Inhale...hold....exhale.
OK, that damn art-house film idea that I've been developing, kicking around, and fighting with is driving me nuts. My attitude on it keeps flipping between, "This will rock!!" to "This will suck ass; it's pretentious, it's melodrama, it's heavy handed, and the style can't sustain a 90 minute flick."
UGH!!
Suffice it to say, I'm of two minds on even developing this project further; it might need to gestate a bit.
In cases like this, I often end up with something different than I was originally thinking. Usually--but not always--these frustrating ideas (that vacillate between awesome vibes and energy to bottom falling out despair) often end up quite exciting. It's just a war getting it inline with the vision.
My problem is that it would be a pretty internally focused story. This is what's giving me fits. It's too inward and seems too prone to melodrama--simply put, the narrative voice in this work is inward and in film the emotion--and the created world--need to be externally viable. It's going to demand a balancing act and subtle building of images and pace to layer the emotional context if I have any shot of pulling this off.
I do believe I can do it or I wouldn't have beat my head against this for so long; I do have an idea for the model to base it on.
I just fear the melodrama and I have strong doubts about the style I'm thinking of lasting for 90 minutes.
If it works, if I get that nuance right...well, I practically get giddy from that hope. If I get it right, it could go off fantastic.
It will need nuanced camera work I think.
I'll need to build the emotion into the flow of it. Layer it, build it up...like trying to layer a sandcastle into being before the surf laps up to it's walls and pulls it down and out to sea with the final black fade out.
I have to develop the narrative and write that out first...then--I think--I can compile the needs for the visual telling.
See, the manic part of the vibe is in me, "It'll work!"
The skeptic says, "it's F'd. What you're trying to pull off is not for this medium."
Yet, that's exactly why I want to take a shot at it. It's also what gets me juiced and crushes me all at once. I'm too old to start this crap again. I'm out of the loop...it's a pipe dream and I'll never do it.
Yeah, keep saying that. Keep believing that. Keep doubting.
But, while you don't know this about me, I do: I'll have my troops in the woods unseen. I'll be prepared for the war before I know I'm in it.
And, when that first volley of smoking arrows arcs out from the silent oaks to bite flesh and shield....you'll hear the barbaric yells and we'll be charging out to take the field.
In other words, I will pull this damn idea off in some way.
I may fail in the attempt, it truly may suck, but if I go down in the effort mayhap the Valkyries will lift me from the field--cradled, black mud and blood sloughing from my pale arm--with soft song and sunlight.
Live well, laugh often, love much!
--Jason Henke
© 2008 Jason Henke
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