Dan's world, Dan's world, party time, excellent!
Hello! Wow, it's been almost a year since I've updated this 'ere blog thingy. I think I may have even forgotten about it until recently, but unlike Furbies it never complained, blinked it's lifeless eyes at me or died. Good for you, blog. I've changed the name of it as I am freed from the Pray For Dawn shackles for good now, moving onto pastures greener than frogs swimming in lime jelly. Or something else that's just significantly green and less silly.
It's been an extraordinary year, one in which many dreams came true. Quite possibly the best year of my life. We've just released another music video and it's up there with the work I'm proudest of.
Not too shabby, huh? I had so much fun making this video, and with each set of requested changes I was actually happy to be able to work on it some more. From beginning to end, the production of this video was the perfect mix of hard work and immense fun, and I was in heaven. I think one of the reasons why it all came together so well was because we did it internally, as in Trudy and myself. It was only the two of us as a crew, and that was all we needed. The band had a great deal of input into the creative look of the video and during the editing process, but as far as the camera work, lighting and post production (effects, colour grading etc.) it all came down to 2 people.
And that is one of the biggest lessons I've learned this year. Since I've used this blog as a tool to share advice I've learned from my own experiences I think now is as good a time as any. Lesson learned: Work with others as little as humanly possible. Now, you filmmakery types may be thinking "it's not possible in our line of work!" And I realize that, to many, it's true - most people tend to adhere to one area of expertise, and when a whole crew comes together with all areas blending together into a well-oiled machine, not unlike Voltron, it all works fine. And up until this year I didn't have any issues with this method of work. Seemed like the right thing to do. That was until someone who I considered a good friend stabbed not only me, but all the cast and crew of something I was working on in our proverbial backs. We'd put in months of hard work and spent thousands of dollars on something that was suddenly pulled out from under us, leaving us with an extremely expensive showreel and a newfound lack of trust. It opened my eyes to a lot of things I didn't know about the local independent film collective - that not all things come together as smoothly as one might think. Sometimes Voltron is missing a limb. Well, as they say, once bitten, twice shy. And I am not keen to work with anyone again for a while, unless contracts are written up and there is a solid safety net under us. And that is one thing that would have saved us - had legal agreements been written up and signed by all. I was foolish enough to think that nothing could happen, being that I thought the writer of the project (ie he who holds the script, which when removed from the equation there is no project), an old friend who I thought we could trust, would never sacrifice a friendship over a small-time movie project. I mean, c'mon. Who does that?!! At least now I realize it can happen, and with the right preventative measures it won't happen again. For now I'm happy to keep everything internal. Any scripts we want to make will be written by us. We will try to do as much as possible to save relying on anyone else, and fortunately we know enough that we can successfully achieve this. It was a hard way to learn the lesson, but at least it's learned.
Fortunately this whole experience has led to our next project. I can't say how at the moment, as another lesson I've learned is not to get people too hyped up about what you're doing until you know you can deliver. I imagine it's pretty embarrassing getting a lot of people keen to see a movie that is never going to see the light of day. So we're remaining very tight-lipped. Hopefully down the track when we've shot enough footage and it's looking good we'll be able to start the hype machine running. But for now I can say that we are definitely keeping control of the script, we are definitely not getting anyone else involved with the making of it that isn't necessary, and we will definitely enjoy the comfort of having a huge safety net to catch us if anything goes wrong. Because it's true what they say - you really can't rely on anyone but yourself. (Unless you have the most spectacularly awesome girlfriend/partner you could ever dream of, then you can probably rely on her, too.)
