The Rental Experience #8 - A Difficult Situation

a blog-series recounting the making of "Seven Year Rental"

Within just a few weeks our momentum had stalled. 

While our first formal-interview day had moved us in the right direction, we were struggling with our in-store filming efforts.  I had only spent a handful of nights recording security-camera footage and we had only made a few attempts at working with our digital camera.  We still weren't very comfortable with the digital camera, and trying to figure out how to overcome this became a point of contention.  We still didn't even know how well we'd be able to work that footage into the formal interview material.  Some of us questioned whether we should pursue the in-store filming at all. 

We were stuck.  I didn't know how to move us forward without more footage, but we wouldn't have more footage until we moved forward.  We were all getting a little burned out and I blame myself for a lot of the frustration the five of us were feeling at that time.  I failed to derive a clear path forward from all of the discussion and debate we’d worn ourselves out doing over the past few weeks.

But we'd put in a lot of hours with this since May and I truly believed that if we continued on we would work it out, and if we abandoned it we would regret it.  And I believed that everyone else felt the same way.

But in mid-November Brian told me that he just wasn't enthused by the project, and he didn't want to work on it anymore. 

I feared that it might all collapse if anyone else decided this wasn’t working for them.

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The Rental Experience #7 - The Blue Wall

a blog-series recounting the making of "Seven Year Rental"

It wasn't anything fancy, but the blue wall we built for our "set" provided a formal atmosphere removed from the store to interview former employees.  But more than anything, it was the ultimate manifestation of our moviemaking progress.  It was a monument of sorts.

On November 4th we began our interviewing - and the movie - with Crystal, JJ and Jared.  They were among the first I'd contacted about sitting for us and were ready and willing whenever we were available.  I hadn't anticipated that the formal interviews would give us any trouble.  It was all pretty straightforward and could be accomplished in just a handful of weekends easy enough.  Everything fell into place quickly for that first day and the content they gave us was exactly what we were hoping for. 

After that day we felt good.  Everything seemed to have gone well and we were excited to keep our momentum going.  But the next interview day we started to plan for fell through because the folks I'd contacted were either unable or unwilling to find the time to sit for us.  Many of them ended up never sitting for us.

And then the holidays arrived.  And after the new year my focus shifted from formal interviews to in-store filming just to keep the project going.

It was March before we did our next formal interview.  By then it was clear that they weren't going to come easy.

The blue wall was up for nine months.

 

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The Rental Experience #6 - The Plan

a blog-series recounting the making of "Seven Year Rental"

The plan was for us to film a few times a week in the store for four months, from November through February.  From there we'd just edit it together and, you know, "finish it up".  

What actually came to pass was that we filmed for an entire year, until the following November of 2007.  February's events carried over into March... March carried into April... April carried to May... May pushed us way out to August, August led us into September... and by then it just made sense to continue until November.  It just happened.  When it looked like we'd be able to bring it to a close something else opened up. 

It got to the point where it was part of the everyday routine.  The movie was just another thing that had to be attended to and taken care of each day.

The first day that really got us in the game was our initial day filming interviews.

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New Behind-the-Scenes Segment & Trailer for 7YR Online Now!

Check out early impressions of the film SEVEN YEAR RENTAL by Video Plus employees in a new 'making of' segment, as well as a new preview of the movie that's filled with nostalgia for small businesses, first jobs and the original way of renting movies!  See it here!

The Rental Experience #5 - The Fall

a blog-series recounting the making of "Seven Year Rental"

By fall 2006 we’d been at it for a little over three months.  We met regularly to work with the camera, do audio tests and discuss the structure of the film.  And the project was constantly on my mind.

We’d built our interview wall and set up the security camera to record with the additional microphones placed around the counter.  We had our paperwork in order and all the employees had agreed to participate.  We were ready.  But what the movie might actually be was still a point of contention.  We knew what themes we wanted to include, but there was no way of knowing if our footage would reflect them. 

At this point there was nothing else to do but begin filming.  I thought we would for sure have everything we needed by February.  That, however, was not the case.

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The Rental Experience #4 - Momentum

a blog-series recounting the making of "Seven Year Rental"

Early on I started talking to an entertainment lawyer to find out what we needed to know about making a documentary from a legal standpoint.  And she spoke to me like this was a real project even before there was a real project.

We were throwing around a lot of ideas at that time.  From early on, we knew we’d want to use a combination of current and former employees, and traditional and security camera footage.  But there was still a lot of debate about how, and to what degree, we should use each of those elements.

But buying equipment and talking to a lawyer made it seem like this could really happen and believing that it could really happen kept us persistent to figure it out.  It all worked together to give us a momentum forward.

Some of us still had doubts that it would ever become anything, but at the very least it seemed like it might actually happen. 

That was genuinely exciting.

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The Rental Experience #3 - Help

a blog-series recounting the making of "Seven Year Rental"

I went to each of my friends and had an “I want to make a movie, will you help?” conversation.  I asked them to take a leap of faith and had nothing to offer them in return but the promise that we’d take this as far as we could.

Bill said it was “possible” and was willing to help.  Jason also agreed, even though there wasn’t much for him to agree to yet.  And with Richy and Brian interested as well, we had a strong group.

From there, we began dividing up what needed to be done to get us going.  And we started to pitch it to our “subjects”.

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The Rental Experience #2 - Early Attempts

a blog-series recounting the making of "Seven Year Rental"

At first, the movie could have been about the format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD.  There were a lot of ideas about what it “could” be early on that were – for lack of a better word – bad. 

There was (briefly) the “format war” doc.  The “sad business plan trying to pass for a movie” doc (don’t ask).  The “investigate the failed/failing independent businesses in our community” doc.  And the “Video Plus Historical Biopic/All Talking Heads with Narration By Me” doc.  The last one was both the closest and the farthest from what I really wanted to do, but couldn’t put into words. 

There wasn’t a moment where it all turned around; we figured it out a little at a time.  But after months of discussing what we really wanted this to be, and finally jumping into it and seeing what we could get, we ended up with an “organically formed story about a fading business and the employees passing through on their way to the real world”. 

Exactly what this movie “should” be.

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The Rental Experience #1 - The Beginning

a blog-series recounting the making of "Seven Year Rental"

It didn’t seem very likely that we’d get very far. 

Our filmmaking story isn’t all that unique.  We were friends, we liked movies, we wanted to make one, we thought we could, and we gave it a go.  The only really unique thing about our story is that we stayed with it, year after year, a little bit at a time.  We followed through on an idea even when we had to build it from the ground up. 

We had no prior training or experience to draw from.  We had no resources or contacts to make use of.  We started from scratch.  But we managed to establish a foundation for the project that we’ve been able to build on since 2006. 

We haven’t reached the end yet, but we haven’t stopped either.

This blog is about everything that’s come before, and if we’re lucky, everything that comes next.

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"Seven Year Rental" on IMDB.com

The next time you're surfing through The Internet Movie Database,

check out the profile page for "Seven Year Rental"... or click here.