During my childhood in the 70s, the neighboring colorful summer cinema, seduced me. I had always had the desire of making a film with good ingredients and conditions, full of substance, preferably of short length and compact quality. Although I began this film in 1997, my goals were beyond technology of the 90s, making the film infeasible. While I kept an open eye on technology, I put the film aside until conditions were mature enough. During the Covid pandemic, I reloaded the film and drove it to completion.

To have been able to give my imagination flesh, bones and breath on the big screen, was such a shocking experience that decomposed me. It triggered flammable tears of enormous happiness.

People with similar footprints understand each other better. I am not expecting the masses to realize why/how this film was made. Most people think that Cinematography is an industry that manufactures products of similar content and cost or it can be measured in labor hours; or Spiritual work is free … Let alone the fact that people relate the production duration/cost with the film length. This does not happen. For instance, you need exactly the same scenery for a film of 5 mins and for a film of 120 mins. The Cost and the duration of a production is related to the effort behind making it, rather than the film length. Shooting this film with real means would have been a piece of cake, however with meager impact, no challenge and different compromises, the worst out of all, I wouldn’t have the scenery required.

The volume of work was monstrous and multidimensional for a single person, but I enjoyed all of it. Patience is trust in time, which, being very just, justified me. I personally financed almost 100% of the production while life cost was running faster. For such a demanding project, it was a waste trying to share my vision with people with short sight, satisfied with cheap and silly ideas, let alone to hire them to work! I did not scatter my vision left and right, I didnt seek for guardians or burdened passengers, crying assistants, frightened ones that give in at the slightest thing. According to Edward Morgan Forster “One person with passion is better than forty people merely interested”. Thats is why I preferred to work solo. Teams that don’t bond, can’t build. There is no substiture to knowledge, experience, nor hard work!

Conceptualizing, strategy planning, research, experimenting, development, obtaining references, learning new technologies, modeling, texturing, styling, wardrobe design, hair dressing, fur treatment, architectural design, interior design, furnishing, rigging, coding, staging, cinematography, countless problems solving, camera work, acting, special effects, rough edit, music concept, criticizing, optimizing, setting farm priority, farm monitoring, validation, healing artifacts, sound work, final edit, color grading, data management, titles, poster concept, paperwork, accounting, web copywriting, … aouch!

Albert Camus said “Vous ne pouvez pas créer de l’expérience. Vous devez la subir.” – “You cannot create experience. You have to endure it.” In everything you do, you cannot foresee what you will encounter. I was eager to find out. Some information is uncharted, kept obscured, or totally unknown. Some problems were so awfully hard to solve…

Challenges &Handling

There is no perfect software. Especially 3D rendering engines are extremely sensitive to math calculations. A minor miscalculation changes the result dramatically. Technology always needs “baby sitting”. I felt privileged to have intrusive access to software development, so apart from bug reporting, in several occasions I submitted some feature requests that were fulfilled, after explaining their practicality. Some gentle developers donated some tools, some others coded tools for my favor. All of them were credited. However, there were still haunted bugs and weaknesses that were unbearable. Bugs are not always aligned with the development company’s priorities or marketing, even worse its adequacy.

I had to coin my own technologies to work around, with attention to the quality VS processing cost. Especially “Lightgambler”, my most satanic invention, a brainchild of the same value as the film itself, caused me such explosive enthusiasm that I should run outdoors naked yelling “eureka”. I am pleased to write that these inventions constituted the foundation of the film and the signals that strengthened my faith to carry on.

The production seemed as an impossible goal to conquer; a Terra incognita, a new Continent, a very long pregnancy. Gradually it evolved into a university, a sanatorium, a shelter, a garden of emotions, a distillery, a holy place, a fellowship, a laboratory, a foggy mountain to climb, a debt to settle, a prison to break, a ceiling to drill, a self-exploration.

Fatally, Dokeshi No Michi is right. “Set a goal so big that you can’t achieve it until you grow into the person who can”. The film inspired me, motivated me, trained me, grew me. We ended up becoming a Unity. However, there was a cognitive dissonance between finishing the film and living with it. Detaching a part of myself and exhibiting it, is a very odd feeling. A very close friend told me once “Even if you never finish this film, you have already won”