You Should Make a Shark Movie
I often tell you to make movies—I firmly believe that the medium of film now belongs to the people, and that they should take advantage of that fact. For far too long, it’s been gatekept, but now anyone can do it, its materials freely and easily available, like with drawing, or writing, or making music. This is the most significant development in our lifetime, right up there with the internet—we are amidst the true burgeoning of an entire art form. However, because the revolution is not ‘televised’, no one cares. No media outlet—or even niche outlets pertaining specifically to independent film—is ever going to make an announcement that the art form of film has now been freed from its shackles, and that we’ve reached ‘true independence’. It’s not in the interest of the machine, the gates, the keepers, to let the masses know that, as it would upend their entire corrupt institution. All this to say, you should make a movie—like I always tell you. But, I’m now going to revise that—not only should you make a movie, you should, specifically, make a shark movie.
I was aware of the deluge of crappy, Z-grade shark movies that have come in the wake of Sharknado before I made my own shark movie, No Shark (which you can watch for free on YouTube). My entire concept—of a shark movie with no sharks in it—was me seeing the subgenre to its absolute nadir (or apex, depending on how you looked at it). It was a commentary, but it was also an opportunity—not only could I make this movie (no sharks required) but I could make it really fucking different from all that has come before. It could be an art film—it could bend the typical constraints of film itself, even. It could be a wormhole, a tangent universe—it could be the fullest extent of a ‘film that should not exist’, as opposed to just a mere winking thing. It could be a ‘problem’.
That previous paragraph is probably the most honest glimpse I’ve ever given as to my thought process behind the kind of movies I make. Every time I make a movie, what excites me the most about making it is that I am doing something wrong—and deliciously so. Something that I know is right for the movie, but is conventionally incorrect. That is what gets me out of bed and creating. I am a transgressive artist at my very core, but not for mere shock value—I don’t want to give people unpleasant experiences, I want to give them highly pleasurable ones, with the price of admission only that they get over their arbitrary preconception and realize they were all wrong. I make very good movies, but ones that require people to shed their erroneous views about what the art form of film can or should be. This is probably why I am still, to this day, a relatively obscure filmmaker—I am asking a lot!
My stature and reach is growing, though—mostly due to my aforementioned shark-less shark film, No Shark. You won’t see any fanfare about it stateside though—not many Americans have watched it. It is primarily being seen, and enjoyed, and analyzed philosophically, by Japanese audiences. It turns out weird shark movies are extremely popular in Japan. I learned this not long into making the movie, the proof firmly in the pudding when halfway into our crowdfunding campaign, an influx of Japanese donors helped us exceed our goal and comfortably afford many more shoot days. They were clamoring so hard for my bizarre experiment of a movie—on sheer premise alone—that they made it able to be a much bigger movie, both length-wise and buzz-wise.
I always felt like the Japanese might like my films—I like a lot of American stuff that is more embraced on an artistic level by Japan, from Vincent Gallo to the band Mr. Big and various guitar shredders. Now I know that I was right—they have taken to not just this film, but to exploring my other work as well, and are digging it. The best thing I’ve ever done for my career as a filmmaker has been to accidentally make a movie that belongs in a subgenre that the Japanese adore—and you can do it too.
The shark movies that they watch and obsess over are usually terrible. As part of my research for No Shark, I watched over 60 shark movies. A surprising amount of those were quite enjoyable—I think I genuinely liked about a third of those, which I did not expect. There are a bunch of abysmal ones, though—just totally lazy in all directions. The Japanese still discuss these—they’re obsessed with the idea of them. They feel as though they are peering in on something special and strange and American. Well, if you give them one of those that’s slightly better than the rest, they will be quite grateful. They’ll watch any shark movie with a pulse and find something to enjoy about it out of desperation—give them one with actual verve and aplomb and you are delivering them mana from the Gods. They’ll meet you more than halfway—it doesn’t need to be a masterpiece (though, in my opinion, No Shark absolutely is) it just needs to not be dead on arrival. I think you can do that—even if you’ve never made a movie before. Watch a couple of the worst of these shark movies, and you’ll see what I mean.
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