4.01.2008

It Takes a Mountain

Getting a feature film made is like moving a mountain. It takes a huge amount of resources, and a fierce determination that isn't always easy to sustain. I've been working my butt off, trying to convince people to help us make this movie, invest $20K in a piece of art that will live forever. We've gotten some investors on board, and there is definitely a movie in the works. But we still need more investors, and though we have a number of people who have said yes, we need the rest of the checks. It is not easy to raise money and on the days when I feel blue about our progress and how things are going, I try to remember that a year ago, we didn't even have a bank account. But there are days when I sometimes feel like this is so tough, that it simply may not happen. Deep down inside, I am so determined and I know that it will, but still, it is still very hard to put yourself out there sometimes. The thing that ultimately keeps me going is the vision of the film, this idea of a young girl trying to find herself amongst the complicated world of adults, a young girls who finds solace in the forest. Every character that I create is in some ways, an iteration of myself, and while I wasn't a science nerd when I was growing up, I was a book nerd. I spent hours and hours in my room reading, sometimes a book a week. Sometimes is was the Sweet Valley High series, other times it was the The Fountainhead and other literary works. The world of my parents was also confusing, because my parents fought constantly about things that made to sense to my sister and I. My parents put every ounce of their energy into us, but their fighting was so confusing that my sister and now as adults sometimes spend hours trying to dissect exactly what was going on there. I think that my parents were so consumed in their fighting, my sister and I both had to find ways of coping. My sister is more introverted than I am, but her studying was a means of dealing--she is now a doctor, and has no problem with the long hours of shutting herself up with the books. I was the less studious one, but I always loved to read and write, and now as an adult, I find sitting in closed rooms for long hours very comforting. Isn't it interesting how our past effects us? How we use it to create the present? Raspberry Magic is an iteration of myself in so many different ways, I have to make it.

1 comment:

jamesactor said...

Hello Leena, I will pray that you receive the required funds to make your movie. I am also curious about the children. Who are they? It was great meeting you at the screening. Keep in touch. Sincerely, James Arthur Mitchell