Emancipation

I've spent so much time working on Aimless over the last couple months, I'm starting to lose touch with my original vision. I'm starting to place a higher value on things that were never supposed to matter much, like my photographic aptitude (or lack thereof), perhaps to the extent that it's becoming counterproductive.

Yes, I want to end up producing a film that looks and sounds as good as possible, but there are a lot of other important objectives to consider, like ending up with a final product that people actually want to see. And if I forget the initial feelings that motivated me to begin this project, I might as well quit, because I began with the right motivation.

When I went to the Memphis International Film Festival in late March to see the premiere of Pizza! The Movie, I watched a few other documentaries and I learned a lot from the experience, even though I had no interest in filmmaking at the time. One thing I learned is that sound and picture quality really don't matter a whole lot. As I watched one documentary at the film festival, I noticed right away how good the picture and sound were. The film was of very professional quality, but it just didn't reel me in. Conversely, the pizza movie's sound and picture were merely OK, but it was fun to watch for the whole 90 minutes because it has a compelling story and compelling characters. Similarly, in Jeff Buckley: Amazing Grace, the sound quality of the interviews was horrible, but much of the film's content was high quality archived footage of Buckley recording, playing gigs, and just being alive. You'd have to see it to understand how powerful and moving his performances were.

Seriously, Pizza! The Movie is good enough that you should have heard about it from someone other than me a long time ago. However, it doesn't matter how good it is if no one knows about it. And no one knows about it because Michael Dorian doesn't seem to understand how important it is to effectively market the film. (The Aimless web site has only existed for three weeks, but a Google search for Aimless will yield almost as many results as a search for Pizza! The Movie.)

But that's not what this entry is supposed to be about.

I need to get back in touch with the Ryan of a few months ago, the Ryan who really was desperately aimless. I need to stop thinking so big, to stop entertaining the idea that I might be able to call myself a filmmaker shortly, because I'm not a filmmaker and my goal was not to become a "filmmaker" in any way other than by making a film. I need to extinguish the feeling that Aimless has become a job and start thinking of myself as unemployed again.

I wanted to disappear long before I wanted to make a film about my disappearance, and I have to get that feeling back. Maybe this entry is how I do it. I am going to bookmark the archived page of this entry, and I'm going to read it whenever I feel like I'm losing touch with the true Aimless vision. Additionally, I am going to remove all references to "Albertine Productions" on Aimless web pages because there is no such thing as Albertine Productions. And by pretending I am some kind of production company, I'm just setting myself up to lose sight of what really matters.

Albertine Productions will exist, and it will exist soon, but it's just an idea right now. Aimless is not the creation of a production company; it is the creation of a lost and lonely individual who desperately needs to find something worth living for.

I'm happy right now. I'm probably happier than I've ever been in my whole life because I have something to look forward to. But a couple months ago, after hitting rock bottom, I was free. Money didn't matter; rejection didn't faze me; pretty girls didn't make me nervous; I knew I held more power over my boss than he held over me. Like I said, I was free, and that kind of freedom is a really nice feeling. I want to get that feeling back, and I think this entry is big step in the right direction.