Add in the one I watched tonight, and that makes 46 new-to-me films, and 26 rewatches, for a total of 72. For my goal of 366 new films for the year, I’m behind by, well, 77.

But hey. Plenty of time left to catch up, right?

I have a lot of projects in various states of completion. A novel with a complete first draft that’s a huge sprawling mess. A second novel, more modest in scope, half-completed. A half-finished screenplay. A half-finished outline for another screenplay. An ambitious series of short stories meant to provide backstory for the characters in a graphic novel series I also plan to write. And so on, and so on.

Here’s the problem: I can’t get any traction on any of these projects. I tell myself, “okay, you’re going to work on project A until it’s DONE, and then you can move on to project B.” But then I get frustrated with project A and skip over to project L, instead (citing various justifications in my head as I do so).

The tricky part is, sometimes a project just isn’t working, and it’s a good idea to take a step back and work on something else for a while. But I’m so all over the place that I can’t tell if I actually need breathing room on some of these projects, or if I’m just using that as an excuse to not get any real work done. Eventually (soon) I need to settle down and focus and work on something, but that doesn’t seem to be happening. And it needs to (for many and varied reasons, including emotional, psychological, and financial).

So. Help? Any advice you might have would be greatly welcomed.

(Ah, figured out how to enable comments. That should help.)

Here’s where you come in! Help me make my decisions for me, internet.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

I had a day-long panic attack on Monday, brought on by the realization that I’m 31 and I’ve accomplished nothing and running through a list of the projects and goals and everything else I should have already completed by now and what on Earth is that sobbing sound oh that’s me and I guess the sound of a head repeatedly hitting the wall is me as well.

I have a lot of projects, a lot of ideas. Half a dozen screenplays, two novels, research for a YA series, research for a non-fiction book. Plus I’d like to learn to play the piano. And speak Spanish. And I need to exercise. And get caught up on TV. And watch a movie every day. And and and.

You can see how this might get out of control.

Tuesday I forced myself not to think about any of this at all and to just veg. Wednesday I came to the (obvious) realization that the only way I was going to get anything done was to just take things one at a time. I need to fasten the blinders and adopt a willful kind of tunnel vision that forces me to only think about one project at a time, and not try to figure out when and how I’m going to accomplish all the dozens of items on my to-do list.

So. Right now that’s my new screenplay. I have a rough outline and two of the three main character bios done; I need to write the third character bio and a more detailed outline, then start churning out pages.

And that’s it. I’m not contemplating what I’ll work on next. There’ll be something, that’s for certain, but I’m not letting myself think about or even decide what it’s going to be.

Tunnel vision. Often bad, here a necessity.

Next on the film-school-at-home agenda is to finish reading the two books on lighting and cinematography I got, and order a light kit. I won’t be going with anything too elaborate to start with; just enough to get the ball rolling. Once I get my lights, the plan is to do some test shoots with my video camera and whoever I can con into helping out. These are going to just be basic “do I know how to operate lights” tests at first, but hopefully quickly moving into “mood” tests, to see how well I can evoke mood and emotion simply with light and color. I may share some of these online, so watch for that!

Also coming soon: ScriptFrenzy! A young lady of my acquaintance turned me on to this: apparently it’s NaNoWriMo for screenplays, and it’s starting April 1st! As I’ve actually been working on an outline for a new feature this past week or so (I described it on Twitter as Fight Club meets Shame meets The Thing, so make of that what you will), the timing is perfect. A 120 page script in 30 days is actually very do-able; that’s only 4 pages per day. I should be able to knock that out, no problem (feel free to remind me I said this when I’m in the tall grass around page 50 or so).

That’s what’s going on! I’m also thinking it might soon be time to return to my 250,000+ word novel and do a second draft (aka a draft that is actually not terrible), so watch for updates on that, as well.

Lots of projects, but I have lots of passion, incentive, and support, as well. All three of those elements have been sorely lacking in recent months and years, so I’m actually optimistic. Stay tuned.

How to describe this film … Barton Fink by way of Suspiria, maybe. The similarities are superficial, granted, but that’s what I landed on after leaving the theater.

It’s hard to discuss this film without going into spoilers, and even then it’s a tricky film to unpack after just one viewing. So forgive me if my impressions are vague and unformed. I’ll say in terms of pure entertainment, this is a huge step up from 1996′s Pusher. The lead is sympathetic, the cinematography is good, and these elements — combined with a simple and straightforward story, a wonderful score, and a good performance from Mr. Turturro — all served to keep me in suspense for the bulk of the film.

That said, the use of color symbolism is handled with the deft touch of a college freshman who has just seen Vertigo for the first time, and — without spoiling anything — the ending is frustrating. I’m all for open-ended, ambiguous endings, but this is one of those conclusions that’s teetering right on the line between insightful and lazy, with just a dash of pretension thrown in for good measure.

I wasn’t bored, however, which is more than I can say for my 100 minutes with Pusher. Refn is already honing his craft with this, his third film, and already showing signs of the genius he would come to display in Drive.

NEXT: I missed the screenings of Pushers 2 and 3, sadly, so next up will be either Bronson (2008) or Valhalla Rising (2009), depending on both the schedules of the NW Film Center and myself. I’ll hopefully be able to catch a screening of Drive as well, but then, you already know how I feel about that.

And I gotta say, I wasn’t impressed. Maybe I’m holding it to impossible standards, since the only other Refn film I’ve seen is the near-flawless Drive, but even for a first outing, Pusher felt messy and amateurish. The cinematography is dark, past the point of style and into the realm of muddy, and Refn has apparently never heard of a steadicam or tripod. If “shaky cam” films like The Blair Witch Project or The Bourne Ultimatum make you queasy, this will make you lose your lunch. Like the lighting, the camera motion goes beyond style and into “geez, hand the camera to someone with steadier hands.”

More importantly, the protagonist, Frank, is unlikable, unsympathetic, and — most damning — uninteresting. Audiences like a protagonist who makes things happen, who drives the plot forward, who takes his destiny into his own hands (or at least attempts to). Frank, on the other hand, is not only a loathsome excuse for a human being with no appreciable redeeming qualities, he also spends a great deal of the film sitting on his ass doing nothing. Finding a loathsome protagonist engaging isn’t beyond the realm of possibility, or even that rare. But he has to do something, at least something other than being lazy and generally unpleasant to everyone around him. The laziness is especially frustrating, given that he has a deadline to meet and it’s his ass if he doesn’t, but it ultimately becomes incredibly boring, as well.

Lastly — and this may seem like a minor quibble, but it’s not — the subtitles were really poorly done. I’m not talking about the translation; that seemed fine, and, not speaking Danish myself, I’m not really qualified to judge. But the formatting; subtitles would regularly appear stacked on top of one another, even when the second line of dialogue wouldn’t come for several seconds. This combined with the muddy cinematography often made it difficult to tell who was speaking, and really messed with the flow of dialogue (and the film). There were large chunks of dialogue (mostly towards the end, as if the translator got lazy) that weren’t translated at all. And, in a rampant display of unprofessionalism, there was a “you’re / your” kerfuffle, which, as anyone who knows me can attest, I find unforgivable (only half-kidding, there). I’d be curious to watch the film on DVD, to see if there’s a new translation / subtitle production.

That said, despite the almost complete lack of storytelling skill on display here, there were hints of Refn’s future genius to be seen. I found the character of Radovan — a drug lord’s enforcer who is good at what he does, but also sickened by it — to be interesting, and the last couple (dialogue-free) minutes of the film were so well-executed they felt like they belonged in another movie. It’s these little things — along with the knowledge that Refn will at some point metamorphosis into the man responsible for Drive — that will bring me back for the rest of the DRIVEN festival, including tonight’s screening of Pusher II: With Blood On My Hands.

It will be very, very interesting, actually, to watch Refn’s journey from messy armature to the breathtaking auteur he will eventually become. Stay tuned; I’ll chronicle the evolution, and my impressions, here.

Let me say, right off the bat, that I have no problem with digital. It’s fine. Digital still can’t beat 70mm film in terms of quality, but that, obviously, is not really a fact that has any place in a discussion about my humble filmmaking endeavors (oh, would that it did). Down at my level, it becomes a matter of taste, convenience, and price. In terms of taste, I simply prefer the look of film — even grainy 8mm film — to digital. Personal preference.

In terms of convenience, well, yeah, shooting on film is a little inconvenient. You’ve got to order the film online, because I doubt anyone in town sells it. Once you’re done shooting, you’ve then got to pack it off again to be developed. With Super 8, you’re at least spared the frustrating and heart-stopping process of trying to thread film into a camera without the benefit of actually looking at what you’re doing, but you’ve still got to plan your shots more carefully than you would if you were shooting digital, because even if you bring more film than you need (which you should, that’s rule #1 in Filmmaking 101), you still only have so many rolls of the stuff, and it’s expensive, to boot.

And then there’s the cost. The film itself, and the processing, are not prohibitively expensive, but it still costs more than tapes or memory cards, and having the film scanned into a digital format you can then edit on your computer is prohibitively expensive.

But it’s film.

All of these arguments have been bouncing back and forth in my head for the past couple years. Digital seemed like the prudent course: the camera was more expensive ($3,000 vs. $300), but I wouldn’t be paying for processing or telecine afterward. It would be easier to deal with. It would record sound naively. Etcetera.

But it wasn’t film.

So today I said “fuck it.” I did some quick math and realized that, if I consolidate my orders, telecining a bunch of film won’t be as expensive as I thought (it’ll still be expensive, don’t get me wrong). The camera will be cheaper. I’ll get it sooner. And in terms of where my money goes in 2012, I’ll be able to put away more for my move back to California, which means I’ll be able to move sooner.

So I bought myself a nice little late 70s Canon Super 8 film camera. I just need some lights and some quality time with the two cinematography books I bought recently, and I’ll be set. I have a video camera I can do lighting tests / actor rehearsals with.

Today I made the decision to go analog, and it feels so good.

Here’s how I’m doing so far. Please forgive my sloppy table HTML coding:

Titles in bold were seen in a movie theater. The numbers break down to: 31 total, 22 new, and 9 rewatches. That puts me, as of today, 40 films short of where, ideally, I’d be if I want to watch a film a day throughout the year.

Even if I take the wimpy route and include films I’ve already seen, Elissa’s still ahead, even though I watched way more films in February than she did. Still, what with class and everything, I think I’m doing nicely. Next month when class ends, I should really be able to pick up the pace and pull ahead.

I wouldn’t be making any movies this year.

I am, frankly, tired of not making movies. I love writing, and I love exploring different mediums of storytelling, but film is and always will be my first love. It is, to me, the most interesting, challenging, and powerful means of storytelling. And I miss it. Back in high school I was constantly making movies, and I want badly to be at a similar place in my life once again.

And so.

1. I bought a book on cinematography and a book on lighting. Once school is out, at the end of March, I’m going to read these books, get myself some cheap lights and light stands, and teach myself lighting. I have an old, crappy, MiniDV camcorder that would never do for shooting anything I wanted to show to anyone on anything bigger than a laptop screen, but for doing some lighting tests, it will suffice.

2. I’m getting a tax refund this year, for the first time since, well, the last time I was in school. It’s going towards an HD movie camera, which I should be able to afford come May. By May, I hope to be done with the above-mentioned preliminary lighting tests, and also have some scripts for some short films written. Mood pieces, an extension of my at-home course in lighting in cinematography. Testing my ability to communicate not so much narrative, but emotion, via lighting and photography.

3. By the end of the year, I want to have shot and edited 4-6 of these short films with my new camera, and have a script for a feature ready to go into production for 2013.

This is all in addition to the writing projects I mentioned in my last blog post, but this has to take priority. This is my passion. Which I’ve always known, but laying out my plans for the year without any mention of filmmaking was an excellent slap-in-the-face reminder of that. Sometimes you need to stop and look at your life and think what the hell am I DOING? Deciding to quit school was part one of that, and laying out the above plan simply the logical progression.

So here we go! 2012 is going to be the year I start to teach myself filmmaking again.

Wish me luck!