A Candid Look at AMNESIA (Part II)

Being candid isn't a nice thing to do, especially when it is looking at your own work in front of friends, fans, and fellow filmmakers. What are the things that were flaws, things I'd do differently?


1.) I pursued a look of realism within the film. Because of that I decided to shoot night for night instead of the fake looking day for night that many films in the last decade have adopted. What I would do differently is to shoot day for night, then go into after effects and create a hand made effect where I give it a slight night for night look. I acheived this for some of the films "fake" looking night for night shots and no one could really tell the difference.

2.) I would diversify the accents/races more within the cast. I really believe for your film to inhabit the modern landscape it needs to be more diverse in both speach and look. Having a bunch of white people play most of th roles doesn't give this diverse look.

3.) The cave. We dropped the light level on the cave in post-production because we wanted it to look like a real cave, not one of those fake ones you see in movies. (no, very rarely do people shoot movies in real caves.)

4.) An upgrade in cast. Not that they were bad actors, honestly, most had never acted before. But the fact is that if someone has acted even in several small indie films other people already recognize their faces. Which brings me to the real two flaws that actually hurt the film-

5. (positioning the film for marketing) If you treat a film like art then it is formed like a potter creating pottery. A potter feels his way through shaping the pottery as it is molded in their hands. Problem is that I allowed the film to mold itself. Took many risks. Really focused on the "art" and "story". The music was different, original. The shot style I took big risks. I allowed each scene to dictate how it would be shot, etc. I had little focus on the "audience" and more on the story. What happened? I created a film that was difficult to market. My approach, if I did things differently, would be to go back to the story and eliminate 90% of all suspense. I would take it back to an action-adventure-drama that is original was before I added the suspense elements. The music would bring in more strings/orchestra, but would keep some of the original sound with the flute like instruments and other hand made stuff we had used. The violence would be trimmed back to more action orientated and less realisitic. In essence what I would be doing is pulling back the realism and bringing more of the "fun". (oh, and the begining and end would change. Also there would be more effects. I'd be blunter, less subtle about what was really going on) (also the shot style in the film used what is called "deep focus" photography like in Citizen Kane. I intentionally kept everything in focus for most of the film. Problem. Most people didn't realize it was a shot choice. What I woud do differently is to keep the traditional "shallow focus" look most films have and only use the "deep focus" effect for selective shots, this way the contrast would make my use of "deep focus" more evidient.)

6.) The big, BIG, change: marketing. You have to take into account when I was producing AMNESIA the odds were stacked against me before I even got started. First, we were severally underbudget, understaffed, and in Maine (with a bad internet (dial-up) connection prior to shooting). I wasn't thinking PR. I should have. I should have been transparent to the surrounding community and got their support to help spread the word before we even called "Action". My focus was on making the film, not on the audience. I would consider hiring a PMD to get the word out and make people want to see it. I woud also be talking with different distrubution, theaters, etc about it before the camera started rolling. Fact is, once your film is done, you should have already have acquired a lot of your fan base already! You can't start building the fan base after the film is done. It has to be done while you are making it. How can you have the "big reveal" if no one even knows it's going to happen.

So I find myself at an interesting position with this film. There are 3 directions I can take with it:

1. Hold off for a while and make the sequel. (problem is that it is difficult to build a fan base for a sequel if the original one didn't already have a sizeable fan base. Plus the sequel is much, much bigger!)

2. Raise finishing funs to fix up some scenes and sound issues that hurt the film. Maybe even upgrade some of the music.

3. Remake. Yes, I said Remake. The irony here is that I had considered just before shooting that if things didn't hit a certain standard I was going to remake anyways. I just had pushed things so far that I didn't consider it till now.

How had would a remake be? I pondered that for a while. That I've shot it before I would no have expertise in planning for post-production in the pre-production. 10 months of compositing would probably be cut down to 3-4. I'd have bigger, more epic landscape shots. Much of the score elements that made the film stand are in a libarary. The shooting schedule would also be much shorter 2-4 weeks. I now have a vast amount of connections to cast/crew from around the country and beyond.

But what would it cost to do it? This remake would be an upgrade. I am estimating it would be between 100,000 to 150,000. A portion would be for equipment, CGI, and to possibly hire a PMD. And also, to make sure this time around that I am actually paid for my work!

Your thoughts?