This newsletter is dedicated to tracking my progress in making a DIY feature film. But I need to divulge into something else I’m doing. Or have done. It’s relevant, I swear.
It’s about my new short film, The Vacuum, which I referenced a while back. This thing was a rejected 48Hours idea I had back in 2021. I figured you’d have to be a dumb idiot to make an animated film starring a creature with eight limbs within a weekend. Then two-man team Positive Barry did it last year and created the single most successful short film the competition has ever seen.
Look who’s the dumb idiot now (i.e. me).
But now I’ve got a completed spider short film, which is having its premiere in Croatia as part of the Klein Film Festival this weekend. It’s a small venue that plays live music after the film screenings and I couldn’t be more grateful to have it premiere in a humble corner of the world like this.
(Shout-outs to Daisy Lawless for production help on The Vacuum, you’re a legend.)
I specifically targeted underground festivals because this thing is odd. Not incomprehensibly odd. But it is a cosmic horror that flips the trope of spiders being fearful creatures and makes them the vulnerable protagonists of a terrifying force we otherwise think of as mundane. My wife, in particular, encouraged me to pursue the idea and I’m glad she did. I’m really proud of what came out the other side.
Film festival strategy is also a lot of work. Not only do you have to figure out where to submit to, you’ve also got to do an EPK with synopses, stills, posters, trailers, bios… I’m exhausted just thinking about it. I’d love to claim that I didn’t see it coming, but I had to go through this with my NZFC short The Charm of the Magpies, so I have no excuse.
A still from The Vacuum.
Additionally, I needed a DCP. Envy Studios were great for this, not just for their painless conversion, but for also dealing with an absolute dog’s breakfast of a sound mix. Guess who did that slop? Some dumb idiot (re: i.e. me).
(This means the DCP had to be in mono which, for a lo-fi film, isn’t crushing, but not ideal.)
So while all this busy work with The Vacuum has hampered my feature scriptwriting time, it was also a timely reminder that I don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to technical management of a sound mix. This leaves me with either: learning how to do it or finding someone else who’d want to do it.
That’s a problem I can leave for another year.
I share all this to clear up any misconception that I know exactly what I’m doing. I don’t. Far from it. But I also have a willingness to learn and know talented filmmaker friends who I can ask for help. Those are blessings and privileges.
Let’s end on a quick progress report: I’m 75 pages in, with a first draft most likely clocking in above 120 pages. This is longer than I’d like it to be but it’s a good problem to have. Every tight script leaves a trail of dead darlings.
Also, I recently made a music video that’ll drop in a couple of months. I’m really not making this easy on myself, eh?