I never understood the idea of, "we'll edit it out later." As if editing programs can miraculous cover up bad acting, lighting, and terrible direction. Depending on editing tools to clean up the uncleanable is akin to polishing a turd, it doesn't matter how many quick cuts and music overlays or generic graphics you use, it doesn't the change the fact that what you have filmed is simply shit.
Quality from the source has always been my mantra, which means that the best movies are not always the best edited. Those who rely on editing, splicing, and splitting for their video work fail to recognize that great movies come from great scenes. No amount of computer wizardry can make up for genuine performances and carefully crafted shots. The story that you're trying to tell is first and foremost the central anchor, and all else is ancillary.
I came to this realization after years of experience. I think PhaMeLe Guy Productions was a pioneering concept. Surely we weren't the first to create a video project in the entire history of high school projects, but I'd like to think that we paved the way for future generations -- at least at Orange High School. After our first movie, they suddenly became all the rage. Chalk it up to my directorial aspiration, I've always wanted to make awesome movies. Jack the Ripper will stand as my crowning entry into this world of amateur film-making (the fact that my first movie doesn't really have an official title says a lot though). It was an amazing project for its time and I'd like to think it broke new ground at OHS. The floodgates busted open, and everybody but everybody wanted to do a video project. I pulled double duty, providing not only for my own movie, but did some shooting on the side to help out another group in another class, planting my mark on two of the best projects in the history of AP World History.
The idea that I peaked creatively in high school kind of pisses me off. Surely there's more to me than those projects because despite their breakthrough quality, it's shit. Looking back on them, I cringe at all the bad moments, those awful awkward moments that smack of inexperience. Even when I watch over my little brother's shoulders when he was off making his own movies, or when I look to the projects that other people have made, they all share one thing in common: they don't tell a story. I realize now that story is the key to everything. It's about how you present it, how it shows through in not only the scenes, but in the scenarios you concoct. The helter-skelter style of movie-making just doesn't cut it anymore, there's no room for improvisation, everything has to be scripted, planned, and laid out days before the actual shoot. The difference it makes is absolutely staggering. Quality from the source means quality from the script. If you break down most of the movies on paper, they read terrible -- just like their actual quality.
Making a movie is no small feat. It requires ambition, actors, (which are hard to come by since friends hardly make for the best of actors and, they're always too damn busy to whet the appetite of amateur auteurs), time, and hard work. Getting the equipment together is a hassle all on its own, but the reason most movies never make it off their feet is because people never spend the necessary time in pre-production to plan a really great movie. The last movie I made used no cameras at all. It was for all intents and purposes, an "anime."
The movie was for my Japanese class and it was nothing short of spectacular. I drew every character myself, made use of black and white photographs as backgrounds, and scrounged up some students in class to be voice actors (have you ever had foreign language voice directing experience?). I had to write the whole script, have it translated, proofread, and then have all the actors act out their roles with their voice in addition to drawing all the necessary panels, putting together the voice track with the pictures, and adding in the right music. I pulled it off in about 3 weeks and in the process, probably shortened my life by 3 weeks. It was so amazing that the traditional bounds of "extra credit" had to be broken because such a project was deserving of so much more. I don't think I've made such an exertion sheer will and effort since.
Upon review though, the script has a lot of unnecessary moments and pieces of dialogue that I put in for the sole purpose of demonstrating many of the grammar structures and vocabulary we learned in class, so the audience was very specific. I've always wanted to do a "director's cut" version that cut down on all the extra chatter but I'm too lazy to get around to it. I should probably put that on my schedule of things to do now that I think about it. I'm feeling particularly ambitious right now though. I believe this year is due for another project, but I don't know what I should do. It should be something dazzling, something big, and something that demonstrates my creativity. Whatever it is, I'll make sure to remember one thing: quality from the source.
