Funny, I had reason to share this scene I shot a few years, so I watched it again, first time in years and found it to be a lovely, warm, charming piece. Also looking at the credits, Ivan McCullough, Trevor Murphy, Nikki Moss, Sue Downey! You’d be doing well to get such and amazing crew list on your short film! Not to mention Grace and Greame, our beautiful actors who graced us with their talent and chemistry!
But a couple of people recently brought this story up again to me, wondering what happened with it and asking why is never got off the ground. I mused on that for a bit and I guess realised it was because I put the power into the hands of others, instead of just making it. When I set out to make it, I started asking for permission to make from people who did know anything about it, me, how much it meant to me and my wife or my vision for it!
So I took there lack of enthusiasm, rejection or even being completely ignored as a mark of the work, and lost confidence in it and energy for it. But it has always stayed with me as something I want, no, need to make!
I spoke to my career coach about this a while back, when we talk specifically about this project in relation to my creative funk, about being stuck. This project became a giant boulder damming the river of my creative life. I tried to be creative, but the little trickles that were able to escape round the side, were just that, small projects, one day here, another day there!
Now, I was able to do well doing that. But that boulder remains, and the water behind has stagnated. So I need to finally move that boulder, I need to make this film so the waters can flow again!
I know I can’t make it the way I had planned, our lovely cast have grown older and moved onto the next stage of their lives, as these characters would have and as we did! I don’t have to money to make it the way I wanted to, and I’ve already proved that no one wants to give me the money. But what is different this time is that those people don’t matter, and that I won’t give them any power over this story, because it’s mine. The only person I need permission from to make this is me. And I say YES to me.
So a rethink and a rewrite is needed first. But perhaps the way I was working while I was creatively dammed, these one day one location two actor short films I’ve been making, and that have been doing well, perhaps that has been a new kind of film school for me. I’ve been rethinking how I make films. So I have to take what I can from those lessons and keep going in that direction, because the old way didn’t work. It’s now time to make it work, and finally tell this story and make this feature film, time for 10 Days in December to finally become a reality.
Frank W. Kelly 