You may have dismissed Aaron as one of my many (many) failed creative projects – something I talked about with great excitement, started, then forgot about.  You would have been wrong .

With two lead actors busy on a movie production and the first three episodes now in the hands of a composer, there is enough of an official break in production for Mild Mannered for Nick and I to finally dedicate some time to wrapping up Aaron.

There are only a couple of days’ worth of shooting left, with an additional day or two for voice-overs, but with the major emotional scene out of the way… it should be smooth sailing.  That being said, I am SLIGHTLY nervous, just because I’ve been away from it so long.  Perhaps nervous isn’t the best word.  I don’t doubt my acting/directing ability, nor do I foresee any major complications with what we have to shoot, but I’ve spent many months away from this store and character, so I have to find my way back into it.  Into HIM, I should say.

It took me a few days to warm up to Aaron, as a character, before production began the first time.  Finding him was a little tricky because I was also focused on producing and directing the movie, but I DID find him.  We’ll be shooting the rest of Aaron within the next few weeks, so I have some time to discover him again, I just haven’t yet… and that’s the only real cause for my trepidation.  This is a journal, so whatever I’m feeling about a project goes here.  No need for concern or deep analysis (as came about when I expressed my thoughts in a previous journal entry), because I’m very happy to be finally finishing this movie.

Very happy .

My previous journal entry mostly covered a very personal aspect – one not directly related to movie-production, but one that just so happened to come about DURING movie-production.  It was more about how the production affected myself (or, didn’t, I should say) on a personal level… stemming, mostly from loneliness.

Just as a quick follow-up to the ideas I mentioned then, today I thought of another way of looking at it… involving Red Dead Redemption.  What doesn’t .  I can play that game online and be very content and satisfied with it, but only when I’m playing very casually and relaxing.  I’m someone who, as Nick mentioned in his comment of the last post, thrives on personal challenges.  The only problem is, they don’t satisfy.  It’s very strange, I think, but the one thing that ignites me and fires me up isn’t that thing that I can rely on for satisfaction.  That is where perfectionism can creep into the mix, but it’s not everything.  If, however, I’m relaxed and just enjoying something casually, like riding around on a horse and collecting flowers in a game about the wild west, I seem to be dissatisfied LESS.  It’s still all personal issues (mainly, as I’ve assumed, from romantical loneliness), but it seems to have some connection to effort and/or struggle, as well.

Of course, I don’t mean to harp on the subject, but I only chose to revisit it here because of the mood I was in as I drove home this afternoon after a few days of shooting – contentment.  Well, as content as I ever am, that is .

The title of my last journal entry was “Barreling Through”, not as a negative connotation, but because we were just charging through this production like a freight train.  After Thursday night, Nick told me we could slow down the pace a bit (since I had been trying to hurry for his sake, the upcoming Mild Mannered production, and because of equipment availability), and so we did… and on Friday night, we made something beautiful.  Just beautiful .

Feb. 2, 2011:
The above still is from a quick shot we stole tonight.  With production for the web-series, Mild Mannered, coming up soon, I’ve mapped out a schedule for the next few days that should cover enough to allow me to finish up the whole movie with only one more full day of shooting.  After a dead battery, we weren’t able to shoot one of the small scenes I’d planned on for tonight, but it’s okay… these things happen, and we can easily add it onto another night.

Putting this movie together has actually been a very interesting experience.  Obviously, I’m thrilled to finally be putting myself out there after having talked about making movies for so long, and I’m having fun with it, but I’ve had an unexpected responses in the wake of it all.  Making movies is a real high, so there has always been a “coming down” period for me, but they’ve never really been MY movies… always something I was working on with/for a friend.  I can’t say that I EXPECTED some deeper, longer-lasting satisfaction from producing my own work, but I’ve still been a little confused by the fact that I haven’t had it.  Actually, not so much confused by that, really, but as by the idea that I’ve slowly been realizing – I could pretty easily live without doing this.

It’s a very odd place to find myself, because I really enjoy telling stories and I love to perform… but it’s not everything.  Of course, I knew that for some time, before even starting this project, but it’s been kind of funny to face it while now on my OWN movie.  I pondered the strength of it at the end of my long Unbold post, but there is only one Earthly thing I really care about finding… and creative accomplishment isn’t it.

What’s made it so interesting is that, for the first time, this kind of reaction is not because I’ve failed, procrastinated, or because I’m afraid.  Things have actually been going rather smashingly, and I’ve been in a great head-space about it all.  I’m still full-steam on putting this movie together, but it’s kind of like facing a fear… I’ve looked the beast in the eye and taken charge of it, but in finally doing so, the interest and importance it once had in my mind has been deflated.

Interesting, indeed .  I’ll be shooting Thursday and Friday nights, as well as Saturday morning, so I’ll write about all of those in one post.  Below are some actual stills from the first day of shooting, that you might enjoy taking a gander at.

Well, here we are.  For the first time since 2005, I have written my own movie and put it into production.  This time, though, I’m actually going to finish it .

This is the production journal for this little ol’ short of mine, Aaron, but this first entry also has to double as a sappy little commentary on the fact that I’m finally doing this.  So, first – the sap.

Basically… it’s about freaking time.  It’s taken me a long time to move past fears, hesitations, and my natural perfectionism to be able to take this little venture.  It’s very satisfying to have taken on this project and to have brought it to fruition.  I’ve been in a mood of production, lately, with all of my creative endeavors, and Aaron is the first one out of the gate.  I buckled down and finalized the screenplay on January 4, 2011 – the perfect start to a new year.  As I mentioned perfectionism above, it’s always been the most petrifying trait in my hopes of making movies.  This time, though, I’ve been able to skirt it.  I made sure to remind myself, going into this production, that this is a process of learning… and I need to begin that process or I’ll never grow a fraction of the amount that I will by getting out there and, potentially, screwing up.  So, yesterday, I officially got out there… but I definitely did not screw up .

Enough of the personal intro, though… onto the production journal.