As the sun sank behind the horizon that fall day two years ago, I cradled my camera in the woods that were familiar yet full of unseen perils. One such peril made itself known: a masked man emerged from behind a tree some 20 feet away. In an instant, he was sprinting towards me as I clumsily stepped back.
Fortunately, I knew the man well.
On a rapidly darkening Saturday afternoon, my friends and I were burning through a shot list for Obscura, an independently produced horror film set, aptly, in the woods of Ohio. Matt and Josh, the directors and by all accounts remarkable men who had orchestrated this project were nearby, each keeping an eye on the action and the sky.
Projects like these are all too rare in life after college or at whatever age formal schooling ends. There is no incentive, no money, no grade, no guilt if you are unable to make one of the shoot days. All that drives the cast and crew is the desire to spend time together and make something everyone can be proud of.
I used to dislike the term “passion project” because such projects were so closely aligned with the way I was trying to earn a living. Passion and exposure were all well and good, but lacked the sort of motivation I was looking for in my early twenties.
I was missing perspective, and time graciously provided me with perspective in spades. It took being away from people I cared about, losing the drive to improve each project I was a part of, and questioning why I was in a creative field in the first place to see the value of doing something for the love of it.
Not every project will, or even should, require the greatest outpouring of creativity and drive. Finding the gems, however, brings the larger picture into focus. What you are making matters. Who you are making it with matters all the more.
As evidenced by the landscape in this movie inscribed with the dedication “For Ohio”, it’s not all mountains and valleys. The mountains seem that much more majestic after trudging through a purgatorial labyrinth of corn.
Obscura is now available on Amazon Prime and YouTube.