Losing yourself in your art

“I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor. That’s my dream; that’s my nightmare. Crawling, slithering, along the edge of a straight razor… and surviving.” – Colonel Kurtz, ‘APOCALYPSE NOW’

I fully intend to lose my mind when we make our next feature film ‘TIME AND PLACE’. Commitment has never been something I’ve struggled with when making our productions. A desire to get lost in the work is something I’ve always aspired to but in some way been fearful of, or just missed out on. The final scenes of ‘NARCISSIST’ are the closest we’ve all come. They were very tough, emotionally draining, personally revelatory moments, which put us through our paces (not in vain though, as everyone who saw them were left speechless). I want the entirety of ‘TIME AND PLACE’ to be like this. Recently speaking with a local dancer (founder of FreeSpirit Dance Company, Nikki Mclusky) about the time she got lost in a performance; bruised, covered in dirt, feeling sick, completely unaware of any of the performance taking place. It’s that transcendental experience I want from ‘TIME AND PLACE’.

I’ve watched ‘Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmakers Apocalypse’ – recalling the experience of all involved during the shoot of ‘Apocalypse Now’ in which Martin Sheen had a heart attack and Francis Ford Coppola went insane – as many times as the masterpiece itself. Same goes for the creation of Werner Herzog’s masterpiece ‘Aguirre, Wrath of God’. It’s an odd thing to want. It’s an odd thing to aspire to. But of every great work of art (song, film, show, canvas) that I admire, each has involved those creating it losing something of themselves to it. They suffered for their art because they wanted to be part of something more than themselves.

The only life goal I have is to make a masterpiece. Not a box office success, not the most entertaining film of all time, but something that hasn’t been done before, that I consider to be the best I could possible create. As close to perfect as I could make something. And seeing as ‘TIME AND PLACE” is the only feature film I have left that I want to make, I’ll have to try and make that the one.

So come January, watch out. We’re planning to lose our minds. Dealing with morality, insanity, universal fears, consequences, time, self and family, it’s going to be quite a heavy ride. You’ve been warned.

*’TIME AND PLACE’ begins shooting one month today – January 14th 2014*