Starting This Whole Thing
Okay so last Tuesday I woke up crazy early, like 4AM kinda early. Had this stupid idea stuck in my head about making a movie that’s actually original for once. Not another superhero reboot or cheap romance crap. Grabbed my beat-up notebook and started scribbling while chugging cold coffee straight from yesterday’s pot.
Developing the Mess
First I tried writing a proper script like those Hollywood guys. Total disaster. Dialogue sounded like robots reading tax forms. Ripped out 8 pages and just started filming random real-life junk instead. Caught my neighbor yelling at his dogs, filmed broken sprinklers flooding Mrs. Chen’s garden, even recorded dumpster cats fighting behind Wendy’s. Figured real life’s weirder than anything I could make up.
Gear Nightmares
My equipment situation was tragic:
- Phone camera kept fogging up from humidity
- Only tripod was a wobbly selfie stick duct-taped to a ladder
- Borrowed microphone picked up every airplane flying overhead
Ended up shooting most scenes handheld while squatting behind trash cans like some creep. Had to reshoot the park scene five times because keep capturing old dudes playing chess yelling “dammit Carl you moved my bishop again!”
The Editing Hell
Dumped 72GB of random footage into free editing software. That thing crashed every 20 minutes like clockwork. Spent three whole nights just trying to make transitions less vomit-inducing. At 3AM Thursday I accidentally deleted half the backyard footage and almost cried. Then my laptop started sounding like a leaf blower trying to render anything longer than 30 seconds.
The “Perfect” Disaster Premiere
Finally finished at sunrise Friday. Called over two buddies to watch it in my garage. Halfway through the screening:
- Mike started snoring on my workbench
- Jake’s phone rang with his annoying mariachi ringtone
- The projector overheated and died during the climactic raccoon fight scene
We all just sat there staring at the blank wall cracking up. Exactly when I realized it actually was perfect – perfectly human. Messed up, weird, and nothing like those polished corporate movies. Ended up uploading the glitchy version anyway. Got three views so far – two are probably me checking if it’s still online.
