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Like I get it, you are using that as an example to back up your feeling that the film is self-indulgent, but ignoring the reason that’s in the film to begin with. Do you honestly think I put that stuff in to make me look cool? I’m sweaty and look like shit in all of those shots.
Those shots are there for thematic reasons. I was 285lbs when I started shooting @clapboardjungle in 2014, I’d spent the previous year in mourning, drinking too much, eating too much, and basically circling the proverbial drain. I was depressed with a capital D.
And my career was dead in the water. So part of my push to pull myself out of that wasn’t just professional and mental, but physical too. From when I started filming to mid 2015 I dropped 115lbs and took control of my life back in more ways than one.
So when I see more than one person say something like “how vain do you have to be to include shots of yourself working out” or how I look during the film as the basis for a take reducing the point of the film to just some shit vanity project because of it, it’s really frustrating
Because if that’s really what I was doing, do you honestly think I wouldn’t be aware of how those scenes made me look? They would have been the first thing cut. Next to go would be any moment where I didn’t appear to be in a good place mentally. Next would be when I looked shitty
But instead, with support from my team (co-editor and producers), the decision was made to leave that in to show a ‘warts and all’ examination of what this pursuit does to me in multiple aspects of my life. That way there’s raw emotion to hang the more practical info on.
Of course I knew reactions like this were unavoidable and when you turn a camera on yourself it’s only natural some people will see that as only one kind of thing. And everyone’s opinion is valid. But to use 0.3% of the running time to dismiss 99.7% is a little disingenuous.
I’m also pretty sure this thread is going to be used as proof of someone’s broad assumption about me too, which... hey that’s the internet. Its ultimately fine if you don’t like something I made. But this one talking point is quite frustrating, so I felt I needed to address.
Ultimately the choice to turn the camera inward was practical first. I couldn’t financially afford to make the movie any other way. Shadowing a different subject over years takes $$$ I simply didn’t have. I paid for this thing out of my own pocket.
I knew from the start there was no way to avoid the obvious ‘self-indulgent’ reactions that would pop up, so the only thing I could do to mitigate that was not hide the shitty moments, to try to avoid artifice. If that doesn’t work for you, that’s cool. The TV series version may.
Because the project was made as two things at once. The film is emotional... still more than half is talking heads and practical info... but more the ‘why’s’ mixed with the ‘hows’. The 8 ep series is 100% talking heads and info. Each ep a topic. Much more the traditional doc.
Long story short, whether you liked it or not, I’m very grateful the film is being seen at all. And very excited that it’s mostly positive reactions. I just have trouble with the ones that feel more like a review of me than the film. Unavoidable, sure. But frustrating.
