directing. a list.

Posted November 30, 2011

tomorrow is our last day of shooting best friends forever in texas. maybe i’m feeling sentimental. maybe i’m just inspired. or maybe the exhaustion just keeps my mind going. regardless, i’ve been asking myself why i chose to do this. i’m not sure if i’m a good director and i’m not sure if it’s something i’ll ever do again. but i’ve enjoyed the process and i’ve been mulling over my reasoning.

so here are a list of reasons why i chose to direct. the first list are things that i think i thought before i went in and turned out to not be so important. the second is a list of things that i remind myself every day.

reasons not to direct.

1) because someone said i couldn’t.
when i first decided to this, i had a long conversation with a friend who said it was a terrible idea. he thought i’d have to quit acting or would get too stressed out or wouldn’t be able to do it for a number of reasons. (i should note that the majority of my friends encouraged and supported me.) i’m the kind of girl who, when someone says i can’t do something, gets determined to do it.
turns out that stubbornness or anger or whatever you want to call it doesn’t actually carry you through on the day to day. sure, every once in a while, i think that i have to finish each day because he said i couldn’t. but overall, it now feels more reactionary than pro-active.

2) to prove that i’m more than a dumb actor.
this is something i struggle with a lot. no one treated me as unintelligent before i became an actor. i was a history grad student and people treated me like i might have a brain cell or two. i’m sure you can imagine how things have changed.
in the end, i haven’t really proved anything. as many first time directors, i’ve struggled with decisions and knowing what to do. in fact, i probably look dumber overall. i haven’t really proved anything to anyone except with the possibility of proving that i have a big enough ego to direct a movie i’m acting in.

3) boredom and a need to leave LA
you wouldn’t think this is important but it’s something i struggle with a lot. life as an actor can get boring. i can go a month without an audition. i can go months without working. november and december are generally slow so it seemed like a good idea to make best friends forever happen.
i was right. i am definitely not bored but i don’t know if exhaustion was the answer for Los Angeles-inspired stagnation.

reasons to direct. (the more positive list)

1) to honor and work with people i respect

i met vera miao in an acting class about a year and a half ago. we had a mutual love of feminist theory and horror movies. how could we not write a movie together? and vera was not only a good actor, she was very determined. her dedication to her acting in a classroom was inspiring. i want to be as dedicated to my craft as vera.
watching her work her ass off to get the movie written and then put it together is one of the main reasons i have stuck with it. when thinking about making the movie move forward or the many times i wanted to give up on it, i kept thinking about how much she had dedicated herself to the project over the past year. it was inspiring. and i am constantly reminded of why i get up every day to get it finished when i see her calling to get the use of some weird park in west texas or cleaning dishes for the crew or dealing with bureaucracy on top of acting as a lead in the movie. i’m not sure if i match her dedication but i try.

i’ve known stacey storey for a few years now. she has been wanting to produce and i knew she would dedicate her life to getting it done. for a first time feature producer, she has worked her ass off driving cross-country with me, having faith that i’ll get the job done, and treading all the unknown waters of producing. it’s been amazing to see her put it all together, finding deals for a tiny movie of our size, working to get crew, and then, when all else fails, just straight up doing the job herself. no job has been too big or too little for her to get done.

and of course, two amazing people believed in vera and me from the very beginning. enough to help us put money and know-how together and get the movie made. those are our EPs, tim and mary larson. tim and mary take care of the people they love and believe in first-timers, people with no experience but a lot of heart, and women trying to make a go of it. i hope that the final product can stand up to what they saw in us.

2) to show a story i haven’t seen

i wanted to make a movie with two strong, funny, interesting female characters who made a lot of mistakes and recovered from them. i wanted to look at real friendships and see how they progressed, how people hurt each other, and how they struggled with internal conflicts to fix their pain.
that’s what happens in my life. i hang out with the strongest, most interesting, complex women in the world and i want to see my life and my friends on screen.
and of course i wanted it to happen in a post-apocalypse (i mean, did you forget whose blog you’re reading??).

3) to pay back those who have inspired me.

early on, stacey sent me an email asking me why i was making this movie. who was i doing it for? what was i proving? at the time, i didn’t really think much of it.
but later i started thinking about when i learned to play drums and every time i’d find out a band had a girl drummer, i would get really excited. it seemed like a miracle to find someone just like me doing something i was trying to do. i grew up in a small East Texas town and to see women doing things like that completely blew my mind. when i discovered tons of female musicians and artists, it was like a whole new world had opened for me.
we have hired a largely female crew for this. it’s been an amazing experience.

so i guess i’m trying to do that for someone else. attempting to inspire. even if i fail at making a good movie, hell, at least i tried.

so tomorrow we go out and make an independent feature. and here’s a good reason why.

for all the girls who grow up in small towns and don’t quite fit in and find solace in music, movies and things that don’t make sense to the other people around them.
for the artists with no formal training but lots of heart who make things because they don’t know what else to do with all the love they have to give.
for the teenagers who pick up handheld digital cameras to make movies with their friends and who know deep down their movies are better than anything else at the box office.
for the actors who write and are scoffed at but keep writing anyway.
for the girls everywhere who want to grow up to be filmmakers and don’t know where to begin but hold on to the dream. dreams are really all we have.
to prove possibility over impossibility.
to change the knee-jerk response from no to yes. because no’s just stand in our way. and yeses are all we have to hope for.

see you at the movies.

brea.