An Indie Film Reflection (Part One)
“Making a film is like trying to write War and Peace in a bumper car in an amusement park. It's tough, but if you really love it, there's nothing else that feels as good." - Stanley Kubrick
So this is it. The proverbial end of one road and the start of another. Hm…… Staring into a dollarama prop bin filled with garbage, loose chunks of gaffer tape and fake money that never got used on screen - I find myself taking a lot longer than any decent person should take to do a similar task. It feels insurmountable, and a strange sense of melancholy washes over me as I remain crouched like Gollum next to this box. This box which toted around 72 pages of set dec, wardrobe, snacks, and sweet tarts bagged up to look like ecstasy for 6 months of my life. At times it has been a reminder of ten years worth of stress and anxiety, ten years worth of failure and success - and other times its been my favorite box in the whole world, containing everything I need to chase my first big break.
A feature film. I’ve finally done it. I should feel proud. I should feel relieved even. But I don’t - or at least not yet. At the time of writing this, we’ve just crossed into post - production (only 4 months late). What was meant to be shot in a rapid 3 weeks ended up being shot a day at a time over 6 months, with big, momentum halting gaps in the middle. Hair grows. Skin tans. Actors drop out and bands break up. Shutter Punk has been a ride that’s taken me to Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Pedro, Calgary, Edmonton, Stettler, and Ponoka, Alberta. Not to mention three DPs, two “Bob’s”, and a partridge in a pear tree.
In December of 2023 I committed everyone’s favourite corporate crime - I quit my well paying job in anger. I wish I had more drama to tell you but the reality is, I had been quiet quitting for months. I had spent over a year in the employ of this company ( or companies if we’re honest ) managing their brand and their marketing. Being their voice, battling with turnover and struggling to keep my personal beliefs quiet in the face of ultra conservative christian leadership. I put film on the shelf. Like a fucking idiot, I put film on the shelf. I had been working on this dream for ten years - playing ball for free, taking on 14-18 hour days for weeks at a time. It was time for me to take a chance on corporate creativity to scratch the autism itches and ticks I live with.
And then came the desert.
Standing in the dry lake bed at Jean, Nevada - everything I had put on the shelf came back to smack me with a vengeance. What the fuck are you doing? You’re not writing. You’re not shooting any short films. You’re sitting at a desk whilst your boss squishes everything you stand for between his ignorant fingers. The mask started to come off and by the time I got home three days later, the mask was well and truly gone. I came back to work with no more ability to pretend in my heart, and I started to write again. A comedy. A horror. Another horror, and another horror. My wrists wanted out of this idea but I said, “you’re stuck with me, now shut the fuck up.”
And one night, I stumbled into Shutter Punk.
I didn’t know what it was at first. Images came to me in a dream of a black haired punk with a camera, strolling the streets of a dying small town. I awoke around 3 am and headed to my computer, spitting out ideas into a google doc that might turn into something in the morning. More often than not, my ideas either begin as disjointed ramblings or turn into them. I’ll hopscotch and grab my crotch from a burlesque horror to a rom - com faster than you can say “what the hell is wrong with you?”
At this point in my career I’ve pitched dozens of producers and money makers. I’ve even had my ideas stolen. Well. Fuck it. I’m going to put myself in financial trouble to shoot a movie. I’m going to run up my cards and sell my virginity to a danish prince. I wrote as cheap as I could, relying on a decade of favours and friendships to make the scenes work and when a scene felt too expensive it was tossed - even if it was a great scene it had to go. Shutter Punk took shape over a week and during the course of writing I took a class in film finance and distribution. The man teaching the class said “it will take you four years to write, fund, and produce a feature film". I said “I’m high as fuck, I’m not waiting 4 years.”
As certain as death, taxes, and $1.60 gasoline - indie films are only as good as the people making them and boy, did I have the best.
My two principal actors, Karalee Harris and Nathan “Nate Dogg” Crockett have been blessings undeserved by me, as has my assistant director and sound guy extraordinaire Gerald Pagdato. Without whom, Shutter Punk would have never been possible. I cast them early. Far earlier than is usually correct but I needed real people onboard to make this more than just paper. Karalee already knew a bit about what a nutjob I am, and Nathan was about to learn. Gerald, as stalwart as ever, asked no questions. Looking back, he probably just wanted to come along to get his hands on some American cigarettes (menthols are banned in Canada for a reason).
The characters began coming to life under the guidance of Karalee and Nathan. They thrifted their own wardrobes, and imbibed their characters with their own heritage. I was working as the director, writer, producer, prop master, stunt coordinator, travel agent, set decorator, and head masturbator. They understood., and they gave me two of the most amazing interpretations I could have ever asked for. I’ll always love the way Karalee very gently asks for clarification on nonsense I wrote at 3 am, and I will always love the way Nathan just takes it in stride - feeding off of the quick U turns and script revisions to give me improv the likes of which haven’t been seen in human history.
Script revisions: When something doesn’t work so you pretend you have a better idea.
Everything is an opportunity. When you’re telling a story with a narrow window for success like I am, you have to be okay with things not working the way you wanted them to work. It could be for a million different reasons. Your DP could be mad at everyone on the set, or your dad and his town trampoline girlfriend could be drunk in the background of an emotional scene and yelling about things. I don’t know about you, and I’m not saying these things for sure happened to me, but at the end of the day everything happens for a reason. Ask yourself: why is my new circumstance better? I just lost my set and three days of shooting, why am I happy about that?
In my infinite wisdom and struggling to find a location for the home of Nate Dogg’s “Joey”, I settled on the best free location I could: my boyhood home. Situated on 15 acres of bad memories, rusty cars, wild animals, and reasons for therapy - I knew I was putting myself in a bad spot. But this was all I had so at 7pm the night before shooting my brother and I rolled up and began covering the fist holes in the walls with set dec. Poignant to say the least. I could not conceive finding anywhere better and hey, if Joey’s dad Bob is an angry drunk farmer - this place will have the right energy.
Energy is everything.
Yes, there we were in my childhood home. The windows are diffused, we’ve spent 2 hours just doing lighting. Not usually my style, but I trust in those with the more expensive equipment than me. I call my first action of the day and immediately I feel that something is wrong…….. but I can’t stop. Not only am I on a limited budget with limited time, but to announce that this is not working would be a blow to the confidence of my team in me as director. I need to put on a good face, and I need to express confidence in what we’re doing.
But it’s moot, and as the day wears on dread cuts me like a boot knife. I can feel my innards spilling from the gaping pit in my stomach and I try to catch the blood and the viscera with both hands so I can keep going through the day. They say gaffer tape can hold together anything so I wrap my torso and cinch up my heart a little higher in my chest. Signs begin to present. The aliens controlling this simulation we live in keep trying to warn me. The wind takes my diffusion sheets, my secondary actors are suddenly hit with other obligations and have to leave within hours. We make it through day one and I tell everyone I am happy, but I am crushed. This is my dream job. Why am I so god damned sad? I’m doing it. I’m doing the thing. I’m making the movie.
But I go home and I sit awake in my tiny home office alone. I had successfully given up alcohol 6 months ago, but I fight the craving to drink.
We go into day two, but the energy is wrong. Energy is everything. If you are trying to shoot positivity and you don’t have that energy behind the camera or even in the hands of the sound guy - you won’t get that energy on camera. I watch Karalee and Nathan begin to wilt under the weight of this energy. Like mustard gas, it sinks into the trench we’re fighting in. Heavier than air, it steals our momentum and in a moment of violent clarity the room closes on me. Suddenly the set dec covering the holes in the walls begins to make me mad, and then it makes me sick. I took my friends into this place and I buried them and myself in negativity I had long since ran away from at the age of 18. In this room I had witnessed nightly fits of crying from children in my care for years as my father ran unchained around the town with every cunt that didn’t yet have syphilis. In this house we had exchanged blows, smashed holes in the doors, taken wounds and drank ourselves into the floor. In this home I took a gun from my father’s closet and opened his truck door when he drove home drunk for the millionth time and passed out, keeping the barrel on him but not having the balls to do more - and here I was. Trying to make a movie about love. About positivity. About winning and escaping,. A movie about colour, about freedom, and about good fuckin’ music.
I pulled the plug. I sat with Nathan and Karalee and reflected on the events of the two past days. I explained my struggle to them and they took it all in. They didn’t lose confidence in me, I had worried over nothing and in that instant - I knew this would work.
