There’s a lot of unfinished work out there. Who among us doesn’t have a screenplay or novel that we’ll never finish, taking up space in a drawer? How about an unfinished film? Let me know in the comments.
I almost didn’t finish my first feature, Spaceman. We ran out of money after shooting half of it. It took a Herculean effort to raise enough money to get the cast and crew back together after a several-month break.
Another film, The Matter of the Knife, directed by my friend and frequent collaborator, Keith Webster, in 1984, in which I played a deranged killer, remained unfinished for about 30 years until he finally edited it and finished the sound.
I was impressed a few years ago when Terry Gilliam finally finished The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, also 30 years in the making.
Those were close calls, but they were all completed. I can think of only one film project of mine that remains unfinished—and for nearly 25 years now: Wayne Buckner’s Videography Tips, Volume Eight: Backgrounds, a very short (roughly 3-minute) one-gag parody of a how-to-shoot-compelling-footage training video.
I love this little movie. It stars my friend and other frequent collaborator Peter Hilleren as Wayne Buckner, a friendly and articulate yet incompetent videographer. We shot the film on Liberty Island in New York City with nothing but a stone wall and trees in the background as Buckner explained the basics of how to choose the perfect backdrop for a video shoot.
He noted that the nice stone wall and foliage made the ideal background for this training video. He asked the cameraman (me) to turn the camera 360 degrees to show that we had clearly chosen the best option available at this location.
The camera panned around, passing the spectacular Manhattan skyline without pausing.
“As you can see,” he said, “there’s not much around here that’s any better than this attractive stone wall and trees.” He then wrapped things up and teased the (pretend) next video in the series.
We shot this film on September 9, 2001. It’s probably the last movie—certainly one of the last—to feature the twin towers.
Someday I’ll finish it. According to Gilliam, here’s what I need:
“Making a film,” he says, “is essentially two things: belief and momentum.”
The first 90% of a project takes 90% of the time. The last 10% of the project also takes 90% of the time.
That film sounds like fun! Finish it. And I swear I'm going to finish my GD novel and have it ready to go to agents and publishers this fall!