#nothingthemockumentary

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It’s finally online for whoever has some spare time to waste. Have fun...or not, whatever.

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Here it comes. The official trailer unlike any other.

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The Show Must Go On!

Here’s another update; the wait is over, guys! (Ts, as if someone’s waiting for my movie.) I got my new laptop, so I can finish my “masterpiece”. Happy New Year, by the way!

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Have you ever felt like you are not the hero, who drives the story? It’s more like the story drives you? Well, that’s what my mockumentary is about. It’s time to talk about how I came up with “Nothing…nothing at all.” A major influence was the fact that I actually don’t have that much to make a movie out of. Here is this lost boy, who dreams of becoming a director. He knows that in order to become a good director, he has to actually shoot something. That’s the only way to learn the craft of filmmaking. Now the question is: “What does he make his movie about?”. He knows, after reading all those books and watching so many documentaries on filmmaking, in the end, it’s TELLING A STORY what everything comes down to. Here is, where it’s getting tricky. To come up with a story that you can then make a movie out of, you have to keep three factors in the back of your mind. First, what do you have available? In his case, his room, a mobile phone, a recorder and his imagination. Secondly, what does inspire you? He loves to watch movies, he loves documentaries about movies, he loves to talk about movies, he loves people, who make movies. Let’s just say, he loves movies! And last but not least, what makes it different and new? In other words, why should someone stay and listen to you? The result of this “calculation” was “Nothing…nothing at all.” A mockumentary about this dude, whose life consists out of watching movies and dreaming of making them himself some day. It’s an intimate movie that combines my love for movies and my interest in passing that love over to others like documentaries and movies, especially 90′s indie renaissance flicks, did to me. You remember that hilarious mockumentary about Tim Burton from 1990. It’s going in this direction, just, you know, not that good, super-ultra no-budget and about a dude, who hasn’t achieved anything yet. It’s a flick about the spirit of cinema that gets to everyone, even to the lost fools among us.

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Update on post-production: Ups, something funny happened.

I was working on my edit, when my computer suddenly decided to die on me. Murphy’s law. Boy, am I glad that I have got a backup on my external drive.

What does this mean now? It’ll take me a little more time to get a new computer. I guess I have to walk some extra miles to reach my goal. The only thing that I can do is to keep my head up and to be patient.

Post-production in general was going well so far. It’s a lot of work, but when you see your movie becoming alive on screen for the first time, it totally pays off.

I have to admit that it was a tough experience at first, but I think a little break isn’t that bad at all. It gives my idea more time to evolve and I can free up my mind to look at some other things and ideas. As they say: Always keep creating.

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I AM A DIRECTOR!

Yes, I can finally call myself a director, according to James Cameron. In other words; I shot something...

As I’d expected it, shooting in a real world, where everyone just keeps going on with what they do in his or her everyday life, was by far the toughest challenge I’d ever tackled. Well, patience was a helpful companion on my bumpy ride. For some reason, my always dead hometown woke up just on time for my shoot.

Despite all those hurdles, I can say that I really enjoyed shooting my first feature. There were so many new lessons to learn! Here’s what pops up in my mind.

When you shoot with a shutterspeed of 1/48 sec, you need a lot of light. I just used everything I found at home.

Some things can sound good on paper, but actually don’t work in real-life.

I have to learn to be more precise with my choice of words, when I try to direct people.

Having a road map is good, but I stopped being so surprised, when unexpected circumstances forced me to take detours. It’s painful, but the alternatives turned out to be much better anyway.

It’s important to stick to your original feelings, but I also kept my mind open for cool new ideas that I can mix with the old ones. I think it’s called “creativity.”

This one’s a no brainer: “Keep your cool!” Easy rule. I take my time to drink, sleep, step back and breath.

Acting is weird. I tried to keep it simple, I just did what I can and what works on me. I am who I am. (I am not Tom Cruise--damn it!)

If I hadn’t had an Iphone available, I would have shot it on my camcorder. I really love the story behind those pictures I shot, it gives me this warm and close feeling. This power will always be there no matter what camera you shoot the pictures on. I guess, Tarantino was right; LOVE is your best skill as a director.

I learned to trust myself. My cinema sense always tingled to warn me. when something wasn’t working.

Even though it’s a very, very small indie project, I tried to be as professional as possible. I did my homework. I made shot lists, I wrote reports, I came up with a business-plan etc. Long story short: I have a real plan.

Okay, let’s finish this post up. Trust your feelings. When your project makes you feel like “If this is my first and last feature film, it’ll be worth it!”, then you’re on the right track.

For me personally, it’s true, it did already pay off.

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What is it?

NOTHING...

(...Nothing at all.)

A school-drop-out spends his time at home watching movies and daydreaming. He’s waiting for the one great idea that will help him to leave home to pursue his dream of becoming a filmmaker.

Yeap, it hits the nail right on the head. It’s a movie about me.

After taking a step back to realize what I have available and what kind of movie I can make out of that, I came to this conclusion. I have to make some kind of self portrait.

It’s gonna be a “documentary” in a narrative concept that follows a confused film nerd on his daily mundane activities over one week before he finally comes up with a film idea.

I have done my homework and now it’s time to start principal photography on my little flick.

One of the biggest challenges will be that I have to place the lens into our everyday life and see what kind of shots I can filter out. I think it’s going to be exciting, but also frustrating at some times, cause I won’t be able to control my environment. I guess, it’s a question of careful observation and luck. (Dear Universe, please don’t make a fool of me this time!)

Okay, let’s do it.

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The Film-Story of my Life

Well, I try to make it short. In summer 2014, it came upon me: I want to become a filmmaker! What an epiphany that was!  Midway through the following school year (the year before my last), I decided to begin my preparations for my future career.  Spielberg already made at least 6 short films . I did nothing more than watching a couple of movies of his.

I knew that I gotta catch up, so from then on I put all my free time into my film studies. Unfortunately, as fate would have it, I got ill. It was so bad, that I was forced to take time off from school. So in 2016, I left school without my graduation papers, which means no film school.

Let me make something clear: The diploma is important kids! After my recovery and some time to find out what I have and and what I want to do with it (I will come to that in the following part of this post.) I was ready to go back to school and to get my diploma in 2021.

I soon made my first short film (https://youtu.be/_2jGO51-B7A), participated at film courses, made some gigs, and wrote scripts…

Till my money from past summer jobs was gone. Okay, a day job would solve the money problem, but what about my plan to become a director?   Where was I going with all this? What do I really want to do?

To learn the craft of filmmaking, you have to make films. And hell yeah! I want to make films! I want to tell stories! I want to cooperate! The problem was; I’m located somewhere in the southwest of Germany and as a film dude, there is nothing to do here, nothing at all. I couldn’t find fellow collaborators. It seems that the movie nerds don’t live around here. A career in film is a fantasy in the eyes of the reasonable youngsters in this desert.

There was only one thing I could do: I had to start my own project.

My first attempt totally failed. I wrote a script, I did my homework and I knew everything about my project.

The mistake: I wrote a script that I couldn’t realize on my own. Filmmaking depends on teamwork. What if you can’t gather a team?

Of course, I was angry and frustrated at the same time, but I eventually learned my lesson. I can’t wait till somebody else says “yes.”

I went back to my desk, wrote another script, a project in the smallest scale possible, which I can actually do alone with a little help of my family and friends. And here I am.