Unfinished Projects

Finishing shit is hard. This is especially true for a “passion” project.

It doesn’t matter how passionate you are about finishing — life will inevitably do its thing and there will be times when you have to set it aside to do something else. Sometimes it is by choice, sometimes it is not. Either way, you put it on the shelf and hope that one day you will get back to finishing it. The more that time that passes, and the longer that project sits on the shelf unfinished, the harder it is to find your way back.

This seems so obvious to me now but it was not 7 months ago when I decided it was time to get back to my unfinished project — MAKE BELIEVE — a very DIY fantastical & experimental short film that I shot entirely on my iPhone & in my living room using a make-shift rear screen projection.

I write to you from deep inside the tumultuous throes of the editing process –  reworking scenes  and finding the rhythm of the film.

Reaching this point — reconnected to where I left off with the film two years ago – has been a surprisingly painful process. 

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I must confess, editing is not my favorite part of the filmmaking process. Especially when I am editing my own film. (Bless you real editors, I miss you!) 

It can be endless torture when you are (in theory) left with endless amounts of time to zouz and tweak till your perfectionist heart is content. The internal battles can be brutal and it is easy to get lost – no matter how many bread crumbs you left yourself along the way. 

Back in February, when we first decided to reboot MAKE BELIEVE, I was certain as soon as I cracked it back open, everything would just come flooding back to me. 

It didn’t.

It’s strange & disorienting to begin again, starting in the middle, after so much time has passed. The person I am now is not the same person was when I began making this film three years ago. A lot of life has happened between now and where I left off.

How did I get here? And how was I planning to get to where I thought I wanted to go? 

So much life has happened between then and now that I had no choice but to go back to the beginning and retrace my steps. All of them.

I did a painful deep dive into the mess I had made.

I am not a naturally organized person – especially when it comes to something creative. And boy was I reminded of it when I painstakingly dug through an insane amount of notes I had written to myself on my phone (the place where 99.9% of all my ideas begin) until I finally found where it all began. 

***INSERT THE FIRST CONCEPT YOU WROTE**** maybe even a screen shot the note itself / text

Oh shit, right, this was gonna be fun.

Why am I not having fun right now?

Finding the MAKE BELIEVE “origin note” didn’t provide a blueprint or anything, but it did confirm my vision and it did lead me to this Milanote where I had brainstormed and explored my initial concepts.

It is a record of the moment I leapt from something “simple” — a woman talking to herself in the mirror — to something slightly insane and ridiculously ambitious. 

There was also a lot of fun distracting ideas that triggered self-doubt and for a brief moment I thought — oh I like that idea better than what I started making —- should I just reshoot this whole thing and start from scratch??

No, no no. that’s insane idea. I explored it anyways.

Nope. Bad idea. Ok so where was i going again?

I know what the end looks like but I cant figure out how I’m gonna get there and the stupid voice in my head is making it harder and harder to stay the course.

I opened up my MAKE BELIEVE google drive folder. Holy shit what a hot mess!

Once I was able to find them, I read all 12 versions of the script that I had written. I read every beat sheet (I use that term very loosely), every outline and every summary. 

Once I made it through my digital paper trail I pulled out all my notebooks and folders and dug through piles of paper and sifted through 100s of pages with partial ideas scribbled on them that just possibly maybe had something to do with MAKE BELIEVE. Maybe I could piece them all together and it would give me a clue.

Nothing.

Then I went back to my computer and reviewed all 5 versions of my 30+ page treatment, meticulously noting the differences between each.

Let me just take a moment to tell you — MAKE BELIEVE is a completely ridiculous and silly experimental low-fi short film that I shot on my iPhone, in my living room. It is certainly not going to save any lives nor win me any prestigious awards nor land me on any cool-kid website.

This is a BONKERS amount of effort and work and mulling and giving a shit about something that, in theory, does not fucking matter. 

Get over yourself Michelle.

It was too late, the deep dive had begun, I was spiraling.

I had to keep retracing my steps. I had to see and absorb EVERYTHING I had done.

Why do I feel so lost? Where did I go wrong? SHOW ME ALL MY MISTAKES.

I watched down every rough cut and every single version of each individual scene I had cut together (there is an embarrassing amount) and then sifted through 22 pages of corresponding notes I had written to myself about all the things I thought weren’t wrong with the edit.

22 pages of notes to myself, listing all my mistakes that I needed to fix.

Did I really need to read a 22 page report on how shitty I think the thing I’m trying to make is? That I wrote 2 years ago? I had literally just watched everything, replaying the moments where I noticed my mistakes, or where things went wrong while we were filming, over and over again. Obsessively analyzing them — as if playing that same take one more time where the camera bounced in the middle of the move was going to suddenly make it disappear.

I sat obsessing over all my mistakes, all the decisions I regretted.

I started getting really angry and mad at myself for the mess I had created. And all the things I failed to do “right”.

You wouldn’t be in this mess if you had just finished like you were supposed to two years ago.

What is wrong with you?

You suck at this.

No no no. You got this. Look how fun this looks! You were on to something. Keep going.

Maybe this isn’t what you were meant to do. 

I was plummeting toward a black abyss in my head while literally drawing pictures of the mother of all bad vibes in the film. Shit was getting really meta.

***isnert mother of all bad vibes sketch***

It’s crazy how that voice in your head can throw you off track so easily, isn’t it? Suddenly you’re in a dark place and bad vibes are everywhere. One bad vibe zaps you and BOOM, you fall right into a black hole and plummet into the abyss.

Eventually I had to accept the reality of what was literally right in front me, on the screen.

“Fixing it in post” is not really a thing.

You have to figure out how to make the mess you’ve been handed, and/or created yourself, feel intentional.

Make it work. Give it meaning.

Accept that things didn’t go exactly the way you planned them to, slap a sparkly bandaid on it and move on.

Or let it go.

Besides, this isn’t the real world, it’s just MAKE BELIEVE!

You have to sit and look at the big mess, all of it.

Embrace the pieces that you like, the parts that make you feel good, and put them to work.

Oooooooh…yessss. Look at this thing I made. I actually like this!

This is a a beautiful imaginary abyss.

Accept that mistakes were made and let go of what isn’t working.

If it doesn’t make you feel good, why are you holding on to it?

If you want to get to the finish line, you have to keep moving forward.

Making art really is a form of therapy.