xtcian

4/1/03 Chapel Hill, NC I

4/1/03 Chapel Hill, NC

I was reminded by Sean that four years ago today, I was knee-deep in directing my first film, called "The Rescue of Autumn." It was a short piece, about fourteen minutes long, but shot on some gorgeous 35mm stock that was way better than the material deserved. The actors were great: Seth Shelden, Sean and Jordana all performed admirably, as well as my sister Michelle (as a deaf Scrabble player) and UNC alum Amy Amerson – but let's face facts: I really had no idea what I was doing.

We were beset by all kinds of problems. The film we were using was called "end stock," meaning it was the last bits of unexposed film left in the can by blockbuster movie shoots. My film could easily have been what was left over while they were making "Godzilla." Indie films use end stock because it's affordable, but you only get 400 feet of the stuff at a time; you could be in the middle of a fantastic scene, and the camera will suddenly run out of film (which happened at least 10 times).

We also had some of the worst weather in history, a theme that has been a constant for my film shoots. Even though it was April in Los Angeles, the temperature barely got above freezing, and there were gales up to 50mph. On the last day of the production, it poured down 10 straight hours in a city where it never rains. It was unrelentingly miserable, and pretty much everyone got sick.

When I got the footage back from the lab, it turned out that the sound guy accidentally erased an entire day of sound. Then we watched the picture, and it turned out that our Director of Photography accidentally shot the entire picture two F-stops too dark. Which meant that some key scenes were silent and basically black. It took three months of blowing out the footage in order to see actual life forms - and re-recording the dialogue in my basement until I could show it to anybody.

Seth, Jordana & Sean in "The Rescue of Autumn"

The premiere of the film took place at Jeollado sushi restaurant in the East Village on July 10, 1999. I traveled all the way there from California because I knew nobody in Los Angeles would give a shit. After getting a rowdy crowd of about 100 people drunk on bourbon and sake, we screened the movie and at the end, the entire place erupted in applause and ovation. Several people wanted into my next project, whatever it would be, and I wrote the Pink House movie a week later.

Now, I'm no fool. "Autumn" makes no sense, it's poorly-directed, and apart from four or five zingers, the script is not 1/10th as funny as it was supposed to be. Drunk on Japanese sake is about the only way to get a kick out of it. But it taught me determination, editing, pacing, not to trust first instincts and how to ask for what I wanted. It was the perfect baptism for the firestorm the Pink House would bring two years later. And as a not-so-side note, it brought my brother to the girl he might marry one day, so it has some legacy other than my own navel.

sunny and 70 here in Chapel Hill, thanks!