The whole "do it for the plot" mantra is not exactly a unique concept, and quippy lifestyle philosophy isn't the kind of thing I usually go for, but sometimes a simple cliche can get you through a tough time.

Moving to New York is also kind of cliche. It's certainly a story we've all heard plenty of times. But just because lots of people have done it doesn't mean it's easy, which my girlfriend Carolina and I can attest to.

We didn't have to do this. We have remote jobs, our artistic pursuits don't require us to live in one place or another, and we don't have immediate family nearby. But the thing about doing the same shit over and over again is that you end up living a frictionless life.

So we moved just to do it. Just to roll the dice and have a new experience. Maybe we'll hate it here, maybe we'll live here forever, it doesn't really matter. The point is just to give a little dimension to the story arc of our lives. So that when our hypothetical children ask us what we were up to when we were younger, the answer won't be "you're lookin' at it, kiddo."

"Do It for the Plot" is the third short film in my Movie Practice series—where I give myself an assignment and go out and make a film, just like you would in film school. For this assignment, I wanted to give myself an editing challenge: no script, no actors, no storyboards, no staged shots, just a 20-year-old Sony Handycam that I got to document my life.

Editing to a voice-over narration is definitely easier than going full-on verite, but it takes a whoooole lot of filmmaking artistry to cut shots together in a satisfying way, especially when they weren't recorded with the film in mind. Because I wasn't thinking about this particular story while I was shooting (I documented our whole lives for almost a year), I basically wound up making a kind of found footage/home movie doc, and learned a ton about what it really means to be a director in the process.

Because when there's no script to interpret, no actor to direct, no storyboard to execute, what is the role of a director? This humble little project (and a couple others that I'll post soon) helped me discover a deep appreciation for editing, and made me realize that knowing how to cut two shots together is the most foundational element of filmmaking and maybe the most important skill a director can have...but more on that later.

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WATCH MY VIDEO ESSAY ON NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
   • Set-Ups, Punchlines, and No Country F...  

WATCH MY PREVIOUS SHORT FILM — "SENSE"
   • A man begins to suspect he's being wa...  

WATCH MY PREVIOUS SHORT FILM — "ZIP"
   • A couple's argument turns into a Wild...  

#cinema #filmmaking #movies #shortfilm #handycam #cinematography #editing #camcorder