May 25, 2012

Indietocin: Gauntlets, Wankers and Rufus Rex

by Timothy Rhys | Published June 6, 2008

“I’m going to run a marathon in July.” “I’m going to bag a 6,000-ft. peak this summer. “I’m going to write the Great American Novel before I’m 40.” “I’m going to make a feature film before this year is over.”

There’s immense power in not only announcing that you’re going to do something challenging and grand, but actually getting the calendar in on the act. Saying when you’re going to do it is a far different animal than talking about wanting to do it. By giving yourself parameters you’re going from “wish” to “goal.” You’re throwing down the gauntlet and taking it up, all in the same breath. Not only that, but as soon as you vocalize the concept—even to your closest friends—you’ve put your reputation on the line. Your friends will either believe you because of what you’ve shown them in the past, or they’ll smile knowingly because of what you haven’t. You’ll be the object of admiration or the ever-lovable wanker, and the beautiful thing is that it’s completely your choice.

So what about it? You’ve been thinking about this for a long time, haven’t you? Is this the year you’ll finally have the guts to tell a handful of people you’re close to that you’re actually going to make your movie? You should, because that’s the only way you’re going to harness those supernatural forces that will come together to make your dreams reach fruition. Visualize it, believe it and then say it. That’s how it starts. That’s the only way it ever starts.

I understand all too well that this isn’t the right time for you, that you have way too much going on in your life, that you don’t have the bread and have no idea how you’ll get it, that you don’t even have a script yet. I understand all of that because I’ve been there. And you know what? It’s all a well-rehearsed steaming pile of donkey dung. Because there’s never a perfect time. If the world were filled with people born of parents who conceived children only at the perfect time, our population problems would be solved. (In fact, our cities would probably look like they did in I Am Legend).

Here’s the magic formula: You need to believe you’re going to make your movie, you need to pick a start date, you need to announce it and then, as Dennis Hopper says in those commercials from his chair in the desert, what you need is a plan. And if you have all that going for you the gods will smile upon your dream, I promise you. The deal is this: You believe first, then the world believes.

So now we’ve come to the place where I practice what I preach: I am going to make my third feature film this year. This one’s going to be a comedy called Rufus Rex, set on the coast of Maine, and I’ll begin shooting it this fall. In fact, the first day of this fall—September 22nd. I’ll wrap it 26 days later, on October 18th… which I just noticed on the calendar is appropriately enough known as “Sweetest Day.”

There, I’ve said it. I’ve officially announced it to hundreds of thousand people. If I can do that, you can tell a few of your closest friends, can’t you?

I gotta be honest. Starting this exhilarating journey for the third time and doing it totally indie once again makes my head hurt. And my back. And my feet. There are easier things to do than begin a feature film with no money. (Self-immolation comes to mind.) And yet it’s an easy decision because all I can really remember with any clarity are the good parts. Working with my actors… bonding with my crew… having a breakthrough moment with my editor… sitting in the dark with butterflies in my stomach as the first public screening begins. Those are the moments I live for as an grassroots moviemaker. (And btw, I prefer “grassroots to “independent” because the term “independent” moviemaker is almost meaningless these days. Wikipedia says that a “grassroots” movement is one that’s “natural, spontaneous and driven from below, by the constituents of a community, rather than by traditional power structures.” Could that definition be any more perfect for the way we make movies?)

There’s a hormone that our hypothalamus gland secretes that’s most commonly identified as the reason a woman doesn’t remember the excruciating pain of childbirth. It’s called oxytocin, and the interesting thing is that if a woman is calm and has feelings of trust and happiness for those around her, much more oxytocin is dropped and labor is always far easier. Afterward she’s more likely to say “that wasn’t so painful as it was the hardest work of my life.” And the result? That bundle of joy she’s holding? She never has a doubt that it was all worthwhile. (It’s interesting to note that oxytocin is also dropped in both men and women during orgasm, too.)

Making an independent movie is just like that. In fact, I think we should coin a new word for the hormone that makes it possible for a person to shoot a second or third independent movie. Let’s call it “indietocin.” And let’s be thankful for it.

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COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT

Comment by Football on 8/23/08 at 5:55 am

Great post. Thanx!

Comment by Santiago Chile travel on 8/31/08 at 2:02 am

hahaha, I need more indietocin. I have always waned to film my own movie: I think I can, I have a friends AWESOME script… lets get some indietocin shots.

Comment by True Blood Fan on 4/05/10 at 2:43 am

Great article, i really like it. Thanks.

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