18 November 2005

The Secret Room

Almost two years ago I wrote a short story called Nutshell which later evolved into The Secret Room. Me and a couple of friends -- Dennis and Jeff -- made it into a short film. We entered it into Project Greenlight but only made it to the top 50.

For whatever reason kbryna here on blogger has taken a fancy for my artwork. I don't know, she must be crazy. ;) She's a total stranger in every sense of the expression. I've never met her and can hardly say I know anything about her at all. Anyways, she expressed an interest in any more work I had on offer and I obliged. I thought I'd share this film we made.

She liked it so much she was speechless, which I can tell you -- if you read her blog -- is no small feat.

Honestly, I hadn't really thought about it in a long time. I forgot what this film even meant to me.

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If you click the link below please be mindful that I have limited bandwidth. Please don't load it up 50 times or send it to all your friends or you will surely send the film and most of this blog to a dark, lonely corner of the internet -- lost for a month -- forcing me to pay more in hosting fees than I already am.

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You can watch it here: The Secret Room



That's not the final product either. I had a friend do some serious sound work on it and what came out was something not short of amazing. To me anyways.

I never released it. I wasn't allowed to enter it into any other festivals either. I ran into a problem with the girl playing the deal girl. She refused to sign an actors release form but that's a whole story unto itself. We won't go there.

So here it sits, in limbo. We have plans to someday remake it using someone else as the girl. In fact my friend Jon has taken it upon himself to do a rewrite. Adding in some other plot twists and characters. All in all, beefing it up and making it longer. I've read the preliminary script he has and what's in there I like, but it's changed. It's different now. My original vision is still there but it's buried.

Recently I've honestly kinda forgot about The Secret Room. About why I wrote it in the first place. At the heart it's about loneliness, that much is obvious. But it's more than just that. I didn't tell many people about the real reason I wrote it. About what it really means to me. I'm gonna get all art-fag on you now.

I wrote it as a metaphor for a dead-end relationship. A one-sided relationship. About one person contributing everything and the other person contributing nothing. About suddenly coming to terms with giving your everything to someone who is incapable of doing the same. It's about the opposite of sharing. The Secret Room.

It's about the things a relationship loses, or maybe never even had. It's about death, and having to die yourself if you want to stay in that relationship.

There is some innate pain about keeping a secret. About not being able to say something you really want to say. About a secret love only you feel. About hiding. It's funny in a not so funny way and in the end you'll do anything to keep that pain because you mistake it for what you think you want or need. Again, dying in the process.

Maybe all that doesn't come through in the film. Maybe I didn't want it to. But now, it seems more than ever, I need to remember these things.

11 comments:

Martin Brandt said...

I think I stayed in that room for 10 years. That is powerful.

Martin Brandt said...

Ok I just watched your movie. Holy crap man...

I really can not think of a way to explain that, without taking away from it.

I am just kinda lost now... Guess this comment is kinda worthless but oh well.

kittens not kids said...

i'm not always so wordy. but speechless is indeed quite a high form of compliment from me.

i have many things to say but i need to think more carefully about them. for now i will leave it at: as if the film itself wasn't enough, you had to write this post....

in the meantime: whose idea was the choose-your-own-adventure books? and where did you get such a collection of them?

jenwildcat said...

I don't like art anymore.

jenwildcat said...

Ha, it's so funny that that chick mentioned those books (I did not watch the movie) because just last night I was telling Kevin how much I loved those fucking things when I was a kid.

That was one helluva run-on sentence.

Tenebrous Rex said...

The Choose Your Own Adventure books are D's. A couple of years ago him and his sister were on somekinda race to see who could buy more off ebay. That is the end result.

Anonymous said...

Glad to see you finally decided to let people see this amazing little film. Unfortunately I can't view it at work so you'll have to burn me a copy. Next you should post the hilarious Filmmakers Video you did as a follow up.

kittens not kids said...

i cannot describe how odd it was to see myself referred to as "that chick." suddenly doppelgangered....

allow me to introduce myself: i am me. you've seen my bloggy-blog. i am no longer a total stranger.

Martin Brandt said...

Have not figure out why yet, but your movie keeps remind me to ask if you saw "Stay"? If not you really should check it out.

Tam said...

Not suprising, that was really great Paul. You have an amazing gift it seems. I sure hope you never lose sight of it or forget that you have it.

Tenebrous Rex said...

haha! Nobody warned me.

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