Sinking

The inspiration came from an article I read years ago that was about this phenomenon called Kodokushi, Kodokushi, also known as "lonely death", is a growing phenomenon in which people suffer extreme loneliness and are found dead without being discovered for long periods of time. Especially underscores the growth of social distancing and COVID-19, which draws attention to not only physical death but also social death. It makes me question for those who have been neglected and forgotten by society, are their ends pronounced by their physical deaths, or by the social treatment of non-existence?

There are multiple things that happen, as you may notice production never goes perfectly well there are always things that mess you up. During the pre-production the script was one of the biggest things, as you may already notice it is about a very depressing story and very painful to write and has affected my life in a not so good way. I have to basically put myself into the shoes of yamasaki to feel what he felt and then export these feelings into words and sentences. For me to do it was a lot of commitment, finding that complete isolation was more than painful and writing it down is even worse. I've had several emotional breakdowns and have changed my sleeping habits drastically and it still has an effect even today.  Then when it comes to production everything went sweet and smooth like butter on a hot pan until this actor bailed on me the night before her character was supposed to show up. Gladly a good friend of mine is willing to take over the character and help out but we signed a contract under my production company that was registered as a Inc. I have all the right to sue her just because of that but I didn’t since it was just a waste of time. 

There are few things I’ve learned. One of them which I really wanna share was that as a director you have to pay attention to every detail of everything. The reason that makes Stanly Kubrick who he is, is his OCD and I agree during my set I always wanna be having as much as control as possible. I don't treat people like Kubrick but I did like to go into the very detail of everything. But at the end I still felt like there are a lot of things I want to present but didn’t make it to the people watching it because there are a few moment my mind slip, and because of that there are many coverages I should’ve got but never did I should just keep myself more guarded and took as much advantage over time as possible. That includes some of the acting I’ve directed, there are moments on set I felt like the acting was very damn good but in the end it wasn’t, your naked eyes lie, trust your monitor. Other than that is to take notes as much as possible no matter how good you are with your memories you are going to forget about things. 

The reason that makes me a filmmaker, I personally felt that a lot of the stories I know that matters to not just me but many people on this earth has not yet being told, as someone who face a lot challenges growing up I always seeks the reason for my existence, in almost every depress moment of my life so far I ask myself this question what makes you alive what makes you not giving up to the reality that life is whole big of a mess and one’s existence don’t matter. I never had any answer until the day I saw this film “To Live” . The main characters in this film are facing all kinds of hardship created by themselves, time period, politics and wars. Almost everyone around him has died for some reason but yet he decides to live no matter what. After watching that film I was stunned. I sit in my chair just staring at credit till everything fades to black, how could a simple thing as to live become such an act of courage.  I felt like me questioning the purpose of my existence is such naive thought,  and just as the moment I wanted to share this with my friend I stopped, I was speechless. I realize there is just no way I can express all of these thoughts and ideas to its fullest in words or sentences. The power of moving images is something no writing can’t take over, so I decided to become a storyteller and a filmmaker. In that case my voice will be bigger and stronger which allows me to tell others that maybe living on this earth is not overall that bad.

Making things too heavy was not my intention, so let’s get back to the lighter stuff, I felt like  going to film school let you know the overall production process and gives you knowledge about what makes a production smooth, but at the end of the day the execution and the creation part is what matters the most, school touch base on these things but never actually get student to that industries level. For anyone who is interested in becoming a filmmaker or applying for film school, expect the least and you are gonna feel much better, it’s not a guarantee that makes you a filmmaker, be proactive, go on set, make connections, finest your skill, write and shoot is what makes you a filmmaker. 

My future plans so far is trying to keep my production company going toward the right, I personally am taking a lot of gigs as a gaffer, sometimes dp here and there to build my gear as well as some time for my next projects more so just a script a comedy about two guys that has very distinct background trap in a same elevator on a friday night trying to get out, and bonds a strong relationship during as they dive deeper into their personal stories and eventually finds redemption for each of them and of course they are out of that elevator at the end. For my career I know people like to talk about oh, I want to be a dp, I want to be a director, I want to be a producer or whatever. I get it but what saying is easy doing it is just whole another story, not many people in this industry get to make a living from just directing, so my goal is to take it step by step I will keep telling my story but until the day I make something like “To Live” I will keep doing what I do just so I can achieve that goal to shoot whatever I want to shoot.