Dali is our next project, our undoubtedly biggest project yet, a real feature film, and it will take pretty much all of 2023 and some of 2024 and it’s pretty surreal and insane I get to make this.
I don’t believe in making movies as a sidequest – not that I’ve experienced it as such – but I can only imagine that making a feature, especially one as important as one’s debut feature, is one of the most challenging and heavy things a person can attempt. It’s a herculean task, one not to do in a background, but one that requires all my energy and commitment.
I certainly see having the opportunity to make this as one of the biggest achievements in my life. Look Aside launched less than a year ago – today we’re developing a feature film. Pretty surreal – and I couldn’t be more thankful for this opportunity, and so I definitely don’t take it for granted. And: I also look at this as the most important things I’ll do. It’s an incredible opportunity and it’s such that I can’t mess up; I can’t allow for this film to be good, it must be great, and it will be, because it’s now all I can think about.
How did this happen? To be honest (and you’ve probably heard this before from many), as much as I talk about consistency and creating opportunity, this specific project came to life through great timing and a great deal of luck. The co-executive producer of Dali (Donald L. Anderson from Palm Haven Studios) reached out to me after seeing a video on Look Aside’s Instagram. We got to talking, and he mentioned how he’s looking to get involved with features, and that was incredible timing because I had just begun transitioning away from shorts and into features and writing this film.
And then it was just a good match – and these things you can’t force. The script was interesting to the producer and fit in his slate of projects well, and to us he was someone who understood the vision of the project and would allow us to make it how we intended to make it. So there wasn’t a crazy amount of cold emailing on this one – but the portfolio we had built over the past year did make us reputable enough for Donald to reach out, so I guess the general lesson here is: make stuff and that will make it easier to make more stuff.
So what’s going on now? Well, as of yesterday actually, we’ve completed post on all other Look Aside projects (including the next season of TEA OR COFFEE?, out in May!, but besides Sing For Your Supper, that’s still in development) and now Dali becomes the sole focus for a while. We’re getting a team together at the moment. I’m traveling a little bit in May (half personal, half for work) and then June/July/August we’re developing and in pre-production, aiming to shoot in September.
It’s going to be an insane year. But I don’t buy into the motion that ‘making films is always a mountain of problems’. I haven’t found that to be true – there are complications, yes, always, but problems come when the work lacks; when there hasn’t been enough preparation. So we’ll aim to prepare everything well enough for Dali so we can have the most productive and fun shoot possible and make a great film.
Making a great film. That’s the next challenge, and it’s much welcomed.