Listen To The City Breathe: Episode Three: 25

By now, all the primary footage that I would need for this documentary was completed. This was August. But I didn't know what I would do with it, or how it would fit together, or even if I needed more footage of Toshi. In any case, history would decide for us. I went away for an end of summer holiday to Yellowstone. (link) I knew that while I was at Yellowstone I would try to document my trip, and make a nice video.

After a week of shooting that footage, I was depressed with what I had, and realized that I didn't know anything about filmmaking, or shooting footage. Part of this was because I didn't know how to use my camera; and part of this was because I didn't know how to frame shots very well.

I thus started the autumn a bit depressed about what I was doing, and how I was doing it. I didn't feel particularly motivated to do any of this. But a couple of dates were thrust upon me.

The first was that the second episode of Listen To The City Breathe had to be done by the middle of September. This was so the subject of that documentary might share the film with others in order to help gain funding, or... something. I rushed to finish episode 2, and it was ready to show to people. However, the subject of the film didn't feel it was suitable to be shown, and thus withdrew her permission to have it shown. Even though I thought it was a nice film, it was still a shocking development.

The next film that I had to finish was a music video for the HANDSCommunity Center, a church based group (link). This had to be completed by the end of September. Again, I was proud of the film, and I learned a lot. I gained some sort of artistic vision there, and even suggested to the musician to change the song slightly so that it could better fit my vision.

After finishing the HANDS music video, I entered a bit of a slump. I don't know what it was, but I wasn't really feeling satisfied with my film projects, and it seemed to me that getting better was probably never going to happen. I had a couple of short fictional narratives that I wanted to shoot, too, but I couldn't make it happen.

I didn't produce or even work on anything through October and November (despite having three docs worth of footage that I could work on). Then in December Ramon Catalan (link) reached out to me to make a very simple music video for his own Christmas song, ChristmasFantasy. His proposal was terribly simple, and I was completely unmotivated to work on it. However, It dawned on me that this might be my opportunity to create a short fictional narrative film. I told him that I would work on the film, but I needed to make it a proper music video, with a story and all. Even after several hiccups during that production, I produced the Christmas Fantasy music video to wide acclaim. Everyone, including myself, was happy with it, and having made such a nice film gave me the motivation that I had been lacking all autumn.

So in January, I decided to renew my energy on the Listen To The City Breathe series. I had three subjects to choose from, and I finally decided on Toshi, mostly at random.

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