In October of 2003, I embarked on an idea to make another film. My creative juices had been stunted and I had really hit a wall with what I was suppose to do next. I had moved in with my very good friend, Scott Wheeler and his soon to be wife, Stephanie and they were getting married in New Jersey a month after I moved in. I had of course, agreed to shoot their wedding for letting me crash on the couch for a couple months. I had picked up and left my hometown to make a point… I had given up a golden ticket to return to Los Angeles and finish what I had started a couple years earlier. I finally had decided against the return for all the wrong reasons and was stuck with my decision and I felt staying any longer where I was would only make me regret the decision even worse. Scott and Steph were wonderful to bring me in. They had no idea at the time how emotionally bad off I was. Their wedding video was an obvious… But then ideas spawned as I would sit up late thinking about it and before I realized, I had come up with what I thought would be a great documentary. “Why shoot not only the wedding by capture a documentary about a group of friends that had been through everything in their teenage years and were on the verge of having to grow into men. I mean we had been the latest bloomers I had ever seen, but I saw Scott and Sean getting married in the same year as a sign. Why not have one more party? Why not blow it out one more time? I knew our friendships would not change, but life as we knew it would be forever altered after that weekend. Why not capture it all and make a little coming of age documentary?”
What was going to be three days, turned into five days on a road trip and adventure where I had never had more fun and enlightenment in my entire life. We had decided the day we were suppose to return to North Carolina that we were going to New York City. After we went to New York City we had decided to go to Washington and honestly, we really did not have to go home ever and I would have been fine with it. We did fortunately return to the mountains of North Carolina on the biggest high ever. We really had a great time and I had captured what I thought was a masterpiece. I had never been so creatively inspired in my life. I had brought back 17 hours of footage and could not wait to start cutting it.
I was so emotionally attached to that weekend and this project that I recut every scene at least three times. I was so attached to this project by this time that every little thing had to be perfect. I moved out of Scott and Steph’s house into a house with two guys I worked with. I set up my editing system in the back room and did not see anybody for nearly five months unless it was while I was waiting tables at the Texas Roadhouse or somebody barged into my office to try and have a conversation with me. Every second of the day was spent thinking about this film. I was obsessed…. In fact, it was almost scary. I cut my friends off, ruined a relationship and the worst part was, I could not settle on being satisfied with one single shot. I was so emotionally attached to this film and was in such a need of making this great film that I almost forgot what it was I was doing. I acquired a real job during the second half of editing the film and found myself shutting people out even more because my time had become limited. This process never ended…
Not for almost a year. I had loaded this footage in my computer on October 24, 2003 and did not finish cutting the film until June 14th, 2004. When I finished the film I had never been so happy and proud of myself in all my years. Even though, I had rushed the ending, because yes, I had grown tired of cutting it. In fact, the emotions and creativity that had driven this film to the place it was were gone now and I, was no longer adamant about what I had. I think I was more proud of the fact that I had actually finished it, rather than anything else. I slapped a crappy case around it and packaged “The Bootleg,” no longer realizing that this film would reach the masses… “Hell, I’d be lucky now just to get the people in the movie to watch it.” At a whopping running time of two hours and fifteen minutes, it was safe to say I had made a film for my enjoyment. I had delivered a copy to Scott and Stephanie and they had obliged me by watching the full movie and to telling me they loved, even though they thought it was a bit too drawn out. My ex-girlfriend who had taken huge punishment during the editing of this film, had been nice enough to watch the whole thing through and gave me a thumbs up even though she had seen every stage of the editing process up until the last twenty minutes. The other guys, in fact all others that were in the film, had or have never seen the whole film. They say it’s because they don’t have time, but I can assume now, that they just could not bear to watch my mess of a film. The film I thought would be a huge hit at the time, was shown as many times as a common wedding video would be shown…. About five. I moved on with my life. A year of my life invested and squandered like a bad drinking habit, cured. I moved to Florida where my experience and knowledge of my craft would blossum over night. Under my own will, and those of a boss who would not take “no” for an answer, I began learning my craft through crash courses in what not to do. I learned the importance of levels, text, batches, and other elements I had never had to deal with before. With this new found learning came a string of “what ifs” from me that I followed up to learn and basically took a front seat to my professional life, rather than the years I had sat in the back. Everything has all of a sudden made sense…. Building websites, doing print work, making my own soundtracks, I mean everything. It was as if I had hit a wall in the learning curve and that wall was broken down like in Berlin. Soooo, returning to North Carolina and coming to terms that the place I can make this happen is right there at home, I decided to get a loan… Upgrade some equipment and open my own business. My first side project to keep my editing chops fresh would be “The Jersey Bootleg.” I am in extreme early stages of actually making a film, so I figured on my off time, I’d go back to this and do it like it should be done… Without the cloudiness. I hope to have it cut by early January. Let’s hope I don’t lose the urge.
IF YOU READ ALL THAT THEN YOU ARE SEEING THIS STATEMENT, WHICH I APPRECIATE. THIS IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE CLIPS OF THE FILM. AFTER THREE DRUNK DAYS ON THE ROAD, WE HAD TO LEAVE NEW YORK AND DRIVE ALL THE WAY BACK TO NORTH CAROLINA. OF COURSE, WE DECIDED AT THE LAST MINUTE TO STOP IN D.C. CLICK HERE TO SEE THE CLIP.