What I’ve Been Thinking About…
Limitations.
We’ve all heard that they force us to be more creative. And there really is something about being backed into a corner that seems to bring out the best in a lot of artists.
Many years ago, I was house-sitting for a friend of the family and decided to use that as an opportunity to record a few songs. So I brought a bunch of gear with me, got it all hooked up, and… I couldn’t get any of it to work.
In the end, all I had available to me was an acoustic guitar, one microphone, and a Zoom recorder. Not the end of the world, but not that exciting either. Until I started looking around this house and wondering how many ordinary, everyday items I could turn into instruments.
Not only did I have a lot of fun doing that, but it also fundamentally changed the way I produced music from that point on. I used to create drum loops and other effects 100% digitally, but now those elements frequently begin with a recording of something tangible that then gets digitally manipulated until it’s unrecognizable. Gathering those sounds has become one of my favorite parts of the process.
Actually, this is kinda funny — there’s this unsettling droning sound that’s a key part of the sound design for some of the sequences in my web series. And the main component of that is a busted-ass refrigerator. Ours was making a strange humming noise one weekend, I recorded it, slowed it down, pitch-shifted it, and now every time you’re in the main character’s POV, that’s what’s in the background. Our dishwasher also makes a few appearances in the show’s sound design.
I never would have trained myself to listen for that stuff or realized how much I enjoy it if I hadn’t been boxed in during that house-sitting stay.
But the main reason this has been on my mind is that I’ve been thinking about this short horror film my wife and I made a few years ago called Knock Knock. It was for a contest that was being held to tie into the release of one of those Conjuring spin-off movies. It had a bunch of guidelines, but the two biggest were:
It had to be set within that universe of films.
It couldn’t be longer than two minutes.
Oh, and the deadline was ten days away. And we were also in the middle of production on a really big project. But this seemed like it might be a fun change of pace, we didn’t have anything scheduled for the following weekend, and so we decided to just go for it.
In addition to the contest’s guidelines, I created some of my own…
I didn’t want to do anything that featured a traditional-looking ghost or demon. That seemed boring.
I also knew I didn’t want it to end with a jump scare, because every short horror film ends with a lame-ass jump scare. We’d have to find a different note to go out on.
Stylistically, one of my favorite aspects of The Conjuring movies was the period setting. So I thought it would be cool to set our film in the late 60s/early 70s.
Once that decision was made, we remembered a location we had scouted for our other project that had a suitably retro vibe.
It was available, but we’d only have a few hours to shoot this.
And it was just going to be my wife and I. She was the entire cast and I was the entire crew.
As we kicked around ideas that fit within these parameters, I kept coming back to a scene in Beetlejuice that I’d always loved. It’s the part where the Maitlands have to draw a door on their wall and then knock on it in order to gain access to the underworld. So I just reversed it. I thought about how creepy it would be to come across a hand-drawn door and hear knocking from the other side. That was my starting point.
So I had a premise, a location, an actor, and a time limit. When I sat down to write a script, I found that most of the gaps in the story were filling themselves in. Because there really weren’t that many options. And there wasn’t a lot of time to second-guess the choices I was making. In the end, we didn’t even have an actual script. Since it was so short and there was almost no dialogue, I just drew storyboards and then used those boards as my shot list.
A few days later, we were filming. The only expenses were my wife’s costume, a box of crayons, and the parking ticket we got right before we left. I spent the rest of the weekend editing it and then it was uploaded.
To be honest, I’m not crazy about the finished product. Actually, it might be my least favorite thing we’ve done. BUT… I’m still so happy we did it. We had such a great time making it and the memories of that night are so overwhelmingly positive that the rest doesn’t even matter.
To go from the spark of an idea to a finished product in just a few days was a great feeling. And that did wind up being a welcome change of pace from the other project we’d been toiling away on. We also returned to that production feeling completely rejuvenated simply because we’d been able to switch gears for a little while.
And it would not have happened without all of those limitations. I wish we had made ten more short films in a similar way.
What I’ve Been Working On…
Well…
Take a wild guess.
Now that I’m neck-deep in post-production on Lucy Chandler, there’s been a lot of talk about doing something like Knock Knock again. I would love to periodically make and release some short films in between episodes of that series. I miss shooting. I miss being on set and working with actors. I love the idea of taking a weekend or two to experiment with some different tones and genres and then return to that larger, ongoing project feeling refreshed.
And I know constraints are the key. Without them, every theoretical short film feels like it has to represent the sum total of my identity as a filmmaker. And that’s crazy. That’s too much pressure for any project, but especially something that’s only going to be a few minutes long. Does that make sense, though? Can anyone else relate to that?
I also keep running into the same problem I always run into when trying to write a short: the ideas are too big. So many short films are really just feature-length ideas awkwardly crammed into a smaller container. Knock Knock didn’t become a viable concept until the whole thing almost seemed too simple. That’s when I knew we had a shot at meeting their restriction on the running time.
But even the shortest scripts I’ve been working on would wind up being 20-30 min long films. And even though there are a few I’d really like to make, I’m currently aiming for something we’d be able to knock out in a few days.
To that end, I know there are some obvious rules I can create for myself:
A single location.
One or two actors.
No new costumes, props, or equipment. Only stuff we already own.
But I’ve been wondering if there’s a way to make the parameters even more rigid. There’s a book of writing prompts just sitting on my Kindle that I’ve never even skimmed through. I’m going to try flipping to a random page, picking one of the prompts, and then spending any downtime I have that day brainstorming and free-associating until I have a workable idea. I’m going to keep doing that day after day for at least one week and see what I wind up with.
With any luck, by the time I sit down to write the next installment of Field Notes in two weeks, I’ll be able to tell you about the new short film I’m working on.
In the meantime, what are some fun and interesting limitations that you can challenge yourself with?
“The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.”
-Orson Welles
Comment of the Week
My previous post was a list of my favorite books about creativity. Evan replied with a couple of other great recommendations that I wanted to make sure everyone saw…
I've been meaning to start the King book – this might be my time to start. I'll add a couple!
The Greatest Song: Spark Creativity, Ignite Your Career, and Transform Your Life – this was written by the singer of Better Than Ezra and is a little unconventional. It's a fictional story but incorporates a lot of cool creative ideas. A very quick read that's got the approval of Peyton Manning, so it's not just a music book.
21-Hit Wonder: Flopping My Way to the Top of the Charts – my buddy Sam wrote this one about his repeated failings in the music business and how he finally broke through by finally following his arrow and blocking out the noise of everyone else. Again, lots of really great life advice for any creative. Highly highly recommended!
5 Cool Things
The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier. I tore through this novel in two days. It’s about a Paris-New York flight that gets enveloped by a mysterious storm. After making it through, they discover that three months have somehow passed in a matter of minutes. And upon landing, they’re told that their exact plane with this exact manifest already touched down all those months ago. It’s a great premise with well-drawn characters and even though I didn’t love the final stretch as much as everything that had preceded it, it’s still one of the best books I’ve read this year.
I recommended the ILM documentary Light & Magic in a previous post and Jurassic Punk is a nice compliment to it. It focuses on Steve “Spaz” Williams, the former ILM animator who was responsible for convincing his higher-ups that CGI could be used in place of stop-motion for the effects in Jurassic Park. It’s a moment that, for better and for worse, changed movies forever. Williams never got the credit he deserves and as the doc charts his rise and fall within the industry, it makes a pretty compelling argument for why that’s the case.
I also recommended season one of The Bear at some point last year and this is a reminder to give it a look if you still haven’t. Season two dropped on Hulu a few weeks ago and I think I may have enjoyed it even more than the first. It also has an incredible and eclectic soundtrack. I’ve been listening to this Spotify playlist of the songs from season two quite a bit.
This past week, my wife and I went to a candlelight concert where the Metropolis String Quartet performed the music of Danny Elfman. He’s one of my favorite film composers and I loved hearing these iconic themes broken down and reinterpreted in this way. This particular quartet plays all over Chicago, but these Candlelight events happen all over the world. So if there’s one near you that piques your interest, they’re definitely worth checking out. My wife found this one on Fever.
Kevin Kelly, the CEO of Wired was recently a guest on the Modern Wisdom podcast to talk about his new book Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier. The title of the episode is 22 Habits To Follow For A Happy Life and there’s a part about 39 min in where they discuss why pain is inevitable but suffering is optional. That section really resonated with me, but the entire interview is worth your time.
Take care, friends. Talk to you soon.
Your words are always so inspiring. You continue to be inside my head with your thoughts. Limitations can be the key to me getting in the zone and being confident in my choices when creating any type of art. Please keep doing what you do and sharing it with us.
With the amount of standup comedians that talk about porn, dating/relationships, and cussing on stage, I try to put those limitations onto myself and refrain from that stuff as best I can in my act. So when/if I use lewd language on stage, it's meant for the punch of the joke, not just word filler. Great article Chris. Also, thank you for recommending The Other Two!