Who the F#@k is Gavin Booth

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It hit me when the band first played it for me. They had reached out saying that they wanted to collaborate on making the song’s music video with me. I had safely assumed that meant they had a concept in mind and were going to play me the song and pitch it to me. After the song finished and I noted the song is clearly about a filmmaker, I was told yes it was and that they would like to film me filming them and make the behind the scenes of the video shoot the video itself.

Meta.

Now as you get to know me, all I ever want as a viewer is to watch something different. Different stories, different filmmaking styles. Something new. That is generally the same with what I want to make. This idea felt fresh. Having spent years as a struggling independent filmmaker I also have a tonne of behind the scenes footage from almost every project I’ve directed. I countered with the band, stating: “I could also add in some archival filmmaking footage and show people what it takes to even be on the playing field with a career in film.”

I spent all of my free time over the next few months ingesting footage from VHS, MiniDV, Digital8, copying from CD-R and DVD-R - name a format, I probably pulled footage from it. I knew I had a lot of behind the scenes footage but I didn’t realize exactly HOW MUCH I truly had. Since the eight grade I had taken a camcorder with me everywhere. I filmed everything. Which meant I was vlogging my silly high school moviemaking long before there was anywhere to even show that footage. Most of this footage I had never watched back. It was an overwhelming journey through all of the memories I hold making movies. The pure joy of friends getting together on a weekend to make a silly parody film. The victories of sold out cinemas for our premieres. The heartache watching the making of footage of projects that failed or were never completed. The bittersweet look at folks no longer with us that helped out on my sets. It truly was a rollercoaster of emotion going through this material.

Ultimately it had to be trimmed down to fit inside the three minute song and had to leave room for the band performance elements. What I tried to create was the energy and excitement of humans gathering together to make the stuff of dreams come true. This video, as my friend Hank joking calls it, is “the long road to the middle”. I am nowhere near my ultimate goals for my career yet I have have opportunities beyond my wildest dreams thus far. This is about me and those adventures but I think both the song and the accompany visuals speak to anyone who is on a creative pursuit.

If nothing else, it has inspired me to dig deeper and push even harder on my next film, the next short, the next music video. I often say “Good films with good people.” That’s what I want. I want to be on set. I want to make things I care about. I want to make it with people I care about. That was true of how I started making films amongst neighbourhood friends and I can’t think of a better way to spend the next chapter of pursuing what is near impossible. Why spend it miserable?

Calypso35 wrote about this video on Substack. Do read their whole post but this stood out to me:

“Watching someone’s work laid out like a timeline does something to you. You see the through-line. You see the commitment. It’s really inspiring and a beautiful thing to witness.”

So that’s that. I hope you enjoy and- oh wait! I almost forgot! The video actually has a pseudo-sequel. While we were filming the band performance shots, we also shot a live acoustic performance of “Action”. Given I had a wealth of footage that couldn’t fit into the main video, some of it lives in this acoustic version. The two videos go hand in hand to tell a larger story.

So now that’s really that. Every shot in these videos has a story of triumph or failure and that is what led me to joining Substack this week. I’ve spent time lecturing at colleges, running filmmaking workshops at film festivals and I often to one on one mentoring. Having gone through so much of my film career past putting this music video together, I thought- why not share some of this with others starting out or struggling to cement their film career. I am not an expert. I will never pretend to be. I will largely just share things I wish I knew before I spent so much time, money or energy on doing them the wrong way.

- Gavin

If interested, you can find my work here.

I’m a filmmaker. I’m also Canadian (Go Canada!) I’ve spent the largest chunk of my life writing, directing, producing, editing- basically doing whatever needs to get done to get a project across the finish line. Sometimes that’s meant making things the “normal” way… and sometimes it’s meant doing things like broadcasting a movie live or shooting a feature in a single-take with two crews running around a city hoping nothing breaks.

Which, to be clear, things always try to break.

I’ve also directed a lot of music videos. Well over a hundred at this point; which is really just another way of saying I’ve spent years figuring out how to tell stories quickly, emotionally, and usually without enough time or money. That part probably matters more than anything else. I an indie to my core.

Because the truth is, most of what I’ve learned didn’t come from things going right. It came from things going sideways, running out of time, running out of money, or realizing halfway through that the plan wasn’t going to work and having to pivot fast without anyone noticing.

That’s really what this is about.

This isn’t going to be a highlight reel or a “here’s how I did it” victory lap. I’m not here to sell you a course (Yuck!). There’s enough of that out there already and honestly, it’s not really helpful when you’re in the middle of your own project trying to figure out how to make something work with what you actually have. What I’m trying to say is not all advice is applicable nor is there a one solution fits all methodology that I’m here to preach.

What I want to do here is break things down in a real way. To use my success (and even better- my failures) to hopefully ease some of your pain navigating not just the making of the thing but the giant, scary and ever changing industry around the thing. I want to discuss how ideas turn into something shootable, how to problem solve when things fall apart, how to make something feel bigger than it is, and how to keep going when it would be very easy not to (I’ve actively tried to quite twice!)

If you’re an independent writer, director or producer or just beginning your journey you probably don’t need more inspiration. You want clarity and you want perspective and maybe you even want a few shortcuts that don’t screw you later.

So that’s my goal.

I’ll share what has worked, what hasn’t and the stuff I wish someone had told me earlier. If it helps you make something better or faster- awesome. If it helps you just actually finish the thing you’ve been sitting on- even more awesome. Then I’ve done the job I set out to accomplish.

If you’d like to know more about my work then here are a few links to get your started:
IMDb
Linktree Portfolio

And this is something I will speak about much more in the near future but The Indiana Drones band recently turned my life long obsession with making movies into their music video for their song titled “Action”.

(Calypso35 on Substack wrote about this video. Check it out and give them a follow).

- Gavin