The Story of "Transfers" - Part 1

“Transfers” is a science fiction short I’ve been working on since mid-2010 (more on the time delays later).  A brief history to get anyone unfamiliar up to speed.  The idea started with a group of filmmaker friends who had the idea of doing an anthology film together; Chance Shirley, Robert Rugan, Mike Harring, and me.  Each of us involved had all worked on feature-length films in the past, and were, in fact, either in the planning stages of another feature or just wrapping one up.  So the idea here was we’d each get to take a little break from 80+ minute films and write and direct a shorter film with a very low budget, but by combining them we’d still end up with a feature-length (read, more marketable) film. 

So there was the idea; a four director anthology film.  Each of us would write, finance and direct our own film.  Early on we decided no to try and tie them together into some overarching story.  Rather, we'd link them loosely by a central thematic idea.  We tossed around several ideas as best I recall, but what we finally landed on was a general idea of some scientific invention, process or advancement that didn’t work out as it was intended to or just plan went bad.  Good enough theme to link the stories, but general enough that it gave us plenty of freedom to make our own kind of film.

The original story I outlined for the anthology was a sort of genetic mutation, monster movie.  I still like the idea and will probably do something with it at some point, but as I finished writing a short synopsis of it I got another idea.  I don’t really know how to say it better than that, I just got the idea.  Maybe the mutation story wasn’t really feeling like the right one for the anthology so in the back of my mind I was already running through other ideas, I don’t know.  But by the time I finished the first synopsis I started a new one, and in about half an hour I had the whole story outlined in about three pages.  I really couldn’t say where the story came from other than it was (though not consciously) my attempt at a Philip K. Dick style story; what’s real, what’s illusion, what does it mean to be human, those kind of ideas that he wrote about so often.  And I still don’t know if it’s a great story or not, but damn if it didn’t feel good writing it, to have the story flow onto the page almost effortlessly.  That doesn't happen often.

I decided, however, to present both my ideas to the group and they all agreed “Transfers” was the better fit for the anthology.  Good.  That’s what I’d thought too.  So off I went to write the script.  I made a few little changes from the original synopsis -- as often happens when fleshing out an idea -- but the majority of the story changed very little.  A few weeks later, I had a completed script and began the process of planning the production.

Coming Soon:  The Story of “Transfers” – Part 2: Location, Location, Location

And now for something completely different ...

If you have a minute, take the time to read this essay by Jeremy Crowson.  Jeremy is working on audio for my film, and, unknown to me until I read this, he suffers from a very rare and badly misunderstood illness.

I assumed this was coming in the future just not this soon.  Why do you hurt me, Netflix?

Love me some Criterion Edition DVD's.  Also dig the Harry Potter movies.  Hey, what if Criterion released special editions of the Harry Potter films?!  Unfortunately, this is fake.  Dammit.

This on the other hand is real, and very cool news for Guillermo Del Toro fans like myself.

And finally today I leave you with this YouTube video that I predict is infinitely funnier than the feature film whose preview is being ripped here.  Thanks to Carol for the link.