Overflow Meat
AKA Dealing With Chaos
AKA I need to stop taking low budget indies
AKA Will I ever finish a goat rodeo?
Author’s Note: this first couple of paragraphs of this piece are very similar to the one here as I published both on the same day.
Author’s Note: This piece went from me wanting to give fairly good advice¹ to very self reflective. I guess thats what happens when you just sit down and write largely about a topic with no real plan in mind. Enjoy. Especially if you want to get a glimpse into my current psyche.
I haven’t written anything in awhile, at least since I got the rights to Reaper, Inc. back. There really hasn't been a reason for it, I’ve been mostly working, it’s just that I mostly didn’t feel I had anything interesting to write about or say. While I’m not sure how interesting this piece will be or how much I really have to say, I feel like writing it, so whatever, strap in for some hopefully coherent rambling because here we go —
I’m not sure I should really admit this, but the last two low budget indies/series I took I didn’t finish. One I walked on² and one I got fired on³. If I’m being honest here, and I like to think I am, leaving something I’ve committed to really irks me. I don’t like abandoning projects but most of all I don’t like abandoning people. Of course I know in the case of being fired you don’t really have a choice, but you do when you walk on a production.
Sometimes² you really just don’t have a choice but sometimes you can make it work. A lot of it is mindset. In same cases you just have to strap in and enjoy the ride for what it’s worth.
After working a “big budget”⁴ feature that was just utter chaos I’ve learned to just go with it and to be okay with letting people fail. You don’t want to pay for Gaff Tape? Cool. DMX is too expensive, not a problem, we will manually get up on ladder every time an adjustment is needed. No money for a real grip truck and we need to work out of a uhual? Great. It just might take us five minutes to dig an apple box out. Whats the adage — Save a dime, spend a dollar⁵?
I’ve also learned to just embrace it. You get some insane stories⁶ (that are so out there that theres no way you could make it up) and you can get some rather unique experiences from it. On the other hand though it’s made me super indifferent and somewhat bitter about some (a lot of) things. It also gets tiring only and constantly working on productions that are just chaos.
Before I whine too much I want to reiterate: Chaos, goat rodeos, whatever you want to call them, can be a lot of fun and you can really bond with crew on them but you have to learn to accept and appreciate them for that are. I’m not saying don’t try, give up, etc… You should always try to do and give your best no matter the circumstances so long as you don’t get hurt doing it. When a Ukrainian dude shows up in a truck with 1000 pounds of prepackaged meat⁷ that’s supposed to be your food for roughly two weeks that doesn’t fit into a single refrigerator so you have to cram the overflow meat into several refrigerator’s spread out through cast and crew housing theres nothing you can do but just laugh and appreciate how ridiculous it all is. Chaos can be fun as long as you don’t let yourself get too worked up over it.
My major and current issue is when all you get is chaos, it becomes exhausting. It’s soul crushing. I don’t mind a good goat rodeo every now and then and I think I’d become suspicious if I wasn’t on one in a while but I also need the good shoots, the well one run shoots, the highly paid ones, to keep me sane. Don’t for a second think I don’t get it, I do, you have to pay your dues, and I’m no different. Despite some fantastic highs⁸ I haven’t been in the game long enough to break out of this… realm⁹. In fact all productions are chaotic to an extent. Nothing is perfect, thats fine, and you *generally* get paid very well to deal with it. The issue is at least for me, when thats all you get and you don’t see the light at end of the tunnel.
The truth is though, and I’m not to proud to admit, or at least ponder — maybe I’m the issue.
I’m currently 1–2 for finishing low budget features/series¹⁰. Maybe I can’t do it without my friends on the shoot supporting me, maybe I’m just not cut out for these low budget shoots, or maybe, just maybe, I’m not cut out for the freelance film life or film life in general.
Eminem said: “We’re running right back, here we go again
It’s so insane ’cause when it’s going good, it’s going great
I’m Superman, with the wind at his back, she’s Lois Lane
But when it’s bad, it’s awful”¹¹
The very thought of me not being cut out for film hurts. I love it and I can’t see myself doing anything else but whatever is currently going on just isn’t working for me. I don’t know if mentally I can start another low budget indie and not finish. It’s not that I’m shell shocked, I just…
Look theres is a fantastic moment near the end of season four of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”¹³ where-
Midge and Lenny Bruce are talking about working. He tells her if you get fired you get another gig and gig and you just keep going¹⁴. Maybe thats what I need to do. Just keep going till I make it or die.
I’m not sure if that’s the case for me. Calling’s wane over time and it’s time for me to ask the hard questions and take a good hard look at things. It’s highly possible that despite the fact that I truly love it I’m not cut out for film full time or in general. I’ve been at it for roughly two years and I feel like I’m just moving backward while everyone I started with or “brought up” with me is moving beyond me/faster than me.
I’m okay with the problem being me. I just wish if that was the case someone would tell me it’s me, call me, tell me what I need to do different so I can get better at whatever aspect I’m currently lacking or failing at. It’s also possible it’s not me but everything else surrounding me and I don’t know how I would go about figuring that out.
I honestly just don’t know what to do. Despite saying similar (although maybe in a more depressing way here) this time feels more real because its coming from me, and not outside pressure. Shortly after writing that I randomly and out of the blue¹⁵ started to get the type of work I wanted but I just don’t see that happening this year¹⁶.
This year, for a myriad of reasons (recession, writers strike, global warning, etc…) has been rough, like really really rough, and it’s just left me feeling… down. I don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel and my drive to keep digging to find it is waning.
It’s possible that if just keep digging, just grind a little harder, don’t just give up hope things will improve.
Maybe I’ll should just stop taking ultra low budget indies.
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[1]: Arguably I suppose.
[2]: I probally I could have finished the project but after you almost get seriously hurt due to negligence it stops feeling worth it.
[3]: The director/producer claims it was a misunderstanding and they didn’t fire me. Maybe that was the case, if not I’m willing to let them save face but the shoot was a six hour drive for me and once I got home, coming back out is/was a tall order.
[4]: Big for me, at the time, and to an extent currently.
[5]: I’m fairly sure I made that up or at least that isn’t it.
[6]: Maybe one day I’ll write a book about them. Or at least a blog.
[7]: One day I’ll tell that story in it’s entity, maybe.
[8]: ] The reason I largely haven’t written about them because when things go well their really isn’t a good story or lesson to write about.
[9]: Or is tier a better word?
[10]: It’s actually 0–3 because I didn’t do the last the day of principle photography during my first rodeo but wound up doing 2 days of pick ups a month later. Hard to know how to count that one.
[11]: Love the Way You Lie. I’m also not fully sure why I decided that line was important other than it displayed the lyrics the way I wanted them to look. I’m also not quite sure why I felt the need to post them in this piece as is with no other writing about it other than than it seemed fitting and necessary.
[12]: Maybe not just mine, but everyones else’s too.
[13]: I really like my pop culture references today.
[14]: Regardless It’s a fantastic scene, by far the best of season 4 and if it wasn’t for a couple key moments in season 5 I’d argue it’s by far the best in the series. Stop reading my thoughts and check it out here even it it means you don’t come to reading this.
[15]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, highs and lows.
[16]: Not like I saw it happening last year either.
