Well, finally.  I was beyond getting nervous, I was starting to get a little depressed and pathetic.  It’s like baseball, or at least that’s what you’re supposed to tell yourself.  A batter doesn’t hit 1000%.  A good hitter averages .260 or .270 and a great hitter smacks around .350 to .380.  But think about that, that only means a “great” hitter gets on base safely a little more than 3 times out of ten times at bat.  In the arts you’re supposed to apply that baseball analogy to your efforts, that if you were to audition or write or do an art 10 times, if just over 3 of those efforts really paid off, well, holy smokes, your doing great.

Well, for me, in regards to making films to this point, I’ve been batting around .087 or something – NOT very good at all. I’m the guy in the roster where the team cringes when he comes to bat, you know, just when you had a few men on base and things we’re looking up.  I’m not even making the minor leagues with the way I’ve been batting.  In fact, in that comparison, making films with a few friends on a miniDV camera we bought on the internet, with no crew or no unions, it’s like I’ve been making films not in the minor leagues, but in the local field with a few friends for kicks on weekends because one day we dreamt we’d play for the big leagues and now after work, house chores, and feeding the cats, we hook up to play a little because we love the game and we just can’t let go.  And even in that weekend rec league I’ve been batting .087 at best.  Yeah, it’s depressing.

BUT, this is the good news.  In whatever league I’m making films in, the one with no money and a whole lot of gumption, I think we just made a film that might even turn out to an extra base hit or something.

In 30 days, from idea to finished film, we’ve made a really good film – a real knee-slapper, a real gem, with a few laugh-hooks you’ll remember afterwards.  It’s a short, so ultimately it wont have the same resonance as a feature, but even still there’s a load of shorts I replay in my head and this is one of them now.  Seriously, I’m not crazy, I know what’s good and what’s not, even if I made it, and this by golly is darn tooting good and when you see it, you’ll think so too …. FINALLY.

I wont give you the story of the film, it’s better a surprise when you see it, but the story of how we made “Pookums” is a pretty fast one.  I bought a fancy new camera, this “prosumer” HD camera which was getting the cats ass reviews for picture quality.  Since I got it I wanted to test it out.  On top of that, the ImagineNative film festival, which screened our last short, “The Squeeze Box”, was asking if we had another film to submit for this year.  So, all total, I was feeling it was time to make another short.  Only thing was I had no script, no ideas, and only 30 days to bring it all together to meet the film festival submission deadline.

Rummaging through an old box while cleaning my desk up – tidying things up is something I do to procrastinate actually working - I came across a letter from Jordan.  It was from years back and for five agonizing try-not-to-slip-into-a-coma-as-he-tells-you-the-meaning-of-life pages it ended with a gem – a story of a dog sitter gone wrong that was about three lines.  BINGO.  This was the movie.  A short insane tale.  Perfect for a short comedic film.  I tell Jordan and he says, “See, I’m the man.”  I tell Duane, and he says, “That’s funny.  That’d make a good short … but I hate shorts, they’re pointless, so, go ahead if you feel it’s something you want to do.”

With the idea in hand I banged out a first draft.  It was awful.  Both Duane and my wife Amanda told me so.  I went in another direction, the straight-up story version, not the clever whacked out plot point version and it was well-received. By “well” I mean, Duane told me it was still pretty awful, but he’d take a turn re-writing it.  He sent me his draft and I hated it and I told him so, so he told me that he hates my version and if I want to proceed making that into a film to go ahead it’ll suck and he doesn’t want to be a part of it, he only wants to be a part of his re-write.  I re-read his, and it actually looked good, and why squabble over two or there line changes that he added?  So, from there we move on to collective re-writes and Duane gets in some gems.  The script feels good.

With script in hand we send it out to some friends to act in it.  We think of Melina Nacos because she’s the only girl actor we know (and she’s perfect for the part).  We call Alex Nussbaum in because there’s a role for an insane character and he’s a nutbar as it is.  And I just helped Jeff Sinasac get his actoring reel together so I figure it’s a good time to cash in a favour and ask him to work a day for free.  I send the script in and they all accept.  Oh yeah, there was one last bit part and I happened to run into a friend and it hit me, “hey, he’d be cool” – boom, last part for Andre Morriseau is all booked up.

With cast and script in hand we get to crew.  Rob Norton is in for some camera help – he works with us on Breath Design projects so he’s free labour (and he has good framing and lighting ideas).  Jordan lays the law down – he hates sets so he’s not coming out to hold the boom mic.  Since we’re doing a draft that Duane likes, he agrees to come out and hold the boom mic (see photo here) and co-direct, but only on days he doesn’t have an audition or voice work or something else more pressing to do, at his discretion, but other than that, he’s 100% committed.  I figured I’d rent a couple wireless lapel mics and if worse came to worse I could shoot it myself.

With everything lined up with script, cast, and crew in week one, we moved onto week two: pre-production.  First bit was tracking the new camera and hoping to God UPS got it to us in time.  I’ll kill the drama now and tell you we got in time, but I was on the UPS on-line “track our package with us” website (which made me curious – why ship from New York City, to New Jersey, and then to Kentucky and then to Buffalo, and then to Toronto?  What the hell is in Kentucky that it has to go there first?  If you know, please email me)  With camera in hand a couple days before we shot, it allowed us a few days to figure out what all the buttons on it did.  When that was done we moved on to shooting some storyboards, using my house for the main location and some other locations within a few minutes of my house.  We shot the boards on the digital camera and made up some simple storyboards (view page here) … that we never looked at again, but it was good to do them once we had it all in our heads.

Week three we shot the thing.  We thought the script had some funny moments, but Duane was concerned that the film was still going to suck, given our track record so far.  I was overly confident that it was going to be funny because the humour was utterly obnoxious and therefore perfect for our talents.  And by talents I mean, perfect for shooting the whole thing basically in wide shots which meant we couldn’t screw things up too much we’d just let the actors carry things.  And every day on set we’d laugh our asses off and then we’d watch the footage on the computer afterwards and be blown away by how good everything was looking – the camera was in focus and we were thrilled.

We move onto the next phase, the final week, the post-production.  Jordan, Duane, and I gather around my computer and we ate pizza, drank cola, and made each other laugh, insulting each other as Duane gets into “all the best ideas are mine” and I get into “hey, pull my finger” jokes ‘cause I can’t eat too much cheese – and we marvel at Jordan’s toe nails which he refuses to trim because he’s “married and it doesn’t matter anymore” (also a funny “married” moment, Duane and Jordan in kitchen talking about being with someone and Duane is trying to make that person happy and Jordan blurts out, with his partner close by, “Who cares if she’s happy or not?” Ah, lucky Bridgette). By 2 AM we got the thing edited and we’re all actually, for once, not only on the same page of the film, but all really happy with the thing.  A very strange calm sets on us all suddenly.  We aren’t so nervous anymore.  We aren’t so anxious about our efforts, about our talents, about making another failed project.  So, we start to talk nicely to each other, we have great things to say about each other.

Canada Day long weekend sets in, I take off to Sandbanks to swim and body surf the small great lake waves.  Very thrilling.  Get back and Jordan, who hates the outdoors and would rather spend 40 hours alone in his studio than out with world, has completed the sound and score edit.  Holy shit, thing sounds great.  Now, all left to do is some quick colour corrections and we’re actually done this thing.

So, in 30 days we actually made a good film.  Maybe the lesson is found in the time line of project – we didn’t have time to make things precious and therefore we removed the option of endless re-writes and false starts, it was just go, go, go.  And therefore we had to use our instincts.  And it came out good.  Seriously.  I know maybe you can’t trust me from the various films you’ve seen so far on the website, but I think we actually did it, I think we actually made a great little film.  It’s the first film I can think of screening where I don’t have to justify its shortcomings – “Oh, yeah, we didn’t have enough money or time,” or “it’s just an exercise,” or my personal favourite “well we learned a lot on that one and each one were learning more, so we’re getting there, just wait and see.”

Now, unfortunately we can’t show you the thing because we’re submitting it to festivals and as such we can’t show it here on the web (if we do there’s no reason you’ll go out to the festival and see it).  However, we’ll keep you posted on what festivals it gets into, I think it’ll be quite a few different things.  But we can show you an outtake and a simple little trailer thing, which you can watch here …

So, we’re not in the majors yet.  Our average is still pretty low when everything is piled together.  BUT, we had a good at bat and we’re still riding the high on that.  We had a great group of people working for free, just for the fun of it, and pulled something really great together.  This is a lot better feeling than fouling one off the end of the bat that hits the plate and smacks you in the nuts off the bounce.

Oh, one last thing I think I should mention to the stars and the space all around us: all and all I feel utterly lucky to be able to make any kind of art at all – films, music, laughter, or otherwise.  Good or bad or whatever any of it ends of being.