As many of you know, and some don't, I have been a filmmaker for quite a while now. Since half a year or so, I have been on a hiatus, after having worked my ass off on my most challenging project so far, without much success, whatever success is. And you know what, that hiatus feels fine and I don't care about the lack of success either.
No matter how cool it sounds to be a filmmaker - I actually liked to tell people I was one - it's also extremely stressful and hard work. It doesn't help, if you don't or hardly get paid for it. And you know what, getting paid for it - by others who start to act like your boss, even though they know nothing about filmmaking and the creative process - and then finding out that you're not able to put your vision on a project, thereby slowly but steadily feeling your creativity die away, isn't helping either.
What lots of you don't know, is that I made my first short film, over 15 years ago, in the year 2002. It was a film about an 'unforgettable' Christmas - starring my then 12 year old 'little' brother - and The Christmas in the title was unforgettable in the least positive way possible. In the one and a half decade following this short film, I worked on at least 15 other bigger and smaller projects, including two feature length movies. Two feature length projects that I never finished.
Over the years, mainly due to a couple of failed projects - that were worth the experience though - I have mentioned that I should perhaps write a book about 'How not to make movies'. Nevertheless, I never actually started writing it. Now I'm on Steemit and this gives me the possibility to start sharing this story of mine. I have no idea what this will lead to, how many posts I will write about my filmmaking journey, how often I will do so and what kind of shape this will eventually take, but, once again, that's totally fine.
I don't want to force anything. I just feel that it's about time to start doing this, to start sharing this. And, besides that, I feel that some of you might either enjoy the read/ ride or learn from it. It's not meant to be a negative story, but I will definitely focus on the struggles that I had to deal with, they taught me the most. They have made me into the person that I am right now.
TO BE CONTINUED
P.S. The picture above this post is taken by me with a GoPro Hero Black on El Hierro, Canary Islands, February 2017, where I was working on a self produced, feature length Spanish thriller called 'Los Ojos Rojos' (The Red Eyes) There's a whole story behind this, that I hope to cover in my future posts.