Sunday, 02 April 2006 | Retraining

[Shoot a movie on a single three-minute roll of Super 8 film. No later editing, no post-production! Straight from the lab, we'll screen these films for the first time in front of the audience and the filmmakers themselves.]

I made a movie today, the hardest one. I'm more of an improviser than a planner, and this film required that I plan out every shot in advance (and in order), and make it fit into exactly 3 minutes and 15 seconds of tape. While I was writing out the shot list in painstaking detail, my brain was in revolt and kept telling me not to bother with things that are zero fun.

I was using film rather than video, which meant there was no LCD screen to monitor my progress, passing time was marked with a stopwatch and an unelectronic sheet of paper, and all (still unknown) mistakes will be unforgivingly preserved in the final product.

Other ways this project was not meant for me: the editing process is my favorite part of filmmaking, which is the process that got axed. I like overshooting footage so that I have a lot to work with (I'm indecisive and like to have options), and today I was forced to shoot conservatively. I tend to work with one person at a time, and dislike telling people what to do; for this project I had to figure out how to organize and direct a group. I'm a perfectionist, and there's no way this film is going to escape being a little messy.

Now that I think about it, this project is like some sort of therapy designed for me to overcome my entire personality. It's probably not so different from being locked in a room with cockroaches as a method of learning to be okay with them.

Not that it wasn't fun -- it really was; it was just challenging. My (charming/creative) friends exceeded my expectations with their performances, helpfulness, and patience; I'm kind of humbled by how much time and effort they put into the project, or that they had enough faith in it to be willing to do so. Also, today's weather was ignorably good. (I like it when weather is so mild that you hardly notice it.)

It takes a surprising length of time to shoot three minutes; by the end I was exhausted from hours of decision-making and being at war with my own personality. Now that it's over, I feel a weird mixture of accomplishment and fear. The first time I'll get to see the film will be in front of an audience, and I don't know if it'll even make sense. Or be in focus. Etc.