The Crosspatch Times 2 - Swapped at Length & Lessons Learned
This past year, I produced and directed my first short film–at least, the first one that will face the public eye. The movies I made in high school with my friends were fun, and not useless for my development, but no one will be seeing my 40-minute take on Romeo & Juliet from 9th grade, thank you very much.
The Lesson of Availability
I wrote Swapped at Length around December 2022/January 2023. Obviously, it took me some time to get it off the ground. Work was crazy. It’s hard to build up the courage to ask for help with your passion project when everyone you need is already swamped with work for paying clients. It’s tempting to say, “Hey, you down to help out? We’ll fit it in when there’s time.”
The good news? Doing this will get you a lot of people saying “Yes” very quickly! The bad news? Their “Yes” isn’t real. It’s not their fault, either. Anyone in this industry is going to say “Yes” to a project they think is cool and which happens whenever it’s convenient for them. Why wouldn’t they? It’s easy to get people to say they’re “down” in theory, but without clearly defined goals and deadlines, you have nothing. When I first tried to book meetings with this approach, I found out my crew list wasn’t really full after all. I was so busy at the time, I was barely on it!
I knew better than this, of course. I let the fact that this wasn’t a “traditional” project get in my head and make me want to be ultra-cool and accommodating. That’s not how this business works! If I wanted to get something done, I needed a plan. If someone couldn’t work within the constraints of that plan, then it was next person up.
It was a hurdle I had to get over, and fortunately, the company I worked for at the time was supportive, allowing me to have meetings during regular business hours, make use of company gear, and eventually, take most of the team to go shoot for 10 hours on a Monday. I managed to avoid asking them to cover any hard costs, but the freedom to work on the project during normal hours, when we were at work anyway, was huge.
Ultimately, there were two key factors in finally getting the wheels off the ground: 1) I, along with my dedicated producer, AD, and DP, built a real schedule that we would stick to, come hell or high water (incidentally, I think it’s fair to say both showed up); and 2) I had to be willing to say that this project was absolutely, 100% worth spending time on. If I didn’t believe it, no one else would.
The Lesson of Time; or The Trap of “Good Enough”
We scheduled the short to shoot over 2 non-consecutive days. I consider this to be one of the prime mistakes of the experience. The script was less than 20 pages long, with no action sequences, and only one or two complex camera setups, so it wasn’t a crazy plan in one sense. But, there were 2 major factors working against us: 1) there are 6 locations in Swapped at Length, meaning we had to hit 3 company moves per day; and 2) we were shooting in February, so our window of light was limited.
Now, I’m used to working under a time crunch. Most crews are. But the fact that this was my baby, with my money on the line if we didn’t get what we needed? I admit, it added some stress to the days. In a strange way, however, it was also liberating. If we didn’t get the shot, no one would be upset with me but, well, me! I’m used to that.
Nowhere in the film is the time crunch more evident, in my opinion, than the cafe scene. It was the last scene we shot, and we had about 3 hours before the sun went down and the cafe owner started charging me overtime. Looking at the final product now, I feel I can safely say several things are true: 1) We were technically able to complete the shoot the scene in the allotted time; 2) I didn’t lose any additional money; 3) The scene doesn’t have any major continuity issues; 4) I don’t have any problems with the acting, and I think Paul and Jeremy’s performances benefitted from the fact that they were tired; 5) The scene was an absolutely heinous monster to edit; and 6) 2 more hours would’ve made a world of difference in a million different ways.
That’s all! 2 hours! Not two weeks, or even 2 days! Two measly hours.
Of course, due to the aforementioned struggle for daylight, 2 hours tacked onto that day wouldn’t have saved us. No, if I could do it all again, I’d bite the bullet, rent the lenses for an extra day, pay the actors the small fee I was able to provide, and do that scene totally separately from the others. That cafe was our largest and most complex set piece by far! We’d have had more time to light, refine our approach, and get the damn tape off the inside of the cafe window.
I don’t say this to sh*t on my own movie or throw any crew members under the bus. I say it because it was a critical lesson for me in terms of what is technically acceptable, and what I really want, and how thin that line can be. Often, we don’t have anywhere close to the time or resources to make things exactly how we want them–it’s not even a question. But in this case, I know I could’ve found a way to add a half day onto that production and we would’ve been exponentially better off for it. I let what I knew I could do–shoot the whole thing in 2 days–tempt me away from a more ambitious and more rewarding choice that was within my reach, if I’d just been willing to stretch a little further.
The Lesson of Responsibility
In many ways, the film was an exercise in finding out what’s really important to me. How do I run a set when there’s no client to impress? How do I communicate with actors when there’s no preordained “right” answer from on high? How do I react when I have responsibility not just for a product, but for a movie that exists only because I want it to? No one asked me to make a movie; I don’t know if someone’s ever asked anyone besides a student to make their first short film–I think it’s more likely they asked them not to. Ars gratia artis, baby! Art for art’s sake. The movie is, by definition, a piece of art.
I know, I know–I’ve crossed the river of hifalutin and I’m hurtling towards the sea of pretension. I’ve never considered myself an artist, and I still don’t. But a movie is a piece of art. It comes from the collective effort and imagination of many people, some of whom are artists and some who aren’t. It doesn’t matter who calls themself a technician or craftsman, or a literal Art School graduate, the end result is art, and the director is the caretaker of it.
Maybe the director is like a midwife? I’m getting too deep in the weeds. What I’m getting at is that making this movie, which required the hard work of so many and strives only to justify its own existence, was a type of responsibility I hadn’t yet encountered in my professional life.
The Lesson of Self-Evaluation
I’ve written and directed a lot of things in my career thus far but, as I’ve said, this movie was a new experience for me. I didn’t answer to anyone but myself. I didn’t need to hit a deadline. I didn’t need to worry about anything but making the movie the best I absolutely could in my own mind. Never before has my own voice and approach been so baldly on display.
If you don’t like the movie, that’s a direct result of a decision I made (or neglected to make) somewhere along the way. That’s scary to me. If I don’t like the movie, I have no one to blame but myself. That’s terrifying. It’s easy to watch someone else’s movie and point out flaws–or simply note things I personally would change–but I’ll never get to see if I’m right or wrong. Sure, I might believe I’m right, but will I ever get to prove it to myself? Or to an audience? More than likely, the only time I’ll have a chance to take a movie and improve on its flaws is if it’s a movie I made. To see my work out there and evaluate it objectively, with the benefit of time, is the best learning experience I could possibly hope for.
