The year was 2009 and the only thing on my film resume was the first ten episodes of a web series I directed called "The Free Box". As I've mentioned in prior posts, The Free Box was made for absolutely zero budget, in fact Drew and I fed the cast and crew each week with our food stamps. Regardless of my grim financial situation, The Free Box kept getting made week after week almost solely because of the dedication of the cast and crew. It was because of this that I felt like anything in the word was possible and I wanted to make a feature.
The problem now was not only did I have no money but I also had no script. I didn't even have any ideas for one. Through networking with cast members of The Free Box I was introduced to a few other aspiring filmmakers at various parties around town. One of them was Keith Apland. He had a short film that he directed on his computer half way edited. He explained to me his frustration with it and told me he considered it a failure. We kept chatting about it over a few days and eventually he took me up to his apartment to show me the 40 minutes of the work in progress in chunks on his editing timeline. Sure enough there were lighting problems, poor sound here and there, and glaring continuity issues. Although I could see why Keith considered his first filmmaking effort doomed, I told him I could cut it and that I see it as a twenty minute piece. He hired me for the gig and payed me with his bar tips over the next month while I sat in his apartment cutting away. The end result was a little different that what Keith initially set out to make but turned out pretty good and an official collaboration between Keith and I had been born.
Having his first short film done and looking spiffy, Keith was inspired to do more. About a month later he took Drew and I to a bar and pitched us his idea to make four short films that had intersecting story lines each about twenty minutes and asked us if we were willing to help. Drew and I liked his idea and agreed to take on the project but we both had the same question; why not just connect all the stories into a feature length film with multiple characters? Keith exclaimed that he had not considered a feature because features cost money and he had none. Our experience with The Free Box and general lack of knowledge to how things usually get done gave Drew and I the confidence to talk Keith into taking on a feature with absolutely no financial support. I'm sure the round of whiskey shots played a part in our decision making at that point in the night but it was all for the better.
We decided that in order to pull this thing off with no budget at all and still have a high quality product, we would do everything that didn't cost money to accomplish as professionally as possible. Basically, treat the project like we had a budget so that the only things lacking would be minimized to what we could not afford. It didn't cost anything to write it and Keith had done that already. It didn't cost anything to put an ad on craigslist and hold auditions at a coffee shop, Drew took that on. It wouldn't cost anything to edit it, I had the software on my computer, so I assumed that task in advance. That just leaves shooting it. Keith was able to secure a camera to borrow from a friend. It was the absolute top of the line prosumer choice......fifteen years prior, but hey, it was a camera. Paul Anderson, who volunteered as a sound recordist on The Free Box caught wind of the excitement brewing about a possible feature going down and quickly stepped on board with his sound equipment. Things were falling into place but with the ambitious script, there was still a laundry list of locations and props yet to be secured. Furthermore, the large cast were all working for free so they all had jobs they had to go to at different times. Juggling schedules alone was enough reason to pull all your hair out while doing the Homer Simpson-walking-in-a-circle-on-the-floor-chanting-gibberish-between-slamming-the-production-binder-into-your-forehead-dance.
A month into pre production: The alcohol was long out of our system from that initial celebratory cheers that commemorated our commitment to the project a few weeks earlier. The pressure was weighing heavier and heavier on Keith who was managing it all between his own shifts at a bar he tended. Fall was here, winter was on it's way and one cold evening I got a call from Drew who told me that Keith had just lost his job and was backing out. He had confided to Drew that adding up the potential costs and trying to find a new job was becoming overwhelming. The idea of shooting such a large movie without even the means to feed a crew that is expected to work through the night and into the next morning on multiple occasions was absolutely crazy. I look back at it now and Keith was absolutely right. Any outsider looking in on this situation would easily deem Keith the clearest thinking one of the three of us. That sensible thinking quality Keith possessed ended up helping us tremendously on multiple occasions throughout the making of the The Corners but it wasn't helping at this moment so I gathered a four person coalition and staged an intervention. Without calling ahead of time, the four of us showed up to Keith's door and invited ourselves in. Keith was clearly not happy with this tactic and began raising his voice in defense to the four of us surrounding him on his own couch immediately. It was a rough night but it worked. After breaking it down we convinced him that the whole cast and crew were fully aware of the situation, that we were up front about the lack of budget, and they all still wanted to be a part of it. The cast and crew added up to about thirty people at this point, we were all feature hungry, and Keith was their captain. In retrospect the incident although tense, bonded us in a way that a round of whiskey shots fell short of. We were inexperienced, cold, hungry, and poor but the seed of determination had been planted.
The first day of shooting was a complete chaotic disaster that went through the night and into the wee hours of the morning. We ended up scrapping all the footage and one of the lead actresses quit. The Corners almost fell apart again. More arguing ensued but against all logic, we rescheduled and started over. After that there was an unspoken realization between everyone in the project that we wearn't going to let anything stop us which reassured us all that there will be a completed film at the end of all this. As a result all further clashes ended a little quicker and easier as we were learning how to communicate with each other under pressure.
We started production in the fall so each shooting day was colder than the last and most of the script was written to take place out doors at night. That winter was far and away the toughest winter of my life. Things between my wife and I were being put to the ultimate test. She was relapsing into her drug addiction while I ran around the city unemployed trying to shoot a movie. Our relationship had turned into two opposing forces filled with resentment for whatever the other did. I did not have her support for my filmmaking ambitions which were ramping up considerably at the time. I never planned on divorcing her, it just happened one day. Things just came to the ultimate point of no return and there seemed to be no other option. I was going to loose the apartment, the van life was just around the corner and there was still a third left of the film to shoot. Instead of adding stress to my life, the production of the corners provided an excellent distraction and gave me purpose. I was more determined than ever to put my all into it and see it through to the end. Durring post production I got a few jobs editing wedding videos so I would often stay up very late editing the Corners after five hours of editing weddings. I slept on Drew's couch so often during that time, I gave him a hundred bucks for allowing me to temporarily move myself in.
Most of the actors have gone on to do noteworthy things in film and television. Three of them moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting full time. The Corners will always be the first for me. I'm simultaneously torn and happy that I'll never make a movie under those conditions again. The film is now available to watch in it's entirety on Vimeo and is posted below. The Password is: night
