In creating this short film I hope I will find all of my dreaded film school demons exorcised. I see Vignette: The Final Chaos as an homage to all of the countless action flicks, zombie movies and sci-fi shorts that I was put through during my brief and foolhardy stint as a film major at the University of _____. Words cannot describe the pain I felt when subjugated to yet another one of my peers trying his/her hand at something he/she was far from capable of pulling off on film.

I never quite understood why so many of them were so eager to tackle the genres that required the most resources that they had no way of getting their hands on. Expensive CGI effects, talented actors, million-dollar pieces of camera equipment. Why not just shoot a simple love story between a car thief and an American student in France? It worked for Godard. He was awful, and people absolutely love him.

Sure, we meant well. Sure, what we saw in our minds and what we drew out onto little storyboards was fantastic and avant-garde. Real blockbuster material. But the fact of the matter is, a college student on a shoe-string budget manning a small consumer-grade video camcorder cannot possibly hope to achieve 2 and a half hours of Spielbergian celluloid.

Simply put, shaky camera work, muffled audio and a friend who happens to be a theatre major amounts to crap. I’ll be the first to admit that my work was just as bad as the next (possibly the worst). When you happen to be cursed by being a perfectionist, nothing ever comes out the way you want it. It ends up driving you insane that what you capture on video will never match what you dream up.

So I decided to do the next best thing to creating a masterpiece. I got a few friends together and we created a massive pile of cinematic bunk. And do you know what the best part about it was? We had a blast doing it.

The Final Chaos isn’t really about tearing down the work of my classmates (although this happens to be a delightful side-effect), it’s about embracing the attempts of amateurs for the sake of a few laughs. We’re awful, and we know we’re awful. So please, laugh at us. It’s on the house.

sincerely,
nat