BOXedMAN

I’M GONNA MAKE A MOVIE! I announced with great trepidation to the circle of casual friends gathered around me in the cockpit of my sailboat. Possibly a nanosecond passed before my friend, Ron, broke out laughing so hard I thought he might suffer internal injuries. Ron, you see, is a well-grounded, self-made entrepreneur who owns successful businesses in several states. Constant travel between businesses, homes, and worldwide vacations, keeps him and his wife in perpetual motion. Ron has what many would consider an enviable life.
The occasion was our annual get together sail with Ron and his wife Sandy, another couple of Ron’s friends, and my girlfriend Carol, who sat silently observing this exchange. Carol, knowing of my commitment to the project, was the only one not laughing at what the others saw as my apparent loss of mind. She was also the only one to know that I was quickly becoming a best customer of Border’s, Barnes & Noble, and independent bookstores everywhere. I was consuming filmmaking books at a book a week pace. This was my approach to an ambitious, self-paced, educational process to ready myself to make the film.
Ron proceeded to fire questions at me, questions that were unavoidably important to a businessman evaluating a project. His questions were sensible. 1) Will you be taking time off from work? 2) Do you have adequate financing? 3) Do you have experienced help?
My answers were 1) “NO,” I can’t leave my job, because I need the money. 2) “NO,” I have to personally fund the project because it would be too hard a sell, to find investors, given the circumstances. 3) “NO” again, because I don’t know anyone that has any film making experience. This was why I’d given myself a year to educate and prepare for the film I’d planned to start shooting in the summer of 1997. The year would also allow me time to purchase all the equipment, find shooting locations, and cast the film. I saw no point in going into the overwhelming fact that I had 60 shooting locations and 43 speaking roles to fill. Why offer up ammunition to be shot with?
The more I tried explaining myself to this logically logical based businessman, the further I got from convincing him how serious I was. He was thinking that if this was a business venture, he didn’t feel good about it. Futility prevailed, I threw in the towel, and shut up. Ron’s continued chuckling, over the next couple hours, as we plied the waves , fortified my resolve and convinced me not to talk about my project to any thinking, sane, person again.
First off, I need to relate some personal history so that you can try to understand my apparent insanity and passion. I have always been a film buff. I have had a love affair with movies my entire life. From adolescence, I had seen way more movies than any of my friends. I was born in Boston, and my family lived two blocks from Fenway Park for the first seven years of my life. After my first seven years, we moved every couple of years, but not more than a few miles from the former residence.