Weeks ago, I found this short documentary on Stanley Kubrick by Jim Casey, Kubrick: The Lost Tape, and it made me eager to make films again. My last (and second) film, Stalkers, haven’t been screened or distribute for many reasons–one of them is because I don’t have time, money, and enough skill to craft it yet. And being a producer and director was really hard especially if you were going abroad without having the time to edit the film or distributed it properly. Having a producer that was not yourself helped a lot. My first short, Mother Earth, produced by Tito Imanda, for me wasn’t really satisfying in terms of production and direction. But having Tito there made the film a lot more available to a specific public, more valuable and worth-watching somehow–in academic context. On the contrary, Stalkers cost me and some people quite a lot so I almost gave up trying to dream of another film of mine before this one is properly re-edited and distributed.

But watching this documentary made me realized a lot of things. One of them is my collection of short stories and scattered ideas. I heard Kubrick voice in my head, and I was surprise that his voice is just like an ordinary nerd, and he seemed like a fun guy to work with. He never hesitated to say that his films were awful or horrible. He did not stop, and he learn a lot.

Kubrick started his career as a photographer, then an assistant professional photographer, then an amateur documentary filmmaker, then a feature filmmaker and most of his early works sucks. He admitted that he hated reading until he graduate from college, and he needed to catch up intellectually to match his cinematography and his references. He learned film productions by making a lot of stupid mistakes. And that is exactly what I am doing today. Of course I’m in my thirties, kind of a little late. But Yasmin Ahmad, the famous Malaysian director, made her first feature in her 40’s, which is nice.

Well, without further ado, enjoy this short documentary. I’m gonna finish another story of mine about an A.I. thief who run to Kansas, then have walk outside to make some video diary. If Kubrick has a lot of reading to catch when he was my age, I got a lot of shooting to catch. My sense of space and geometric really sucks. I need to learn simple cinematography, before I can hire a real cinematographer.