Beginning at the Beginning

We are elbows-deep in our private fundraising at the moment, and that means pitching, baby. One of my favorite things about describing About the Author to other people is giving the history of the film so far — and to me, that means starting with the works that inspired me.

The “rule,” insofar as there really is one, is that creative influences and/or comps come later in a pitch deck, and contextually that makes sense: this presentation is about MY idea, and these other artists’ ideas are really just to help you visualize the kind of thing I’m talking about. But in reality, new ideas often start with this kind of inspiration. Even if the “seed,” so to speak, is a totally unique idea, or a singular experience from your life, the inspiring art you’ve consumed fertilizes the ground in which you plant it. So, in a way, you are already beginning to make the work before you realize that’s what you’re doing.

So let’s begin at the beginning…or, since, unlike Lewis Carroll, I am Jewish, let’s begin a little before the beginning.

It’s a pretty common experience for young filmmakers to see a phenomenal movie and say “Wow, I want to make THAT.” For me, that movie was without a doubt Synecdoche, New York. I was 18 years old and a freshman at NYU and I’m pretty sure I saw the late screening at IFC on a weeknight, and afterward I had to walk past my dorm on Washington Square West and in about 50 circles around the park just to give myself enough quiet time to think about the film’s obscure allusions and strange, complex textures — and about how very, very much I wished I could make something “like that.”

If you haven’t seen it, I could tell you that it stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as a theatre director with a mysterious illness, or I could tell you that it’s a “postmodern psychological drama” written by Charlie Kaufman, or I could tell you that it’s also Kaufman’s directorial debut — but instead I’ll tell you to just go watch it.

And if you have seen it, I’ll tell you that About the Author isn’t “THAT,” necessarily. But Synecdoche did create my obsession with manipulating the line between fiction and reality, particularly when it comes to making art about making art.

So yes, About the Author’s timeline officially “began” when I started writing the script in 2021. But the sprout was growing up through the fertile soil for long, long before that.