I learned a great lesson on one of my early short films LANCASTER COUNTY 2020. I was shooting a section to music where the lyrics told of a futuristic carnival atmosphere in a song called AMISH WUNDERWORLT. The idea was that in 2020 there was this crazy wacky amusement park which was very exploitative of the Amish. There was a lyric that said "And for you thru the keyhole peerers, an Amish home with two way mirrors! Watch them sleep and watch them eating! What them pray in Sunday meeting!". This was to be a funhouse in the carnival where you could watch Amish people as an attraction.

Naturally this was beyond the capability of our budget (ZERO!) to pull off an actual Amish House populated with Amish people and a crowd watching them, but we did not know how to interpret this and did not want to lose the idea entirely, so what is a filmmaker to do?

Being in a jam often leads to a much better idea that is cost effective, do-able, less literal and much better anyway! I wound up shooting a crowd of onlookers with a fisheye lens and ten faces jammed all up at my lens looking at it. I used this visual under this whole section and it was so much more powerful than recreating the whole thing. At it's essence it was about the lookers, not the Amish funhouse. Problem solved! Budget intact! BETTER IDEA!

So I didn't panic when my first idea for the Edie Carey LOVE video ran into a glitch. I had looked into the possibility of getting one of our fabulous local opera houses (Fulton, Strand) for a performance section. I had some things in mind to make it a bit more than straightforward, but it would have been a simple lovely location to film... but in many ways not that creative.

Those theaters are pretty booked up and this video we are filming is low budget. Rentals on those buildings weren't in the plan and especially rentals where we load in and rush our filming, trimming the good ideas from the shot list to make it happen on their timetable. There is another thing I've learned... make sure you have a location where you have full control and aren't rushed.

So these last few days I have modified my original idea and now have something MUCH more creative, much more doable on our budget (shoestring) and one that I think will be a much better video in the end. I have yet to go over everything with Edie but just got in touch so we can do that... If she likes I will share! I hope I am in the right direction, but first and foremost I am interpreting her work and must be 100% in keeping with her thinking and feelings about the song.

I will report. Wish me luck... but I know that when you get sent back to the drawing board, you so often draw something better. Never fear, just know it will come.