Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away...
I was a filmmaker
Yesterday night, I rewatched the 1980s cult film Cat People, with a soundtrack by David Bowie and Giorgio Moroder. A score that is probably more legendary than the movie itself.
Both pics show Miro Brooks as 'CatMan' ( made up that name today ), in his own living room, as well as 3 of his ( then ) 5 cats.
It also stars a very young Nastassja Kinski ( who is the beautiful daughter of the ugly - but legendary and notorious - actor Klaus Kinski and, apparently, a stunning unknown mother ) as well as Malcolm McDowell, famous for his portrayal as the main character in Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange.
So why did I revisit this okay, more intriguing than it is good flick ( in a cult movie kind of way ), a film that i had already seen at least 2 times?
Here's why:
The day prior to this, my phone sent me a notification:
"Today, 9 years ago..."
showing me a bunch of pictures that brought back memories of the preparations/ scouting for a film project that I was working on as a director, mid 2014.
Back then, I was a teacher in higher education, in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
As a teacher, I really missed filmmaking, something I had done more or less full time ( on shoestring budget ), from 2010 up till this teaching job, that started directly after the Summer of 2013.
The project I am referring to here was pretty ambitious.
After having dabbled in filmmaking, on and off, from 2002 onwards, I finally wanted to direct my first feature length film.
This was going to be it.
I am not entirely sure now, but I believe it was somewhat inspired by Cat People, which I mentioned above - which is actually based on a superior ( in my opinion ) black and white film from the early 40s, a kind of film noir-like horror film/ suspense thriller, with the same title.
The Working Title was WILD.
Later this changed to INSTINCT
but, by that time, I was dropping out of the project, due to burning out, not being able to work 32 hours as a teacher ( which basically means working 50 hours ) and directing a feature film project on the side.
As soon as I dropped out, I got sick for 2 weeks. Even lost my voice for some days.
The project failed without me. The remaining crew shot a teaser for a crowdfunding campaign that was a huge failure.
I believe they raised 50 Euros, aiming for 30,000.
It kind of made me happy but also sad.
The projects was my baby.
I had to choose though: keep my job or quit ( a job, once again ) and be a broke filmmaker.
A year and a half later, mid 2016, I chose exactly that ( filmmaking over my job ), once I had acquired 3000 Euros in savings. I then left for The Canary Islands with a screenplay ( for another film ) in my backpack,
but that is a whole different story...
Suffice to say, that I found an hour or so of test footage, going back to the early days of this project.
It was all filmed by me ( no other crew members ) and stars one actor, who acted in a handful of projects of mine, from 2010 up till 2016 ( or so ).
I immediately reached out to this guy, after rediscovering this footage, days ago, to ask whether he would mind me 'blowing some life' into this,
at least sharing some of it on my blog/ with an audience and seeing what it will lead to.
He immediately replied, enthusiastically, and that motivated me to write this post and even get back into a little bit of editing.
Earlier tonight, I played around a tiny bit with creating subtitles ( not my favorite part of filmmaking ), as the footage is Dutch/ Belgian and most of my readers will at least need English subs.
Don't expect great quality. This was test footage. I also admit that I'm not a great camera operator. There was probably also no separate audio recording going on ( or I lost that ) and, aside from that, it's supposed to be mockumentary/ documentary style anyway, so it is meant to look amateurish haha!
What you can expect though, is an intriguing story and some surprising acting/ improv, as that is how Miro ( this actor, a good friend ) and I roll(ed), whenever we collaborate(d).
TO BE CONVINUED ( one way or another )