Exporting sucks

Four years ago, I had just finished an extensive film production for our church. A near four months of shooting, writing and general goofing around finally came to a climactic close at our church's dinner theater, as The Rebourne Identity (a clever spoof off of The Bourne Identity series with a spiritual and comedic twist) finally was shown on the gym walls while our audience ate a delicious dinner. It was finished a mere four hours before its big debute, and to say the least, we were exauhsted, and decided to take on a much smaller project of the next year. With my friend and producer Paul graduating, that position fell to me. So, I sat down with my director Tracy, and we started brainstorming for some simple film ideas. One that could be shot in about a week, and edited in maybe a few days. We finally settled on parodying the old TV show, Star Trek. It was a solid and simple plan, and I started writing a script fall of 2008. We continued to edit, and after casting parts, we were ready to shoot spring break of 2009.

Yet the seeds of doom had already been sown.

At first, we had hoped to build some very simple sets for the space ship scenes. Upon realzing this might be a little too much work, we decided the simple thing to do would be to shoot on a greenscreen (which was a technology that we had absolutely no experience with). Also, we had failed to realize the Boy-Project-Productivity Law. It goes like this

[(Length of scene)(number of boys)/(amount of food on set)]*3= The amount of time you will spend shooting (in hours)

With six boys, and absolutely no food, we got absolutely nowhere. It didn't help that we were missing half the costumes. Or no one knew there lines. Or the main character (captain Quirk) didn't want to be in the film. So the film was shelved until the next year. We knew that if we got an early start, with a good cast, it couldn't take more than one month to shoot!

I have never been so wrong.

We started again the next fall, and I spent the next six months of my life chasing down actors, buying costumes, setting up greenscreen and generally having very little productivity. My skill as a producer/shoot planner was very un-honed, so production took even longer. Finally, we had the whole thing shot, and waiting for visual effects, when the night before the preformance, a hurricane of a glitch hit us; exporting. It would take nearly 24 hours to export just one scene! Adding up that we had less than that time left before we had to show it, my director and I, feeling defeated, yet again shelved the project.

The next fall, we sat down at the drawing board, looking at what we had and what was left. Seeing as we had a few months left before the show, we thought we could re-shoot all of the live action scenes (a meager 60% of the whole film.) Not to mention all the editing and post production we still had to do. Finally, after a grueling six hour final shoot, and my director and I camping out next to the computers, the film was almost ready the day of. I had to help serve dinner to all of the guests, so I was impatiently waiting for the film to be finished when I got the shocking news- an hour away from showing, the computer had crashed-while exporting!

Needless to say I was terrified that it still wouldn't be done in time, not to mention that we had never practiced the flow from film to live performance. But there he was; my director, marching in the room with computer in hand.

It was a wonderful feeling, listening to my audience laugh. Admitted, not all the jokes were laughed at, but people still loved it. I still have a kid, begging me for a copy. I can't give it to him yet, because its still not finished (the very last clip was never shot because of the film to live action flow) But we're gonna shoot it, and when we do, I'll finished it all. And I'll export it. And even if something goes wrong- we're toasting to this movie!

Cobb wasn't the first to complete Inception....

Nolan has truly made a masterpiece. A film I can watch three times and still be puzzled by all the little details I miss each time. Ok, I do read a little too much into everything, making it easy to think I've discovered something that doesn't exist. Often, I'll notice an emphasis on a specific word spoken, or even a glance between two people and deduce simply from those words that they are actually all under the process of incepted by Cobb's grandfather. Yet still, I alway's walk away from the film, feeling as if I've gained one more piece to the puzzle, only to discover the next gap. It's infuriating for some, but I find it exhilarating.


Yet I couldn't help but notice that the idea of Inception, the idea that you could make someone think a thought that does not belong to them, is not a truly new idea. Let Shakespeare's play come to mind, and substitute the great villain Iago into the part of Cobb, except with a different motive; to drive his target, Othello (the fill-in character for Robert Fischer) to the point of destroying his own life with a simple idea. Iago starts his plan with building a web of little lies and disbelief, such as getting Casio drunk, promising Rodrigo Desdamona, and convincing Casio to ask Desdamona for help. These could easily be compared to the 'Levels' of the dream that had to be built. 


Iago also uses the "Mr. Charles" ploy on Othello, convincing him that he is one to be trusted (hence the often chanted refrain of 'Honest Iago!'), all the while successfully turning himself against the ones who care most for him, and are there to protect him.


Finally, he plants the seed. He gives a simple implication that he thinks Othello's wife Desdamona is cheating on him. Here we see the major difference; Cobb will settle for now less than 'genuine inspiration', where Robert must think it was his own idea, while Iago just needs a subtle nudge, and all hell breaks loose on its own.


Either way, we see this power of the idea Cobb speaks of. We can see that an idea can really tear apart companies. Or lives.