I should have released this months ago. Better late than never!
Last year I asked my friend, colleague, and frequent creative partner Josh Booth if he would make a short film with me. We both do a fair amount of commercial video work, but sometimes we just need to make something for ourselves. For fun! And to practice.
So, I wrote this short film, and then we recruited a cast, crew, and location owner who were generous enough to give us a day of their time. That’s one thing I love about the film/video community in Iowa. By and large, people are willing to help each other out with creative projects that we know no one is going to pay us to do (so long as you make it fun). I’ve done the same thing, helping out on set as an extra pair of hands, just because it’s fun and I want to see what my friends might create.
Finishing things feels better than perfecting things
As mentioned, this film should have been shared a long time ago. We filmed it in August, 2023, almost a year ago now, and Josh had the first edit done very soon afterward. Josh is quick and likes to get things done.
I, on the other hand, can be annoyingly slow. I get persnickety (a word I love, by the way), and if something doesn’t quite match the vision I had in my head for how it would go, I usually take one of two paths. 1) I will tinker with it obsessively trying to make it just right, or 2) I will put it away and avoid dealing with it. (Often, I start with option 1, and once I’m thoroughly frustrated, I shift to option 2.)
Occasionally, I try to employ a third strategy, which is to ask someone else to do the work instead of me. I asked both Josh and my friend Adam to work on music for this film, and then I didn’t quite like what they came up with, so we were back to my usual strategies, which led to months of absolutely nothing happening.
Josh was exasperated at first—“Just put it out there!”—but he’s a busy guy, so eventually he moved on to other things and forgot about it.
Earlier this year, I realized I had seriously procrastinated on almost every project I had started. Every single one was either stalled out or only limping along, and it was making me feel depressed. So, I decided that—for my own mental health, if nothing else—I would dedicate more energy to finishing things!
For example, I ordered large prints of my photography and showed them in Groundswell Cafe. I had been wanting to exhibit my photography somewhere for a long time, but I had never done it before. It was so much fun! (Bonus: I sold quite a few, too!)
My children’s book that I wrote about last week is also on the list of projects to finish soon. Others will take longer, but one thing I am learning: it feels so much better to finish a project imperfectly than to have a “could be better” project collecting dust.
Take the music in this film. I still don’t love it, but it’s done, and so far no one who has watched it has focused at all on the music. What catches their attention is the story, especially the reveal toward the end.
So, expect more imperfectly finished projects from me in the future.
Only read beyond this point if you’ve watched the film (spoilers)
In case you watched “Dinner with Gigi” and want to know what my inspiration was, here’s a bit of background.
A couple years ago, my wife brought home a book called Lifespan by David Sinclair. He’s a researcher at Harvard whose team is looking into ways to enable people to live longer. If his predictions come true, we could eventually (relatively soon, actually) have a world in which people (or pets, etc.) can simply take a pill that reverses their body’s age.
When I went online to read more about age reversal, one thing that struck me is how many wealthy, techy white guys are really into this topic. Probably the best known is billionaire Bryan Johnson who is spending a lot of his money on research, procedures, and supplements in an effort to live forever.
I don’t know about you, but when I imagine rich people spending their money in order to live forever, I get a sick feeling in my stomach. It makes me think of Lord Voldemort. And even though, as a middle-aged man not looking forward to aging, I would love to extend my own youthful years, I seriously worry that we’re going to end up in a situation where the greediest, most power-hungry and resource-consuming people on earth will be allowed to tighten their grips around the rest of our necks for even longer than they currently can.
I don’t know about you, but when I imagine rich people spending all their money in order to live forever, I get a sick feeling in my stomach. It makes me think of Lord Voldemort.
I mean, just look at our current presidential candidates and many of our sitting lawmakers, most of whom should clearly pack it in, but who refuse to give up their quest for (or hold on) power, no matter what the cost might be to the nation.
So, for this short, I imagined a world in which the decision was made to give anti-aging treatment only to people who had an unfair disadvantage in life the first time around. Someone, perhaps, who grew up as a Black female in the Jim Crow south.
I can’t say I started there. At first I was just thinking about a funny scenario where a grandson was having dinner with his age-reversed grandmother who decided to date his best friend. But as I dug into the world of anti-aging research, issues of race, gender, and wealth became pretty hard to avoid.
I don’t know if it will ever come to fruition, but I have in mind a TV series in which we follow some of these characters, dubbed “reruns” who are given a 2nd chance to live their lives. Some things are new, but many of the challenges they face look all too familiar. My vision for it is that it would be funny while dealing with serious issues, and most-important, it should feel very human and accessible. So, you know, if you like the concept and know someone capable of greenlighting the funding to create a series, shoot me a message! ;)
Until then, sending good vibes your way.
Courtney
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