By Joe Cross
One thing I’ve learned on this journey is making movies is a lot harder than I thought. There are so many variables, from the unpredictability of the weather, to the reliance of the functioning equipment, to whether or not your crew agrees on the vision or gets along with one another. And those are just the basics.
Fortunately, I had a great team working with me, but still, here are jut a few of the daily obstacles/challenges/considerations we faced: getting permission to film in all the places we stopped, batteries dying, noisy cars ruining our audio, where and when to feed the crew, parking, malfunctioning microphones, the endless loading and reloading of gear and finally, personality conflicts and creative differences, such as those that arose when trying to decide where to film and why. We were acutely aware of the fact that our subject matter wasn’t inherently suspenseful or dramatic. What we had was an unhealthy, fat bloke on a Reboot, confessing his past sins to others who were mostly in the same boat. No Shakespearean conflict there. Really what we were doing was conducting one big science experiment using me as the guinea pig.
At the end of the process, would the film come alive? I hoped it would, but we didn’t know for sure.
Have you been following my past journal entries? Make sure you catch up here. I’m sharing these thoughts with you as part of the 2nd Anniversary celebration of Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead so I hope you are either able to relate or be inspired by my journal entries.