A (Dis)Embodied Experience
by Justin Scarelli

“You should just make the film yourself,” I remember telling Deb, after an increasingly frustrated bout with trying to crowdfund the project and realizing current connections were lukewarm and lacking.

I wasn’t trying to send my friend on a fool’s errand, mind you, but rather remind her of “living a life that is driven more strongly by curiosity than by fear,” as Elizabeth Gilbert says in her book Big Magic.

I have experienced how hard and arduous the climb to creativity can be when the focus and intent is on raising money to begin with. You’re standing over a precipice, hands cupped to your cheeks, and shouting to anyone who will listen to your echo, “I’m here! I’m ready!” But what your internal voice is saying is “I can create, but only within parameters surrounding your cash in my proverbial pocket.” 

That’s not to say having a budget is bad -- it’s essential and necessary in order to help turn a vision into a fully-realized version of itself. My argument is that intent should never be solely focused on money, for it will hold you back before you even start.

Justin LA Bound

When you start to listen to and focus on the process, that’s where you can begin to play, and the universe can conspire with you, and that’s where Deb was when she told her partner Craig as he stumbled in from work one evening, “we’re making a movie. And we’re casting in two weeks.”
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I Skyped in for the auditions, wanting to help support my friend in this unknown and exciting endeavor. Too often as writers, we hit our head against the wall because we spend hours hunched over our laptops or notepads to record new worlds and characters from our imaginations, only to have our inertia stalled in the hands of someone else. In those moments, we give some of the power away to a force that isn’t as invested in seeing your project through. I wanted Deb to feel the empowerment of taking something on, and to truly understand her value as a writer. It was when she asked me to direct the film, that I found myself caught by surprise.

“You want me to direct?” I asked her. “You do realize that I’m in Los Angeles, and you’re filming in New Hampshire. I would love to be there in person, but I can’t afford to take the time off.” Deb assured me that she had seen how I handled the actors from the laptop screen, and that I could do the same while on set. I was doubtful, because a lot of the magic of making a film happens on set, and I would literally be removed from that experience, save technology and an iPhone. But, I had to put my notions where my nerves were, and I accepted the challenge. And thus, the initial filming of Climate began.

It wasn’t as hard as I’d imagined, working with actors and the crew over FaceTime or Skype. The conversations were the same, and though it could never fully replicate being on set I felt that I could do a lot of the work of adjusting actor’s performances and camera angles from sitting on my bed in Los Angeles.

​At one point, Tj, who had taught himself to record audio, created a construction paper body for the selfie stick I was often attached to. The experience was magical, something special. It was exactly what I had wished for Deb, no matter the outcome of this initial process. She was listening to the Force, finding she had the capacity for greatness all along.

Of course, there were limitations to the FaceTime directing. I was seeing the set as a 2D image, and so it was hard to communicate to Craig, who was acting cinematographer, where the camera should be spatially, etc. And I was often forgotten during lunch breaks, where someone would set the selfie stick down and I’d have a lovely view of a popcorn ceiling. And there were my own doubts -- was I giving the actors all I could? Was I doing an adequate job of storytelling? Was I following my curiosity within the confines of what we were attempting to create?

​Or was my assistance in this film merely an illusion, only as effective as the small screen I happened to be on? What I realized, in hindsight, is this must be how Jocelyn, the protagonist feels, as she is slowly but surely alienated from her child, and her family. But Jocelyn didn’t even have the benefit of talking to her daughter through the iPhone screen. She was completely shut out, the horrors of this experience ringing loud and clear as I shouted action and cut.

Deb was inspired to write the story of Climate while sitting in a Tikki hut in Hawaii, surrounded by beauty but feeling the sting of a painful and unhealed divorce. Tj, who had taken her along, had shared with her his story of being systematically alienated from his children. And Deb thought of her dear friend Jo Ellen, who had experienced the same thing.

​For those of us, myself included, who have not lived what Jo Ellen and Tj lived, talk of parental alienation can be, well, alienating or uncomfortable. But I imagine most of us know the pain of being separated from something we love, often without our consent. It could be a family member, a loved one, or it could be a passion, something we love more than anything. The fight to regain this loss is empowering, and that’s where Deb found the connection between the alienation of humans and their families, but also with Mother Earth.

The most powerful experience for me was Jo Ellen’s appearance on set the last weekend of our fall filming. I had flown in from Los Angeles on a red-eye, surprising Deb and the rest of our crew. I wanted to be there in person to help bring the magic full-circle. The scene we were shooting was between Jocelyn’s ex-husband, who was the one being coerced to keep Jocelyn away from their daughter, and Jocelyn’s brother Frank, who tried to lay some truth down with compassion. I called action, and the actors began moving through the scene, and I glanced over at Jo Ellen.

​Even if she couldn’t quite explain or articulate, watching a scene like this, based loosely on her life experiences, was beyond healing. And that’s what story has the potential and the power to do. Oh sure, it can entertain, and should entertain. But true story connects to something within us, and we understand its impact on a subconscious level. It gets inside, warms its way into our heart and our hurt, and helps us rewrite our own story that is often painful and repeating like a broken record. Jo Ellen never had a brother or family member stand up to those who alienated her children from her, but watching a fictional exchange continued to ignite the hope and the unconditional love she felt for her children, always.

In an industry so focused on creating and selling zombie and horror flicks, Climate is an outlier. It’s a story about heart, with heart, and about family and our connection to one another. It’s also a powerful interwoven message about our disconnect from the planet we live on.

​But it’s not a Message project, if those kinds of projects scare you. It illustrates our universal struggle through the experience of one woman who loses her family, fights, then surrenders to the power of healing and listens, and only then does she arrive at her moment of truth and the beginning of resolution.

With a budget, you can create better looking shots, have a choice of casting actors, secure locations, pay your crew. This is all valuable. But what a dollar or two cannot replicate is the compassion and the care that Deb and the rest of the team brought to the summer of filming.

​It cannot replicate the respect and the laughter and the wonder. I’ve seen Deb move proverbial mountains by her conviction and her belief, and done it all on no budget. So I know that she and the team are more than capable of taking a project on that is rightfully financed.

Those who might finance this project ought not to look away, nor sell it short, or fight the voices in their head that are solely focused on turning profits. 

Instead, crack open a window, look outside at the world around you, and listen. Get beyond the sounds of planes overhead, of traffic honking, all of that seems a lifetime away if you can get above it. Do you hear something calling? Faintly, at first, then crashes over the buildings and the trees and the brick until you can hear it plain as day: “I’m here! I’m ready!”
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A step towards funding this incredible story and team is one way to answer the call. The voice of Climate will be heard. And so will yours.