MAKING SEX MACHINE
By Christopher Sharpe
SEX MACHINE was shot on weekends over a period of six months with no budget, a volunteer cast and crew, a consumer grade digital video camera and props cobbled together from HOME DEPOT. We didn't know what we were doing when we started and we had no idea if the footage we were shooting was going to edit together into anything coherent. But once we had begun the process, there was no turning back. It was a labor of love for everybody involved.
During the production I kept a journal-style blog to keep people up-to-date on what we were doing as well as to serve as a personal record. On the following pages you will find a collection of journal entries annotated with new notes. This is a personal (and completely non-objective) account of the creation of this movie and the impact it had on me personally. This section is probably going to be complete overkill for anybody not interested in making movies, but I've always enjoyed reading articles about the making of independent films, so I decided to go a little bit overboard. I've divided this section into chunks so you can skip around using the navigation on the left.
But first let me set the scene.
My story isn't really all that unique. I grew up with very little money in a very un-creative blue-collar part of the country. I was always fascinated by movies, particularly the way they were made. At a very young age, I planned elaborate movies on paper, but at the time I didn't even have a video camera. I still have some of these notebooks and they are pretty insane. In high school, I discovered girls and was distracted for a few years. In college, I majored in Film, made a few short films and spent all my money on film stock and processing. Soon after graduation, deep in debt, I entered the wonderful world of advertising. It was challenging, interesting and creative, but -- most importantly -- it paid the bills. In my spare time I continued to write screenplays.
At the time I decided to make SEX MACHINE I was running my own small advertising agency. Things were going well. We had a large client base, we were doing excellent work and we were actually making a healthy profit after only two years in business. I had accomplished almost all of the goals I had set for myself earlier in life. But I still hadn't made a feature-length movie.
Shogo, my friend from college, was also working in the advertising industry as a photographer. We had lost touch for a few years, but we reconnected when I found out he was making a short film. His first short film, CHARLIE CHARLIE, starred a guy named John Howell. John, in addition to being an actor was really interested in the behind-the-scenes aspect of filmmaking as well. For a period of about two years we worked on a series of short films together. During this time we developed a pretty great working relationship.
After several short projects, we all felt like it was time to take things to the next level and do a feature-length project. I had SEX MACHINE sitting on the shelf at the time and we decided to streamline it for low-budget production. I would produce and direct... Shogo would shoot... and John would play the lead in addition to helping out in many other ways...
Shooting would begin in July 2004...
Next: Conception