The Baalmoor

The Baalmoor is a short I did a long time ago when I was relatively inexperienced. Well, I don't know if I'm much more experienced but I'm remaking it anyway just because I want to.

It was a simple enough idea and it was too simple a movie - it kinda fell a little flat and just didn't work as a creepy horror piece. It involved a  girl, fresh from a terribly breakup being preyed upon by a demon. This was before I was into doing makeup and those kind of FX as well, so I think this new version should prove more interesting in some regards - not to give anything away, but let's face it, if you know what I do, you'd be expecting it.

I've got a rough plot outline, I'm getting together with the actors to walk through the whole thing and really flesh it out so I can get a script started for shooting in November/December. It'll be a chilly shoot - it might even get postponed until spring, I've no idea of anything at this point really.

The other motivating factor in doing this is that I've spent the last 4 years, more or less, making rather campy silly stuff. I guess you could say exploring more of the lazy side of filmmaking, or the easy side of it, whichever seems more politically correct to you. I want to really put forth the effort for a change and actually experiment with trying to create an atmosphere, tension all that stuff.

I am of the opinion that amateur filmmakers should stay away from drama, and anything involving it, because above all else it really requires you to perfectly tackle every element of making a movie. If you're even slightly off you end up with a laughable mess. Most noticeably acting and writing. If you got good actors and a shit script, you'll still get a bad movie. At least if you got a good script, you're halfway there and if it's really good and your actors are at least willing to really give it all they got, you might be okay. But there's a lot of "ifs" in there to really risk wasting all that work on something that immediately and inevitably falls apart because of inexperience. You might get lucky though, but don't expect it to happen every time - you can't tell what works when you don't have a clue about what doesn't.

So we'll see how well I fair. I'm at least brutally honest with myself, something I will admit some filmmakers I know are incapable of. Some are pretty blind when it comes to their own work I think, taking criticism way too personally and not able to grow as a filmmaker or even challenge themselves. I'm well aware of my flaws as a filmmaker - even though I don't fancy myself to be one, and never will, so I'm only so concerned about my weakness, which explains my love of making crappy movies on purpose. I don't think I'm awesome, but I think I know pretty damned well how to make a good bad movie. And I know well enough to stay away from things beyond my abilities, like heavy dramatic stuff.

The Baalmoor remake might be another failure and I'm more than willing to admit that right now. We'll call it a "check in", to see if I've actually gained any experience. And if I fail, right back to cheesy crap I guess.