The Snoot Letter #10 - Pandemic Wackness
The Snoot Letter
Issue #10 – April 1, 2020
Well that was a long break! Issue #9 of this allegedly-weekly newsletter was published in November 2019. Here we are in April 2020, and the world sure has shifted on its axis since last year. I hope you’re all staying safe and healthy out there, and finding ways to stay positive as the world shakes.
If you need a reminder of who I am and why I’m showing up in your inbox, I’m a film producer who runs this weekly newsletter about society, technology, culture, and the intersection of the three. This is that newsletter, and we will be resuming the weekly publishing schedule today.
The long hiatus was because in mid-November we started pre-production on our new film One Night In Miami. In general, my life is taken over entirely by a film from the moment we start pre-production through to the week after we finish production. I should probably be clearer about that going forward, and just acknowledge that there will be a publishing hiatus every now and then.
Of course, there will be no new productions for the near future, so as a bandaid for a bullet wound: here’s a weekly newsletter.
During the pandemic pause, I’m the only person working out of the Snoot offices. As a result, I’ve been getting a lot of filing and organization done. I’ve also started turning up some gems from dusty boxes and file folders, and will be sharing some of them with you over the next few months.
Interspersed in this email are a few continuity polaroids I found from the production of The Wackness. Shot in 2007, The Wackness is the last movie I produced that was shot entirely on film. Digital filmmaking tools hadn’t yet taken over the entire production process. I have boxes of physical ephemera from the movie, items that would only exist on cellphone photo libraries in the near future.
Here I sit in 2020, a 40-year-old man struck with nostalgia for my life as a twenty-something filmmaker working on a movie about nostalgia for being a teenager in 1994.
Because I stopped publishing the Snoot Letter last November, I never officially published my “Best of 2019” list. So here you go, in alphabetical order. Maybe it’ll inspire some pandemic viewing for you.
- Honey Boy
- I Lost My Body
- John Wick 3
- Knives Out
- Long Shot
- Midsommar
- Pain and Glory
- Parasite
- Uncut Gems
- Weathering With You
During production on One Night In Miami, I had a bizarre experience with a cop who was working to help secure a hotel location we were shooting at overnight. We had a brief chat about film, and he finds out that I’ve produced several horror movies.
Cop: “Oh, you like gore?”
Me: “I wouldn’t say I’m a huge fan of gore, but I think it can be effective tool in a horror movie. And I’m definitely not one of those people who think there shouldn’t be gore in movies.”
Cop: “Yeah, I agree. Check this out.”
He shoves his phone at me, to show me a photograph of a man’s face, the left cheek torn apart with a bullet wound. Blood everywhere. An ear gone, or at least not where it’s supposed to be. A horrific image that I will never be able to forget.
Cop: “That happened at this hotel a few months ago. When we got here, the guy was just walking around like that, in total shock.”
Don’t let cops show you photos of their work.
~ Keith Calder
This Week’s Recommendations
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🎬 Blindspotting is still on HBO! You should be able to find it streaming on whatever app you use to access HBO.
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👾 Animal Crossing: New Horizons is finally here!
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🎵 I’m a big fan of Amplifier, Casey Kolderup’s weekly newsletter where he recommends new music.
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✍ As Sarah Kay points out, April is National Poetry Month. Perhaps now is the time to join the “30 for 30” challenge and write a poem each day for the month of April.
