A Top Ten Memoir: 2014 - "It was a long night for everyone..."
A Top Ten Memoir: 2014 - "It was a long night for everyone..."
As 2014 rolled around, my short Scotty Works OUT was continuing to play at various festivals around the country. One of the highlights was at the Santa Fe Film Festival where it played in a theater rehabbed and run by Game of Thrones writer George R. R. Martin. He was there that day and I had the great pleasure of meeting him after the screening.
Another great screening was at the Geneva Film Festival in nearby Geneva, IL. My old high school friends Paula and Michelle came to the screening which was a wonderful and very supportive treat.
I began thinking about my follow-up. Broken Bells released After the Disco that year and while I really liked the production, it was the lyrics that struck me first: “after the disco all of the shine just faded away." Since Scotty Works OUT had received all sorts of success I could never have dreamed would have been possible, I wondered what I would do in 2014 to make things "shine" for me again. I really wanted to work with Shaun and Chris who played Scotty and Josh once more so I wrote a script about a couple who are dealing with a major new relationship issue: they’re on opposing sides of the Christianity/Atheism continuum. We did a reading of the script in Chris’s backyard and something felt off. I then had them read the lines as their characters Scotty and Josh from the previous film and the script came to life! Whereas Scotty was a character I could relate to previously, Josh clearly represented another significant part of me. I was very passionate about my own personal atheistic perspective but what I wrote reflected both sides of the debate. Scotty was the Christian and Josh was the atheist. Ultimately I wanted to leave the film ambiguously, letting the audience decide if such a dichotomous relationship could survive in the end.
One of my other big influences on this film was Richard Linklater. That Spring I taught a DePaul course on his works and was taken once again by a film he had directed called Tape. The whole story takes place in a motel room. I thought it would be cool to attempt that with varying angles within the same space. This time instead of relying on a location that would cost money, I decided to shoot the film in our condo in the city. Tom, who had been living there for three years, had just moved out and we were considering renting it out to someone else shortly thereafter.
In August, I formed a great crew which included some of the people who had worked on Scotty Works OUT but made a few other changes in some major positions. I hadn’t had a lot of contact with Jason in the previous year and his feature Searching for Venice was still in post-production after two years. I felt confident enough to produce this one on my own so I asked Simon Jenson, one of my Linklaker students, to shoot the film. He was very talented and easy to work with. We crowded the cast of two and the crew of twenty into the small studio condo (including my brother Mike as the film’s stills photographer.) The experience was magical to me. I loved every minute of it. Once again we shot the film in two days and had a big wrap party on the condo’s outside patio.
That night as I lay in bed I felt a high that seemed impossible to come down from. Guster had just released a new song called Long Night which I felt shared in the experience:
“It was a long night for everyone,
Felt the dull hum of wanderlust
In the morning light
Can't unsee the things I saw
Fallen devils false gods
In the violent light”
While the song reflects a much more difficult night, there was a thrill to our night of filming that somehow revealed itself in these lyrics. Shooting the film was like a satisfying, lustful experience. It would be hard to forget the pure joy that was exhibited around me that I wouldn’t ever want to unsee. Here’s a video of stills from that production with Guster’s song underneath it all:
The violent light of morning didn’t occur until several days later. The guy I used to input all the footage we shot, Alex, was initially very enthusiastic about working together in the editing process. However, when the day arrived and Alex was not available something felt wrong. Finally, he called and admitted what had happened: he had accidently wiped out all of the footage by attempting to reformat the one hard drive he was using. Everything we shot was gone. His apologies couldn’t save the pain I felt inside. This was one of the best experiences I had ever had and now it was lost.
Phish had just released a new album with the song Waiting All Night. As I waited for any sign the footage could be somehow recovered, the words struck a chord:
“Waiting all night
My mind is racing and I'm wondering what I did wrong”
As almost a cry to the lost digital files:
“Waiting all night
But you went so far away
Waiting all night
Don't know why you
Waiting all night
Left me this way”
It’s sort of funny to think of the song in this way now but at the time the emotional lyrics hit home in a big way. How could this have happened?
Fortunately, Shaun and Chris along with the majority of the crew (minus Alex) agreed to a reshoot several weeks later. Once again we captured something really special that felt even more powerful because of the previous experience. (Ironically, without mentioning a specific name, Alex would go on to write and direct an independent film a few years later that would garner considerable critical acclaim across the country. It was very good and I let what happened fade as a sad careless mistake.) The film ended up being a big success at festivals.
Here is Scotty & Josh Get Enlightened:
My Top Ten of 2014:
1. Long Night - Guster
2. Best Friend – Foster the People
3. After the Disco – Broken Bells
4. Swimming Pool Blues – Miniature Tigers
5. Circuit Breaker – Wildcat! Wildcat!
6. Kings – The Pierces
7. Hero – Wildcat! Wildcat!
8. Lavender – Ray LaMontagne
9. Careful You – TV on the Radio
10. Waiting All Night – Phish
Working hard on the project that summer did take some time out from other pleasures. I think that was where the very fun song, Swimming Pool Blues by Miniature Tigers connected. I never did use our condo pool that summer but made up for it during a December trip to Palm Springs.
Frank and I also did enjoy trips to the Telluride Film Festival, New York City, and Boise Idaho where his brother Warren and sister-in-law Pat lived.
These were fun trips and I certainly was continuing to enjoy teaching along with my film adventures. This may also explain why so many catchy, melodic indie pop songs made my Top Ten that year. Two of these were by a band called Wildcat! Wildcat!: Hero and Circuit Breaker. The Pierces also returned with another pop gem called Kings.
Foster the People made their first appearance since 2011 with Best Friend, a very enjoyable romp about friendship: “When your best friend’s all strung out, you'll do everything you can, 'cause you're never gonna let it get em down.”
I was certainly happy with so many good friends in my life, spending a lot of it in 2014 with Pat, Jim, Loren, Tom, Marco, Elise and many other long-time friends I was lucky to get to see that year.
On the family side, Mom was in and out of nursing homes but she still had some spunk in her.
Occasionally we’d take mom on various outings. When my sister came to town and we had a nice lunch with mom’s cousin Ann.
Music-wise I also really enjoyed TV on the Radio’s release, including the song Careful You, a building alternative track with a somewhat new way of expressing love:
“Take the good with the bad
Still believe we could make it somehow
I will care for you
Oh, careful you
Careful you”
Finally, there was Ray LaMontagne who encouraged me to chill a bit with the song Lavender:
“We lie, under a lavender sky
Under a lavender sky we lie
Do you, do you remember the day?
Do you remember when we felt that way?
Free to play, running circles round
The place we found
That no one ever knew”
2014 was a year of running around and playing throughout our various adventures, experiencing new sensations, with a host of friends, highs, and lows. If I did get high (marijuana-wise), Montagne’s song would be the one from this group I’d chill to. I’d drink whiskey to Guster’s Long Night feeling the satisfaction of having completed some good work.
Links to my Top Ten of 2014:
Other favorites from 2014:
Could You - TV on the Radio, Cherry Blossom - Paolo Nutini, Holy Moses - Echo & the Bunnymen, Are You Okay? - Dum Dum Girls, Bubblin’ - Jeremy Messersmith, Foolish Behavior - Neon Trees, Control - Broken Bells, Girls Talk - Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs, Name on a Matchbook - Springtime Carnivore, The Changing Lights - Broken Bells, Steve - Jeremy Messersmith, Glass - Young & Sick
What did your 2014 look like??
Very inspiring that the film was erased and you did it again and aced it. A powerful example for your students.
Love your mom!
Loved seeing the Scotty and Josh production stills. While I have seen the film numerous times, I had never seen the behind the scenes shots. I remember the agony and the ecstasy, or in this case the ecstasy and then the agony, of the erasure of the footage from that first shoot. It was a real testament to you and the cast and crew to go through it all again. You all came out the better for it and the film was very well received on the festival circuit. Going to those festivals was certainly a thrill.
Always love seeing your mom in these. Really miss her. Such a generous loving soul.
A significant year!