After gathering all of my needed materials for my first semester at UNLV in the spring of 2020 (it was surreal to be packing my bag with textbooks featuring Buster Keaton & a still from Moonrise Kingdom on their respective covers, even though I'm typically cold on Anderson's work), I spent the week before my official start as a film student envisioning what the next two years would have for me. I thought about what my peers would be like, my professors, and where I'd ultimately be by the end of it all (despite me dreaming of this chapter for years, it's of course only on brand for me to already be thinking about everything afterwards). What types of films or directors would the people around me be into? Are they as typical of the contingent of Gen Z vocal on Letterboxd & Twitter? Who ardently valorize the increasingly familiar output of A24 and trendy populism of Parasite & Uncut Gems? Will a solid chunk of students already have competent knowledge (or even deep interest) for the cinema pre-2000? The answer is I wished.
Upon meeting them and getting to know what and where their interests were in film within my first few weeks, I soberingly realized the indie-wood fandom of online cinephilia to be a dream scenario compared to the reality itself. Instead of such charged films as the aforementioned Parasite and Gems being the cherished new flavors of that season, it was 1917 and Jojo Rabbit (for all the most facile reasons you could conjure). Seemingly no love for The Irishman, but a lot for Joker (a professor even agreed the former film to be boring with no pushback at all from my classmates once). This was all so fucked up to me. And this vocal appreciation, even if disappointing, was cinephilia at its average best within the program. For many others, if it wasn't television bringing them to the dance, it appeared to be nothing of discernible foundation at all. This was when the worst realization hit me. Many if not the majority *love* the act of making movies, but have little to no interest in *engaging* with them intellectually or articulately. A total one-way street. For myself, this is nothing short of baffling. Though it is not a requirement for one to be a scholar in the history of their field, in an artistic practice first and foremost (even commercially minded pursuits are dependent on the literacies of art), one would think that those doing the pursuing would at least have some solid grounding and developed ideologies towards the thing they're working at, never mind the exorbitant costs of tuition, an increasingly hostile and competitive industry, and one's own time. Just about every successful artist, regardless of their critical standing, holds some measure of inner devotion to the very medium they work in. I'm not making it a requisite that all filmmakers be ardently studying the works of Mikio Naruse and The Berlin School, but that they at least already possess some kind of formalistic appreciation backed by a sizable enough survey of the chronology before them. Aside from a notable few I got to know, this very, very low bar of expectation was not met nor even attempted outside of classroom perimeters. Yet, the smell of high ambitions and dreams of individualistic prestige strongly permeated the air. Perhaps even a stench.
Pertinently, my first semester proved to be the most critical yet in my filmmaking development as it was during this time that enough things clicked momentously for me to properly attract to and be interested in film criticism from my introduction to the writings of Dan Sallitt, Blake Williams, and further attention to Michael Sicinski's work. And my personal revelations made about the medium, unlocked by their observations, was accelerated duly by the initial lockdown of COVID. With the outside world ostensibly put on hold, I now had all the time in the world to devote solely to my continued study of film criticism and practice. These said revelations? As mentioned in my earlier entry, my fixation on photographic detail and freedoms in the edit commenced a slow unfurling of what would actually become a full on grasping of cinema's unlimited spectrum of possibility. In taking in the intimate, auteurist evaluations of Sallitt and the application of avant-garde critique to narrative cinema by Williams & Sicinski, what became evidently clear to me was just how infinitely liberating film itself could really be. And in my personal scope of narrative, the outlining of a fluidity, both in creation and interpretation. One could argue that this maturation of thought is really just that, a maturation less unique in its influence and a more universal appreciation for the entire Gestalt of the thing, but telling from how many, if not most critics and filmmakers still engage with their art, I individually argue otherwise. This strain of thought to treat narrative cinema entirely as a formal free space is (sadly) still an esoteric one. But nevertheless, this properly loosened me up in no longer committing to separate trains of thought for both narrative and the experimental. From this point on, they were one and of the same to me.
The semester came to a gentle close despite the worsening health crisis and abrupt shift to virtual classes. For all the grief I gave my new academic environment not quite meeting my expected standards, I enjoyed it enough and was at least cushioned with elation at the reality of having my life formally committed to cinema for the next couple years. And I got to see things like Sembene's Black Girl (1966) and Brakhage's Mothlight (1963) in proper theatrical exhibition which is in itself a very rare treat considering the dire chances for arthouse screenings locally. So hard to complain there. During the summer, I made the intention to step back from filmmaking for a bit and try my hand at criticism for the first time. As anyone following me for a couple years knows, this would be the genesis for the blog's existence. I'd previously remembered in a sociology class that increased cognitive performance and abstract thought was linked to one's own linguistic growth, and so along with my newly adopted set of film ideologies, I theorized that through regular writing exercises, I'd gradually grow my skill set as a filmmaker via my ability to formally comprehend, think, and articulate complex ideas. This I feel, ended up testing true.
Although I can't pinpoint a specific piece where I felt my cognition develop most significantly in writing it, I still am wholly proud of my essay on the films of Antoine Bourges (Fail to Appear and East Hastings Pharmacy) and my review of Maurice Pialat's The Mouth Agape (1974), a film which by the way, also proved considerably important to my development at that time for its extremely cryptic display of form. To this day I still haven't seen anything toggle two violently contrasting tones as playfully as it does. Or how Pialat achieves sobering flashes of crystal clear poetry out of effortless naturalistic framing and mere accumulation of simple incidence. In fact that sentence I just wrote there, both in its syntactic construction and ideological articulation, would not have come from me prior to my serious endeavor in writing.
However much I thought I could casually brush off doing any filmmaking for the foreseeable future (especially during confinement) would laughably prove me wrong when after having made the immense intellectual progress I'd undergone, my tendencies to create were justifiably emboldened and reignited with a new and spitting fervor. In mid-late July, despite strongly set rules to keep myself from initiating a new project until I'd theoretically matured "enough" in my thinking of cinema, I spontaneously penned a short script treating the screenplay as a structure of narrative thoughts opposed to a dogmatic, literary translation of the film as I'd mostly done before. In a week, I'd finished writing and developing The Moments Before Annihilation.
Abstracting and dramatizing my real life plights and exhausting pessimism about the general direction of the world (one I should note that had already been in intense motion even before the pandemic, police protests, and degradation of late capitalism in 2020) fueled by obsessive social media scrolling, I sought to make a short piece of autofiction that'd both exorcise my bleak outlook on many things to try and come to understand them better while also softly criticizing my own relative economic comfort and safeguarding from the worst of material oppression and class violence and the internal conflict that sparks existentially. As anyone paying attention to indie film that year would know, what seemed to be an endless littering of uniformly executed films shot at home addressing the world situation was in full swing, so why would I even dare to further pile on to the infinite pile of relevancy-cloying sufferance? Because trying to superficially apply a "meaningful" narrative or reinforce a bullshit morality lesson was simply not my objective. As with what I've since come to reckon with my work, my aim was to interrogate, with the camera, my most immediate interests, thoughts, and obsessions. Not to make an all-knowing show about the world around me. Instead, a case study with fiction as an engine.
In the time since I started making films and gradually stringing together notions of what transfixed me in a formal sense, what I consciously identified as a major pleasure point over time was that of minimalistic practice. Think Bresson, Ozu, Akerman, or more recently, Angela Schanelec or Ricky D'Ambrose. Saying much with the fewest, most filtered aesthetic gestures necessary. I make no qualms that my attraction to it from the stance of a filmmaker with limited means is in substantial part to its material accessibility. When monetarily restricted, it simply becomes an imperative to create by what can be reasonably retrieved and achieved. As a failure to do so results in no movie. Although, that's not also to make it sound like minimalism is strictly denotated by an obedience to physical limitation, either, as it is of course a broad philosophical detail in its own right, and one whose core tenets I strongly adhere to. It's a world-view and a way to make movies.
I shot the film like a still photographer would a home catalog for interior design furnishings and items. Substantially influenced by a Filmmaker Magazine article* detailing Ricky D'Ambrose's work method for Notes on an Appearance (2018), I was drawn to the idea of treating every detail inside each frame as no more an object, even people, thusly reducing everything to a functional variable for the fiction being expressed. Ultimately, this links all the way back to Bresson's ideation on "modeling", but where most of his films still mediated some degree of realism to slightly offset his academic direction, which I actually like best, D'Ambrose's hyper-fixation on secluded objective specifics, used linguistically with images as words and phrases, seemed a better outfit, especially in representing the molecular reality I was attempting to visually cohere. The house I'd been in for 2 years at this point was and still is not one with ornate adornments in most rooms, with white walls lining the entirety of the space, and amalgamated with my own ascetic enforcement of daily routine, limiting the film's sight to a concise presentation of highlighted objects and distinctly shot bodily expressions appeared as the most logical pathway I should take. Chronologically, I felt it right to employ longer takes to translate the extended psychological duration of each passing day. In writing this, I just touched back upon, for the first time since then, how elongated each day in quarantine really felt like. With society in suspension and the abstract notion of "progress" frozen, my register for time still moving forward was completely fucked up.
As for sound, it was then that I also began to heavily fixate on the usage of organic ambience opposed to traditional score or musical cues, which makes itself apparent in the film's sound design. In a manner that may be logically bound to my ideas on unembellished imagery, fabricating the photographic space with a matching score resonates to me not as a given default or necessity to drama, but an active choice with its own set of rules. Those who've seen the film know there to be two distinct breaks in diegetic continuity that occur. One in the opening segment after the photo montage when my character picks up the shredded dollar fragment, of which a cartoonish tingling is heard, and in the closing shot, where Schumann's Piano Quintet plays over the moving clouds and into the credits. My ideation that prefers music and sound FX placement to be kept at a minimal, does not ostracize these things, but rather prioritizes them as accents to be sparsely deployed for exalted dramatic affectation. It's only there when it really matters. As I hoped to have properly used in the cited instances.
The film took only 2 weeks to complete (with more than half that time spent on sound design & mixing). I was most proud of it then for being the film that most matched my interests at the time and still today I view it with high personal regard. Tangentially, it was also with this film where I made the spontaneous decision to reboot my (still) not-legally-recognized FilmStreet brand with a new logo and production intro, to better fit my new overall filmmaking oeuvre. At the time I had the original identity commissioned by my cousin in high school, I was still under the naive impression that I'd follow in the footsteps of the classic Hollywood filmmakers I adored most, hence the prominent art-deco design and literal film street made of celluloid (I was not yet fond of digital either).
Furthering into my second semester in the Fall, and then third and fourth in 2021, the stars gradually diminished in my eyes as I came to painstakingly accept my (mostly) lone existence in my film program. I often found myself holding more conversations and bonding with faculty members than I did other students (and even most instructors weren't to my preference either, but who else could I have articulate dialogues about Howard Hawks or Wong Kar-wai with). Though I don't at all recoil from my open proclivity towards the cinema found in the periphery of mainstream Hollywood, this partisanship in a city with minimal incentives and institutional pillars for education and access quantifies to immediate isolation. Even if my hopes of finding a thriving social scene for so-called 'alternative cinema' was crushed, I did befriend and get to know many promising technicians: hopeful cinematographers, production designers, editors, sound engineers, etc. Ultimately, possessing advanced literacy and extensive knowledge for films, while an ideal, is not necessary to the competent making of one. I came to terms with this and moved forward accordingly. After all, I did at least meet a few fine folks who are dedicated cinephiles and thinkers of their form.
Strangely, though I had only completed my second semester, I recognized the fleeting passage of time and that soon enough, my days as a film student would come to a swift end and I'd be graduating. Conscious of this, I knew I had to set my sights soon towards a capstone project of sorts. A film that'd have to prove as my most ambitious endeavor to date, and one that'd emotionally serve as a bookend to this chapter of my filmmaking pursuit and life. By the end of 2020, I'd regularized a habit of taking extended walks in my neighborhood, both for casual exercise and my own mental well-being. In December, my walking shifted to a nocturnal activity as I found great ambience by the sum of Christmas lights and decorations enthusiastically put up by my neighbors (Halloween is a very lively affair here as well). One night while on such walks, after more than a couple days of repeat gazing at the blissful scenery around me, I was struck by a marriage of separate film ideas I'd compartmentalized over time all at once. These included: a movie set entirely during Christmas (a holiday I still am quite sentimental for and cherish annually), a movie that justified the unique "hyperreality" of the iPhone's camera, a movie that prominently featured a video diary component complete with aged digital video, and a singular scene from a script I'd written earlier for a screenwriting class with two female characters ruminating on each other's lives with melancholy permeating the air. I recall briskly picking up the pace of my steps and soon dashing back home possessed with massive inspiration to sit down, pull my sleeves up, and begin writing. Over a month later, an early screenplay for Tracy's Diary was completed.
The film is a single-location chamber drama set on the night after Christmas. It follows Helena, a young adult woman whose just finished hosting a gift giving party for friends, and is in the process of cleaning up with a close companion, Emily, before a mysterious parcel she'd spontaneously placed under her tree from before is casually questioned and prompted to be opened. Its contents initiate an emotional journey that explore an elusive old friendship with a girl named Tracy through a series of cryptic video logs. I've yet to explain much on how I ended up with the narrative I did, but to be quite honest, there isn't really much for me to talk about. I sort of just arrived at everything as is. However, what I think I can comment on, is the way in which Christmas and all its relevant aesthetics serve as the backdrop for the central drama, which is not in itself bound to the occasion.
I remain minimally sentimental these days about many things, however, the end of year holidays do still mean an awful lot to me in the comforting sense of community they foster. It is perhaps a strongly American sentiment, as they symbolize and function as the few moments in a year where time off for familial and friendly gathering is (mostly) encouraged and respected within the uber-capitalist framework of the United States. The same old loop of canonized songs on the radio (with the yearly inclusion of trendy pop sensations who disappear by the next rotation), the abundance of decorations that signify the season and mass consumption equally, and the proliferation of themed specials on television and food tie-ins laced with noxious amounts of artificial coloring/flavoring. My description of how these traditions have been co-opted entirely by commercial interests sounds damningly cynical, not that I'm not still, but I do still adore them. In my life, I've experienced on more than a few occasions, unexpected reunions with people I've long been disconnected with around Christmas time. Sometimes these occur in person at gatherings I've been invited to, and sometimes they've manifested in the form of gifts I've received in the mail or given through mutuals. Just as recently as last year, the latter happened again from an old caretaker of mine from whom I hadn't seen or heard from since 2010-ish. Yet somehow, I was still thought of and considered by this person. And that strange & lovely alchemy of separation, elongated distance, then reunion is something I am bewitched by. It's semi-regular occurrence during the autumnal holidays has crystallized it in my mind as a faithful happening I clutch close and hold near and dear. This is where Tracy's fateful return to Helena's life is ultimately sourced from.
Unlike all my previous directorial attempts, I knew it was time for me to employ a workflow that more accurately represented the production cycle of professionally made films. This primarily meant sending out casting notices to audition trained actors, who I'd most likely never met before, and working with an actual crew to record sound on set and assist with overall production, who also might've consisted of new collaborators. It was as exciting to finally be stepping up my game as it was daunting, staring down at all that needed to be done to ready the film for production, and the complicated logistics inherently packaged with the video diary integration.
In my ideation of how the movie should be, my mind began presenting the scenes I'd written with an old acquaintance of mine from high school, Jen Funderburk, as Helena. I first found the thoughts silly yet reasonable considering her real life embodiment of how I'd written the character to act and appear like, and sure enough with time, I was entertaining the convenient match-up as a tangible option. The caveat being, however, that she had no prior acting experience whatsoever. But given my practice at this point working exclusively with people who weren't actors prior to filming and the philosophies of Friedkin & Bresson being further interwoven into my system, the precedent of casting and working with a non-actor was nothing but familiar territory for me. Yet working with professionals, was not. Before I'd even completed the script, I went and contacted her and pitched the project and my interest in her playing a lead role. Without any negotiation, she accepted and became the first to board the project, still a year away from being made (for reasons purely economic), to my surprise. I was wholly grateful and relieved to already have momentum this early on in development to say the least.
Performing numerous script rewrites in subsequent months, it dawned on me that Tracy's video diaries would need to be filmed over a span of time to maximize the chances of chronicling a great number of interesting scenery as I encountered such places naturally in the chronology of my own life. A major thing I knew was happening relatively soon was another trip back to the Philippines over the summer (which had originally been planned for the previous year but was cancelled for the big obvious reason). Realizing the prized opportunity of shooting abroad, and with incredible ease considering the freeform nature of simulating that off the cuff filming style everyone attaches to home videos, I made sure to incorporate the environments of my trip as a justified story element. In the end, among my favorite scenes and images ended up being ones taken from this visit. Shooting the video diaries as a whole during the spring and summer proved to be the most fun and liberating time I've ever had making anything.
When I wasn't actively cramming my sights onto my camcorder's internal drive, I spent the rest of my free time that summer in airports, airplanes, & hotel rooms continuously rewriting the script and creating a storyboard/paper edit to visualize the film to exactly what it needed to be and for the most economical production schedule for my cast & crew. Something I found out during this was just how much I enjoy doing this work exactly when I am sat down in an airport lounge or flying. I can't elucidate further as to why, but the ambience properly stimulates my mind like none other. Can't wait to do this again for future projects.
In September, a month after returning from the Philippines, I got to work on finally sourcing cast and crew with my set date for production being in early December, when my household and others would've already gotten our decorations up. I mainly was in need of a sound recordist on set and an assistant director/production assistant to be a helpful extra pair of hands. For cinematography/camera operation, I'd be handling the duty once again since I knew best how to perform the image making I was looking to achieve. It's funny actually. I've no desire to work professionally as a cinematographer ever, yet I've always naturally fulfilled the role on my films. And over time, gained incremental skills and knowledge about cameras, lenses, lighting, and set logistics to probably be decent at it. Oh well. I'll pass the baton over to someone else at some point.
When it came to my search, I went about each in differing ways. For crew, all I did was reach out to some folks whom I'd gotten to know and was again lucky to fill out the few roles I needed with as little negotiation needed. Out of unforeseen circumstances, my original sound person did have to drop out a few weeks before shooting, but replacing them went on to be a sweatless endeavor as well. As for cast, the process was far busier.
I sent out casting notices through all channels I could possibly think of. Through social media postings, word-of-mouth, corroboration from any faculty I could get to advertise, and was even granted a presentation in front of class once. Because of my immense budgetary limitations, casting locally was the only option, but even if I had the choice to, I still would've opted to keep things local since this was essentially my way of getting to know what talent existed in the area. For the next couple months, I virtually auditioned an average of 2-3 actresses a week for the roles of Tracy and Emily. I minimized the emphasis on line readings during my auditions and instead shaped each interview to be a simple conversation to get to know each actress better. This I feel was a more appropriate avenue given how much I like to apply the real life likeness of my actors to the characters and dialogue I've written. I'm less interested in creating performances than I am finding them from what is already there. Overall, the process went splendidly, the actresses seemed far more comfortable and less anxious with the audition method I configured from scratch, and I wound up with a good pool to select from, which made me happy. What did not make me happy was having to actually choose and send "thank you but unfortunately" emails to those I didn't choose. I fucking loathed having to be on the other side of that exchange for once. Alexis Taylor was cast as Tracy and after unfortunate scheduling issues with the initial actress, Alyssa Leonesio was cast as Emily. The daunting part of pre-production was finally over and I managed through it unscathed and with a strong group of people. Onto the next headache.
Production was planned to occur in only two days max. Though this still remained a college endeavor, I was really against impeding upon the free labor those I brought on were offering. I realize fully how goofy this thinking is, especially when most student projects around me typically shot for exponentially longer, and with considerably sizable crew, but still. Maybe it's the ardent leftist in me acting out. People have lives to live beyond work and schooling after all. Fortunately, only a day (6 hours) was needed in total to complete everything on set. The first hour proved a little awkward at first as everyone was fitting into their roles (including myself, directing isn't exactly a daily exercise), but afterwards, pure euphoria (at least to me). Completely to my astonishment, Jen not only proved her ability to keep up with her more experienced scene partners, but truly locked herself into the exact performance I'd been conjuring in my head for a year on at that point. It was a pure joy to watch from just behind the iPhone's screen. And when it came to the big finale where she was needed to reach an emotional high and produce tears, that worked itself out quite organically also. Never have I been so proud with a performance as a director. Also not to leave out Alyssa and Alexis (who recorded her dialogue during post) too, of course. Given their training, I was not the least bit concerned. To have a year's worth (mind you, the longest I've spent preparing a film) of imagining manifest itself like it did was cathartic magic.
Editing the film became my life for the next three months and not much happened creatively that I once haven't already gone over. Like with my previous three films before this, getting to sculpt the 'best' performance out of multiple takes has come to be one of the most enjoyable and rewarding parts in the production cycle for me. It goes hand in hand with my overall dogma of cinema being an act of construction first and foremost. Tracy's Diary was officially completed in March of this year.
With completion of the film also came my final semester at UNLV. Undoubtedly, this semester went on to give me my highest of highs and lowest of lows emotionally. My best time in classes happened here, as did my personal frustrations with the program reaching their absolute boiling point. I could go long on the latter, but I'm bereft of the energy and motivation to do so now. Those who should know, know already. I was unexpectedly chosen to speak at an honors ceremony for the department before my graduation where I used the opportunity to praise what needed to be praised and openly criticized what needed to be criticized. I didn't fucking care to give a testimonial quite frankly. Most of what I feel was my growth during my schooling, was based more on my own individual endeavor, with the love and support of a few very good people I'd met, than my development being owed to the school. Not really.
I graduated in May and have been alive ever since (I think). I spontaneously began work on a new film the same month (the quickest I've transitioned from one project to another) with some fine folks I might've not met nearly as soon if it weren't for film school. Now, for the after.
Thank you Roudi, Cole, Lorelei, Andrew, Spencer, Jennifer, Alyssa, Alexis, Natalie, Kyara, Frano, Pierre, Leo, Gavin, Dario, Professor Levner, Professor Edmiston, Professor Tylo, Professor Park, and Professor Angel.
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