Thesis Shoot Aftermath: A Tale of Heartbreak and Perseverance

A month ago, I was wide-eyed and ready to take on the world. Ten days ago, I went into Duxbury, Massachusetts to make a movie and barely came out alive. Let me tip my hat to a few people, rat out a few others, and explain how it went down.

Rewind to just after Halloween. My shoot is roughly two and a half weeks away. I'm nervous, but not too worried about things. After months of searching between Boston actors, dancers, and BU student actors, I struggled to find anyone interested in playing the robot, which I thought was really weird. I thought that would seem like a pretty awesome opportunity for most people. I mean how cool would it be to say you played an alien robot in a movie? Probably fair to say people are busy. Anyway, I was luckily able to secure one of my hometown friends to take on the job. Shoutout to Kelli Celentano for coming in clutch.

Casting the robot meant we finally were able to get started on the robot suit itself (it had to be fitted to the actor to avoid looking too clunky or silly). I had done months of research and had as good of a game plan as I was gonna get. I actually got really into prop-making and costume design through YouTube channels like "Tested", it's so cool to see all the ways professionals make these costumes and to think "really? THAT's all you have to do???" None of the movie magic is lost on me. I was prepared with a game plan, and this is when my production designer, whom I've chosen not to name, essentially told me:

"I don't think I can do this... so I'm not going to. Good luck lol."

That's when things got interesting.

At least I know she's going nowhere in this line of work with that attitude, though it didn't exactly solve the problem that I now had nobody to build my robot (she wasn't even going to help). I was pretty much left on my own to build the suit. While this was going on, my other production designer also decided that she was no longer interested.

I do my best to have a positive attitude and motivate the people around me to give it their all, but I just don't get how some film students can call themselves filmmakers and not understand how problematic it can be to commit to extremely important roles on THESIS films and then just decide out of the blue to jump ship at the eleventh hour. It's  just hard not to take stuff like that personally when you so openly express how passionate you are about a project. Not much I can do about it.

Nevertheless, I wasn't going to let it this ruin my movie if I could do something about it, and just like that, I was left with about two weeks to make a full-body robot suit, a dead dog, and a MacGyver'ed teleportation device myself. I knew it would be a test of creative and physical endurance, and would push my limits.

Did I do it? Yes, because I'm a baller. Here are pics of the suit and device. I'll get one up of the dog later once I have screenshots from the actual footage.

It's also worth noting I was very lucky to find some helping hands to chip in along the way. My producer, DP, and two of my other classmates pitched in when they could to help out, which was really nice.

Shoutout to Nicole Rinaldi of Emerson College for coming in for like a week on a call from our mutual professor and helping out some guy she didn't know to build a robot suit. Another shoutout to Kell Blasberg for weathering the suit to literally make the foam look like believable aged metal. It added some phenomenal detail and is honestly just awesome to look at. Definitely keeping the helmet when this is done.

The dark side of this build is that during those two weeks, I completely shut myself out. From the moment I woke up to when I went to bed, I was either shopping for stuff I needed or sitting in the building space I was using putting it together. I was able to get out at times with friends to try to relax, but for the most part, I barely slept, ate, or talked to anyone (unless they were helping me build it). It was by far the most stressful two weeks of my life. It really makes you start to question what matters in life. Is this what it takes to be great? Is sacrificing comfort and happiness worth it for the payoff long term? I don't know. I just think about stuff like that.

Then the actual shoot came! Spoilers: it didn't go fantastically. And that's pretty normal in this industry, but it went a little beyond what I was prepared for.

We had one awesome day of shooting, where we had a full crew, a lot of whom I didn't know but were really excited to work on the project and put in a great effort to get it done. The other two days...not so much. Most people either called out sick or just decided not to show up, including my assistant director, so we were severely understaffed.

I have to once again tip my hat to my producer Jimmy, my DP Alex, as well as my old grip and roommate Ernie, and my PA Lilah, because they were the only people to show up all three days. They came in clutch and are the reason I have any footage to show for those days.

Because my actor shaved and got a haircut immediately following the shoot, the plan right now is to do reshoots in the spring. I know with the actual crew and equipment we wanted and needed, we can really nail it and make something awesome. It's going to be a matter of weather permitting and people really rallying around the movie this time.

Regardless of everything that went wrong, I should be thankful that I'm lucky enough to get to do what I'm doing, because I love making movies and being able to make up stories and characters and see them come to life. If I'm gonna be honest, though, it's still really hard to work for so long towards something, aim so high, and watch things go so horribly wrong when you're so close, knowing how good it could have been.

I'm in a rough spot right now. I know a lot of the problems that came up were out of my control, but I still feel like I blew it. I spent a lot of money to come back to BU and do this, and the lackluster product I've made thus far leaves me feeling gross, and unfortunately I'm gonna have to sit on these feelings for a while until I can go back and try to get it right.

Among the great life lessons I've learned over the years is one from fictional sports hero Rocky Balboa, that noone's gonna hit you harder than life, but it's not about how hard you can it. It's about how hard you can GET hit and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done.

I'm gonna have to move back home soon and try to find a legitimate long-term job. Because BU Financial Aid scammed me into coming to BU but not helping me, I've stayed long enough to take the thesis film class and get a degree, but now I have to move home to save what money I can and finish my degree with online courses. It wasn't how I planned on spending the end of my college experience, but it's just another hit from life and whether I like it or not, it's what I have to do. I'll have time to work on a lot of new stuff and hopefully will be able to get some of it up here. It's the start of a new chapter for me, so stay tuned.