Wander Work
This is Finish Your Monsters, a weekly blog/newsletter/blogletter about the creative process. I'm sharing adventures in art and life as well as setting CLIFFHANGER goals for myself, so--
--DID I MAKE MY GOAL?
Last week, I committed to sending a minimum of 5 scary emails for the feature film I'm working on AND making some tweaks to my new short film The Demon's Commentary so I can possibly submit it to film festivals.
This was a week where actively choosing goals and setting them down here in digital ink (the internet is forever) helped me focus and get them done. Yesterday at 5 pm, I sent all of the scary emails in one go. It was a good time to send them and I really didn't want to miss this goal. Thanks, blog!
I mostly accomplished the second goal of tweaking The Demon's Commentary so I can submit it to some film festivals. It had a screening last week so it should be pretty close to ready, right?
Once again I must quote legendary director and sound designer Ben Burtt that "films are not released, they escape." I think it's a very romantic turn of phrase to acknowledge the desire to tweak your art until a deadline bursts through the wall like Kool-Aid man screaming, "LET IT GO!"
Goal-wise, I got some very important work done including improving the color correction and export settings to get a more true, deeper black. This is a pretty vital polish, but there are still several very small things I want to play with and I can hear Kool-Aid-Deadline-Man huffing and puffing on the other side of my very thin apartment wall.
One of the tweaks I haven't finished is adding a different bass line to the music in the credits. Will anyone ever notice this? Would a film festival look at the short and say, "Good film, but the bass line of the credits could be 10% better"? Probably not, but I'm going to change it anyway.
One of the things I'm enjoying most about making films is taking the time to make every little detail feel right to me. To communicate the mood, the energy, the exact nuance that makes the film feel made by humans with a specific viewpoint.
One can define art in thousands of different valid ways. But a definition I've been thinking about a lot is that art is taking the internal and making it external. In my head, in my soul, the bass line in the credits goes "boop-boop-bwah" not "boop-boop-BAHHP." But will anyone notice or care?
An audience may never consciously notice or think about the bass line but it will leave them with the mood I intend for the film. It's then up to the audience to decide whether they liked that mood. "Wow," the audience might say, "he should have kept that internal. What a terrible bass line for the credits." But I'd rather make something honest and expressive and hope to engage an audience that way.
Anyway, the point is I realized I have another week or so before my targeted film festivals' deadlines so I will continue tweaking away. Kool-Aid-Deadline-Man will just have to enjoy hearing drafts of my bass line.
ADVENTURES OF THE WEEK--
A very full week! We returned from a nice beach trip with my wife and mother-in-law, saw two different friend's shows--both excellent. One was a two-person long form improv show performed by comedy partners who had not done the show in EIGHTEEN YEARS. If rust was felt by the performers, it was not felt by this audience member. The other was a stand-up comedy show entitled Gentlemen's Club: A Fancy Trans Comedy Show. Packed house, hilarious performers, great energy. And a perfect way for my wife and I to celebrate our 19th dating anniversary.
Work-wise, I've been getting caught up on ForceCenter podcast work, tweaking the short, and pre-production efforts for the feature film.
Initially, I thought "I haven't done any NEW creative work this week." And then I realized I was dead wrong. I've done a ton of creative work, it's just different than how we often define it.
Here's the deal: I made this most recent short as part of the accountability group Just Scare Me. (You have 2 months to make a short horror film between 1 and 6 minutes in length or you owe the group $100.)
I didn't think I was going to sign-up for the next round but when the email came in, I was shocked to watch my hands type "I'm in" and hit send.
I had so much fun working on the last film, I couldn't resist. I really need to focus on some business aspects of my career, but I struggle to ignore the siren-song of a new creative project. And making more short films will continue helping me grow and refine my skill-set.
No I have another short film due in early June and because of that it turns out I did a ton of creative work this week. Nothing at a computer. I didn't fill any notebooks. It was all just in my mind.
I've started using the term WANDER WORK to remind myself that all the dreaming and considering and waffling we do as we go through our day-to-day lives is valuable creative work time.
Just about every moment I was not watching a show or talking to another human, I was DREAMING UP ideas for this next short film.
Here are places I did creative work this week: In the car, in the shower, while listening to jazz at the Dresden Room, taking a walk, while a worker at a concession stand was being rude to me at the Egyptian Theater, staring at the ceiling before bed, one time I paused to finish a thought with my pants only on one leg. It's all creative work and sometimes the most exciting part of the process. I look forward to more half-pantsed dreaming.
--MY GOAL FOR THE WEEK--
This week, I'm going to acknowledge the show and the business with a creative goal and a practical one. My creative goal is to pick an idea for the new short film. And my practical goal is to figure out a legal issue for producing the feature film. FUN, RIGHT? That's why we all get into art--a deep and abiding love of legal issues.
YOUR GOAL FOR THE WEEK--
What's your goal? Is it creative? Can you do it while also doing the dishes like I need to? Feel free to reach out to me on social media or respond directly to the email version of the blog and let me know what projects you’re working on this week!
LIGHT PLUGS--
THE NARRATOR! All members of my Patreon now have exclusive months-early access to my experimental comedy film--THE NARRATOR starring the great Phil LaMarr. If you're interested, you can check out the Patreon here. Thanks for the kind words from those who've watched it!
There are screenings of our film, The Nightmare Adorable, coming up in Georgia and Virginia! (I also received two more rejections this week, but I'm striving to focus on the wins.) Anyway, full details are on my website here.
You can also check out Strange Path t-shirts and wall art on Threadless. And, of course, multiple comedy albums and cosmic horror on Bandcamp. Thank you for the kind support!
A LITTLE SKETCH--
This week's sketch is catharsis for me. An image of Kool-Aid-Deadline-Man smashing out of my mind and onto the page. I hope we can all keep him on the other side of the wall this week. Thanks and see you in the far-off future land of NEXT TUESDAY!
