed for the film.”
That’s taking up a lot of room.
The stuff is taking up a lot of room, and even adding italics to that sentence doesn’t do justice to how much space it is consuming. I only realized this when I took everything out of their boxes and had a look-see at what I actually had. There would be more room if I had been able to keep my curiosity at bay and left them as they were packed, but this is me – I had to check out everything to see if the deliveries were right. It is all good, as far as an initial inspection goes, though there was no room to move once it was all spread out.
Until I hit on an ingenious solution.
The bedroom – or, at any rate, the room which had a bed in it – is now the equipment store and clothes department for the film. It is scary crazy how many things I need for this, and there are two outstanding items that are going to require careful consideration on storage, or else I’ll run out of space completely. I’m not sure how to proceed from here, but there are a couple of solutions which aren’t horrendously expensive: either I get another storage space to keep everything in, or I get a little office space somewhere. There’s bound to be a few units available.
I am holding back on the traditional storage unit option given how much everything has cost me so far. There’s insurance to consider as well, and I haven’t got back in touch to clarify any conditions which might be in the small print. I may not be allowed to let some of this out of sight…
For the foreseeable future I’m sleeping on the floor.
Don’t ask me how I’m going to shoot a film without a complete cast and crew – I haven’t planned this out again, minus all those absent due to various restrictions which might or might not be in place – but I’m damned if I’m going to let things fall apart completely. I can always use the equipment for other (smaller) shoots.
I’ll likely get hell for suggesting this, and it is admittedly a very dark notion, but…
This is the perfect time to grab a camera and get stock footage of deserted streets and businesses. There are precious few times when these shots can be accomplished sans a large crew asking people to stay back for a moment when the footage is being captured, and as long as there are abandoned areas already present I can see no problem making good of what is available.
Yes, I’m probably slipping towards the dark side there…
Simultaneously with other plans, I’ve begun putting together the basis for sound design with a ridiculous list of do’s and dont’s. Building off all my complaints with what others are doing, or have done (I contend that 13 Eerie was ruined by poor music choices), I’m taking control of as much of this as I can without spending a fortune. At some point I’m going to need to get in a studio, but for now I’m content to do things in a decidedly low-fi manner. It merely needs to be “good enough” until I have footage.
The other extreme from 13 Eerie is what Nolan has been playing around with, mixing down sounds and speech to an impenetrable level – subtlety is better than bombast, and having every utterance audible (and each sound distinct yet not overbearing) is the only approach which would appeal to my perfectionist tendencies. It is a tad harsh to state this but the movement away from proper music to digitally generated tracks is one of the worst things to happen to music in the history of music.
Digitally created soundtracks are bloody awful. There, I said it. Where are the sweeping melodies, the softly rising and falling themes, and the heart?
A great deal of what I am doing has never been done before, which is the most exciting aspect of the entire process. I’m getting to break new ground. One specific problem I’ve noticed with music described as being Paleolithic is that there are sounds which would never have been achievable with the tools at hand forty-something thousand years ago. I can completely understand the need for people to use digital tools in creating (not recreating) sounds from prehistory, but synth has a distinct feel which interrupts my enjoyment of these tracks. By using only sounds that can be justified, a different nature to the soundtrack will evolve naturally.
And I’m completely ignoring all modern music theory – there is a beautiful Japanese logic, wherein music should conform to breath rather than beats, which feels better. There are other things I’m adopting as I work through this, mostly listening to various old recordings of peoples whose contact with the modern world were limited. I’ve noticed that most mainstream tracks seem to promote a more meditative, relaxing nature, but this gives me a whole world of problems – that calming sound isn’t what would spontaneously occur.
There’s a crazy-old CD of Native American tracks (probably manufactured in the late eighties or early 90s) which I picked up on my wanderings. A plain jewel case, with the CD only containing the name of tracks, as simplistic a packaging as I have ever seen. Despite looking like a cheap knock-off, it always sounded far fresher, more vibrant, and really alive when compared to the beautifully packaged, high-value releases such as Sacred Spirit. There are numerous shouts, overlapping chants, random noises, and laughter mixed in, and that makes it far, far more realistic than the smoothed out, clean, and ultimately rather disappointing, studio-bound material.
Chaos, and unpredictability, must be built into the sound of a world before civilization took root. It only popped into mind in the last couple of weeks, but any music needs to include the sound of wildlife in the background. It’ll likely need the crackling and popping of a fire in the sound mix as well.
I have started painting the poster (which is massively presumptuous, but which is a relatively free step on this journey) although the specific tone is hard to judge. Too funny and it looks like a knockabout comedy (which it isn’t), too dramatic and it looks like Quest for Fire (which is so isn’t), too scary and it looks like another fantasy knock-off of Conan (which… okay I’ll allow that to stand). I can’t paint any facial features in, as that’s still a question mark, but I can at least try to figure out the layering of costumes with this.
And I’m writing the novelization (technically an adaptation of the script at this point), which is another leap of faith.
Because budget isn’t a concern I’m going to reinstate a couple of things omitted from other versions, streamlining it in places where the visual-led story elements don’t make sense, and generally making it slightly deeper – things which can’t be done on film, like really getting into the characters’ heads, is the main requirement. While it is tempting to include a massive lecture on the reams and reams of research done in preparing the script I’m doing my best to restrain myself.
Maybe a ‘Making Of’ book would be another way to make some money out of this… At least it would be cheap therapy.
When I decided I wanted to do this I concluded that the film should be released before my 45th birthday as a statement. Mostly “I’m still alive,” which is an awful statement. I need a better one, but lack of sleep and all the stress is making me slightly (okay, massively) useless at the… brain use. Uh… Cognitivation. No, ratiocination.
Thinking – “thinking” was the word I was thinking of.
It makes sense that this would be a later release, rather than falling in the first quarter, so September or October 2022 would be about right – as the nights are still warm enough, when a stoner comedy with hints of dark fantasy would be most appreciated.
That hopefully gives me enough time to get everything up and running in the allotted time. It isn’t a brilliant strategy to work back from an unknown date two years hence, but as long as that is at the back of my mind I have the momentum to keep pushing through all of the delays, external forces, and obviously the mistakes I’ll inevitably make.
Once the novel is done and dusted I’m going to start penciling the comic. No need to tackle everything at once …then I can work out the script for an audio adaptation, plan out a fun little game based on the characters, and see if there is anything else I can knock out in anticipation of this being moderately successful.
The Graveyard 