I love writing. Something about giving the opinion of a relatively normal consumer on Films, TV and Games is consistently satisfying. In late 2019 into early 2020, my motivation hit a slump, and was replaced by a desire to not just talk about films, but to try and make them. 

As a result, I enrolled myself in film school for a six month course to teach me how to do exactly that. Over those months I worked on a bunch of short films for my fellow students, and met a bunch of people, some of whom I remain in contact with to this day. 

For me it culminated in producing, writing, directing and editing my own short film, and the experience was a high I will be chasing for the rest of my life. I’ve worked on a few more short films over the last few years, nothing that’ll be seen by millions, but each project is special to me in one way or another. So, that’s kind of where I’ve been. Instead of writing about films and media, I’ve been writing them myself. 

The main takeaway I have from this experience isn’t particular original, yet still it’s quite profound; It’s truly astounding that any feature length film is ever released. 

The gargantuan effort of every member of crew on every project is unquestionable when you’ve seen behind the curtain. Every item you ever see in an angst-filled teenager’s bedroom was placed there deliberately. The exact framing of every shot is agonised over before a stressed out assistant director urges everyone to hurry the fuck up. 

Every frame of the dozens of frames in a second of film is a carefully considered decision by an editor. That’s then sent to a colourist who goes in and tints the whole thing so it pops more on screen. 

The locations you see on screen are found by a locations department or producer who has to use every bit of knowledge, luck and charisma to convince the owner of said location to allow them to film there. If it’s been shot in a studio, then an army of artists and designers have spent hours crafting every piece of furniture and lighting to appear to function as the real thing even if they’re made of cardboard and tape. 

All of that is led by a director who has the film exactly how they want in their heads, and is just trying to get everyone else to see that same vision. 

That’s all assuming the project ever gets to production. I dread to think how many hours of work have been passionately put into projects that end up crumbling away to never be heard of again. Just writing a first draft of a film script is an incredible feat of effort and skill, that amounts to essentially laying the first brick of the massive wall that is just the script. 

Every completed film is a triumph in its own way, even if sometimes they come out a mess. 

A few weeks ago, Borderlands was released in theatres, an apparently terrible film I’m yet to see. It’s based on a video game designed for you to shoot a smorgasbord of crazy guns at hordes of nameless enemies. Frankly its not even in the top 50 games that would lend themselves to another medium of storytelling. I’ve played it multiple times through and I couldn’t tell you anything about the first Borderlands games’ story. 

Of course the internet was on fire with hate for the film, as is standard now for frankly anything that’s released in the toxic world of pop culture these days, anything below Avengers: Endgame levels of nostalgia and fan service is deemed to be a crime against the fans. 

What cannot be doubted is that everyone who worked on Borderlands, worked their arses off to get the film made. It’s just an unfortunate reality that hard work is no guarantee of to the quality of the product you end up with. Sometimes projects just don’t work out to be the film the creators desired.  

After my admittedly brief peek behind the curtain at how these things are made, I find I have a new base level of gratitude that all these stories exist for me to experience. Everything I have watched since has that baseline, and though I might disagree with creative decisions and even say people’s performances weren’t up to the level required, I will always be happy to have watched it. 

So here I am, back writing about it all purely for the sake of my own enjoyment. I’ll be posting about films, games, tv, and probably even something about my newest nerdy storytelling hobby: D&D. 

To bring some variety to the voices you read here, this time I may not be the only writer. So it’s likely I end up being the worst contributor to my own website. 

Right.. I best go find something to write about… til then!

Chazjs