Checkpoint: Pickup Shots

After feeling the need to abandon my short film, and reschedule it for much later in the year when I regain my confidence, the production stops going off the rails, and the weather is less of an unpredictable bastard, it freed up the weekend I had originally planned for the shoot. So my mate Rob leapt on the day and the previously booked video camera to use it for pickup shots for his film, Checkpoint.

One of the reasons I was happy to leave my film was because I am singularly unsuited to organising things. I have always been this way, I am a complete fuck up when it comes to being in charge and making sure things get done. I tend to feel much more comfortable when other people are dealing with that stuff. Decision making, contributing creative ideas, and post production work is a doddle and I love it, but phoning people, and ordering stuff, and scheduling workdays, and getting a crew together and on my side - forget about it.

And I don't mind admitting it, either. Rob mentioned today that he did wonder if I would feel bad about the fact that he had organised an entire new shoot and all the pickup shots, using my shoot weekend, all figured out and actioned within a week, while I embarrassingly struggled with my own shoot after six entire months. But in fact I don't care about that at all, it reaffirms my suspicions of where my limitations lie, and I'm happy to see someone who actually has an affinity and an energy for it do all the hard work, while all I have to do is agree a lot and draw a few sketches.

The main reason why most of my life I have created half-begun projects that never get completed is because I only do the bits I like; I tend to abandon them just before the parts of a production I don't like to do happen. I'd feel a lot more comfortable if someone else was in charge of those parts, so all I had to do is write it, tell the crew where to point the camera, and tell the actors how to say the words properly. That would be bliss!

I have intimated a few times that I'd rather be a co-director, or even just a creative consultant, than be in charge of a full-blown production, even when it's my own film, and I think this proves it. I am best placed in that role, and the sooner I find myself there, the better I'll feel.