Making my first short film 3/3 – Post-Production
Now it ends…
After our wrap at the horse stable on 7 November 2023, the three-year long post-production process began.
I met with Brandon at the King’s Cross station on the morning of 8 November to copy the footage before his departure. He was with James Storey, who was also heading in the same direction as him. I managed to collect some of the videos before he had to board his train… which he missed.
The station attendants saw our plight and were able to get Brandon and James on the next train… what a relief.
When I got home and reviewed the footage, all hell broke loose within me. All I saw was my mistakes and errors, and everything I could’ve done to fix everything that had gone wrong. I never took a moment to appreciate the work and input. I just felt empty inside – hopeless.
What am I going to do? I obviously can’t fix this, can I? Let’s see what Leon has to say.
Leon encouraged me that this was a really great first attempt. I had come to life as a great producer and made art from the chaos (not his exact words), so this was definitely worth showing to the world. I definitely needed to sharpen my directing, but I had been a pretty decent producer. Brandon echoed the same sentiment.
So I took advantage of their positivity, and decided that if I couldn’t see the beauty in it, then I’ll hand it over to a different editor to try their hands on it.
So, I put out this post on the NYFA:
![Menelek Mikael](https://i0.wp.com/menelekmikael.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/Screenshot-2023-11-07-193710.png?resize=695%2C385&ssl=1)
I got a couple of interested individuals. I didn’t have much to pay so the first person rejected. I did get an interested editor soon. And it looked like this was going to be great…
Then their Facebook account got hacked before we could communicate any further. I’m sure it’s fixed now, but it sent me this message lol.
Anyway, that was the brick wall for me. I had been running on fumes since the end of filming, and now, I was drained.
Let’s actually talk about that.
No one told me about this:
After making a film, when you return to your boring monotonous life, you experience a dramatic drop in energy and interest in that monotony.
At the time, I didn’t know what it was, but it was such a strong feeling that caused me to stop working my job after just one… I took a two weeks “sick leave” first… and during that time, I quit my job… and then I booked a 2 months ticket back home to Ghana. I did all of these on a whim.
To be fair, there could be other things that contributed to me giving up on life that much (I’m looking at you COVID lockdown). I know many people who made a similar exodus after Lockdown was done with them. However I know that the film played role in this because I will have this same feeling right after making my second short film.
There’s a high that comes with bringing your art to life, and if it’s not managed well, can lead to a severe dip after the process has finished… Especially if your results were anything like my first one.
When I returned to London after months away, I tried to revisit what we had shot. I went ahead and tried to watch every single one and name them appropriately for a video editor to easily pick up.
The more I went through, the more crushed I felt. All I saw was my flaws, and that stopped me from embracing the small wins. I actually felt embarrassed. All that big talk about building something cinematic, and this is what I came up with? Everyone else had remained optimistic about project while I just brewed in my perceived failure.
So I did what any normal person would do…
I tried to bury the movie.
That has been the biggest mistake of my entire filmmaking career so far. All my other errors throughout pre-production and production are entirely forgiveable except this one. My ego was so big that I couldn’t allow myself to take my baby step in peace.
What the heck did I expect to make with the available resources? Frigging Ironman? Like, sometimes, I wish I could go back in time and smack past-me in the back of his head. Dude, wtf?! I thought we had left all the ego stuff behind at 23, but I guess I still had it manifesting in such an unpleasant way.
But I didn’t just bury the film, I jumped straight onto my next one: Blinded by Magic. I promised myself I’ll never repeat the mistakes of the first one, and that I’ll make sure I release that one no matter how it turned out… but I couldn’t get myself to release The Painted Goddess.
Last year on 5 Nov 2022, a year after the production date, I felt a burst of energy. Why not revisit it? At that point, I had released Blinded by Magic, which I dubbed my “first” short film. It was technically the first film I had ever put out, and it made me think about the film that should’ve been my actual first. Besides, if I can stand Blinded by Magic without cringing to death, then The Painted Goddess should be nothing… right?
Well I don’t know what happened but I never actually got to it. Instead, I tried to remake the film.
Not until a couple of days ago on 5 November when I saw some photos pop up on my Google Photos. Remember two years ago on this same day? I saw the photos we took back then. At that point, I was editing my “new” miniseries pilot called Abranteers. I thought to myself, no more excuses. “Add this to your checklist, raise the priority, and make it happen.”
I’m going to finish this film and put it out no matter how hard I cringe. I have to do it for the 5 people who pay attention to my work. Most importantly, I need to make sure the amazing individuals who committed their time, resources and money to the making of my short film get something worth their time.
Looking Back
I can’t believe I actually managed to pull together a project with 10 strangers and somehow made it work. That was very impressive especially considering all the limitations and obstacles. Looking back, one thing I would’ve done differently would be to scale down and do a smaller project. But I’m still happy with the size I started with. One lesson I’ve learned from the past version of me is to Just Do It. Go big, make mistakes, and learn by doing.
It’s a big win for a complete amateur first-generation immigrant. I feel so much vim now, and would keep this going.