the price of love

thr

the price of love

in only a few more days, PRAXIS will have it’s New York Premiere at New Filmmakers / Anthology Film Archives. and i have mixed feelings about this upcoming event. i’m quite excited to be able to present the film to a new york audience, and our lead actor tom has invited a ton of people. hopefully, we will have a great turn out. at the same time, i’m curious about what a new york audience will think of the film. is it too artsy or is it not artsy enough? i think every filmmaker wants their film to be well received, but at the same time, i’d prefer not only to reach the audience, but also inspire them to think more on the right side of the brain. the concepts and intentions of PRAXIS were written long before the film even began actual production. and a lot of the original ideas had to be modified or changed due to the simple logistics of shooting the film and completing it in some form. hopefully, the end result is a film that stays true to it’s original intentions, a film that has its own integrity. i do think that PRAXIS does this. ultimately, PRAXIS is a film that is all about love, but at what price?

at this point in the film’s life, i’m getting a little bit exhausted. don’t get me wrong – i’m very happy that the film has screened at a number of places already, and that it’s gotten a fair bit of press. but the amount of work that goes into promoting a film can get a little tedious. that promotion, combined with new ideas and scripts and everything else that i’d like to work on – all these things, i’m finding it a bit overwhelming at the moment. the creative blocks are tough right now. and i’m not exactly sure what way to overcome them.

recently, i had an unexpected ‘pitch’ session with a producer’s rep who immediately wanted to hear what some of my new projects were. honestly, i’m not really that great at pitch sessions, and the meeting kinda made me sick to my stomach. i could tell that this other person’s single and only intention was to make money, and it had nothing to do with art. i kinda felt like i was at the AFM all over again. i’m sure that nothing will ever come from this ‘meeting’, and that this is seriously someone i would never want to work on a professional level of any sort. but, to be quite honest, i seem to be meeting more of these kind of people lately, and less of the kind that i would prefer to surround myself with.

years ago, i used to play in a couple of bands, and i really enjoyed playing music. but i did exhaust a ton of energy into the music, and i ultimately had to decide between music and filmmaking, which of the two i need to put my creative energy into. i decided then that it was filmmaking, and years later, PRAXIS is the end result. but needless to say, there is a part of me that misses writing, creating, and playing music. so, this past week, i have this simple idea to put together and album of music that i can enjoy for myself and share with others. it’s all instrumental, minimal, and cinematic. so far, i really dig the couple songs that i’ve come up with. hopefully, this project will help me with my other creative endeavors that seem to be currently blocked for whatever reason.

as for my next feature, it seems like there are two different directions i can go with – the conventional scripts: one completed horror script, a sci-fi idea, and traditional linear narrative. the other direction is to go completely experimental, and do a feature similar to stan brakage or jonas mekas – a complete disregard for convention, something more freeform and less linear. the trouble lies in the notion that a film needs to make money for it to be considered successful, and to increase the possibility for a film to make money, you have to have a built in concept of the market and the target audience. but this is a bit of a quandary – how can you really tell what the market is? what will really sell? and if you pander your project to simply all this, how much of the original idea is left to satisfy the creative integrity of the project? the other way is to be purely experimental, creating a film completely with no regard for marketability or profit or target audience. instead, you create something purely for your own sake and enjoyment.

years ago, back in film school, the first film projects i worked on were shot with a bolex on b/w 16mm. i loved the wind-up hand-held freedom of shooting with a bolex. over the years, films become much more complicated in the production, bigger crews, the need for a higher production value. but i do miss the ability to go out an just shoot stuff for fun. i think that’s really why i got into filmmaking in the first place. there were all these really beautiful things around me that i wanted to capture on film. in some ways, i would like to return to some form of filmmaking that captures this same essence of filmmaking.

but ultimately, what is the price of all this energy put into filmmaking? what is the price of this love of film?

bela tarr and the AFM

so, it’s been a few days from the trip out to l.a., and i’ve needed almost every bit of free time to recover from the trip. i’m not very good with jet-lag, and i’ve had a really tough time figuring out what time it is, pretty much as soon as i stepped on the plane. when people ask me how was it, i pretty much respond with, “it was a rough trip.” being in santa monica was cool, and there were parts of the trip that were really cool. but the market itself was rough, and not a really fun experience. but i learned a hell of a whole lot from the trip, and it was good for me to get out there and really experience what it’s like. and i’m happy to share my experiences and thoughts about the market to anyone out there who’s curious about what it’s like.

(i wrote the following few paragraphs while waiting at the gate at LAX for my flight back home):

the past few days of attending the American Film Market could be literally summed up in one word: insane. it’s hard to describe the how crazy the market has been for the past few days. but because the market is what it is, i wasn’t able to vlog about it, which i initially thought i would have the time to do. the sheer number of filmmakers and screenwriters and distributors and buyers and sales agents, it’s hard to believe that they all can be at the same place at the same time making million dollar deals to the latest teen slasher flick. but as with any convention type atmosphere, it’s difficult to get your worked noticed.

i was able to meet quite a number of people of various levels of experience and professions and the lot. lots of business cards exchanged, and i was fortunate enough to meet with several potential distributors. it’s hard to say if anything will result from these meetings – even though i think i make pretty good movies, my pitch isn’t always on target. but i’m learning, and that’s important.

there seems to be this general conservative attitude to all studios and distributors. the bottom line is that they’re in the business of making money. the film itself is not important – the box office is. this attitude has a serious negative backlash to any filmmaker struggling to get their work seen, and i’d like to say that the general feeling i got from most of the people i met at the market was that of a very cynical attitude toward the industry and hollywood. i was able to find commraderie with other east coast filmmakers, either those based in new york or the like. the east coast/west coast attitude was clear to me, and in a way, it helped me re-enforce what type of film PRAXIS is, and what it represents.

PRAXIS is not a specific genre piece. when i describe the work to some as arthouse/experimental, i generally got a blank look on people’s faces. but as soon as i mention kurosawa, kubrick, and david lynch, it all of a sudden makes sense. while when i described the project to anyone from the east coast, they totally get it. tho, i did meet a few ‘old school’ hollywood film people, ones who’ve been in the town for more than thirty years, making movies back in the early sixties and seventies. they were very cool to talk to, and they were surprised that i should mention names like kubrick and kurosawa. one told me that he was pitching an idea to a distributor, and mentioned ‘the french connection’, and the distributor had no idea what he was talking about. sad as it is, this is what the industry is, and what it has become.

in a lot of ways, it’s a little early for me to attend the market with PRAXIS – the film was only completed this past june, and still needs a good two years of playing at the festivals. after that, then it would a good time to come to the market. but there’s also a possibility that one of the distributors that i met with might really get into it, and it can all go from there. ya never know...

on a lighter note, i recently had a friend tell me his thoughts about PRAXIS. i sent him a screener a while back, and he finally let me know what he thought of the film. even though he didn’t get it, he compared it to the work of hungarian filmmaker bela tarr. i was thrilled at the comparison. quite honestly, if i could achieve even one tiny bit of the same filmmaking ideals and experimentation that bela tarr has done, i would be incredibly happy.

between bela tarr and the AFM, me and paul have decided to shift the whole marketing and focus of PRAXIS to more european markets and festivals that cater to more experimental/arthouse films. i think reaching out to more of a european audiences versus an american audience may help PRAXIS do better, and really get to people. someone at the market told me that teen slasher flicks and/or huge action or horror gore flicks don’t really do well in europe. rather, the artsy dramatic intellectual films do really well. PRAXIS definitely challenges the intellect. so, let’s see if this new direction will work.

if anything, the American Film Market experience has totally re-enforced the whole reason of why i make films, and to stick to that mentality. i’ve always been very punk-rock about this, and maybe that’s the approach that the marketing for PRAXIS needs to go. the work needs to get seen by any means necessary. it may not be for everyone, and that’s okay. but if and audience can get into it, it can be a totally amazing experience.

so, i’m glad to be home, and i’m glad to be back on the east coast. and, as always, it’s back to work…