One year ago, I watched “Night Catches Us,” a movie set in 1976 about two revolutionaries from the Black Panther Movement, who are trying to move on with their new lives in Philadelphia. This dramatic picture took 10 years to make and when director Tanya Hamilton called “action!”-- the production was completed in 18 days. I was stunned at the 10 year wait for this film, since it is said to be an independent picture.
It is easy to understand how the financial difficulties of getting indies greenlit at studios or taking them into production off of the studio lot can delay a film for a very long time but if this is categorized as a low-budget feature, then why did it take a decade to get from script to screen?
James Cameron wanted to wait for technology to catch up to his plans for “Avatar,” which may explain the 15 year delay for that film. However, if a movie like “Night Catches Us,” with no expensive special effects or CGI requirements takes 10 years to make, then I must be behind the times regarding independent filmmaking. Low-budget films can be made in under five years. Jared Hess didn't take a long time to make "Napoleon Dynamite" for $200,000 -- so what is the hold-up with producing films that are supposedly indie and/or low-budget? -- unless these projects are being shot on film stock rather than HD or some other digital video equivalent.
You see, I wrote a screenplay for a feature length film that I wanted to direct over several years ago and this year is creeping up on the edge of a 10 year delay for this particular movie. When I first thought about the long time it took for “Night Catches Us” to come to fruition, I considered it to be an example that I shouldn’t worry about when my film was able to be made. In the Fall of 2010, I thought “I guess things like this happen all of the time and is nothing new for Hollywood or the independent film arena, so I should just chill out”….and then I came to my senses.
In comparison, since my movie has no stars and no crazy special effects or CGI….oops. Oh, wait. My script has animated scenes in it. Shucks! Never mind that part. Since movies can be made without celebrity actors or big budgets, it should have at least taken me five years to move a screenplay into the production stage.
Even if I replaced the star-power aspect of “Night Catches Us” with the animation aspect of my screenplay, my film should of at least been in pre-production by now, and it’s not. Instead, it’s been in development for like a few months, before being put on the shelf, where it has collected virtual dust for some time. The cause of this delay? Money and resources (which is nothing new). If I can get this thing in the can my future goals will be to avoid the 10 year movie production delays, at all costs.
I want to make movies, but I don’t want to make them every 10 years. We only get between 80 and 100 years (roughly) of life as it is. If you break the timespan of a single human life down by quarters the way businesses do their fiscal years or the way the seasons are structured, that is only four quarters. The first quarter allows us to become adults while the remaining three allows us to live the life that we make for ourselves. If I work on some kind of 10-year plan for film, that’s only like 7 movies in a lifetime. That is kind of depressing, unless all of those 7 movies are each epic opuses. Talk about pressure!
“Night Catches Us” (and even “Avatar”) was enjoyable to watch but I am relieved that it is not the sole model of filmmaking in today’s world. Indiewire reported that since his 2009 film “Alexander the Last,” Joe Swanberg has unleashed a swarm of features this year, including “Uncle Kent” and “The Zone.” If a guy can make five movies in one year or at least over the course of two years, then there is no way in hell I’m trying to wait to make a movie every decade. However, now that means I really need to get moving at not only making movies that I can afford to make….but also making more of them!
That seems to be the key to the whole movie-making career thing. Making a film is a great feat, but being able to continue to make movies is what filmmaking is all about; constantly learning, improving and keeping the world entertained.
What do YOU ALL think? How long should it take to make a movie?
This post is part of a long series of catch-up posts for my participation in the GBE2. It is written for the “One Year Ago” prompt from week #17.
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