On my 23rd birthday, I had a big celebration with my friends from uni in my parents' garage. I had never done this before, and put a lot of work into making a good party. I have since learned that less is more, and the best parties and gatherings are the ones you have spontaneously and without tons of prep. Basically: get drinks and snacks and you are 95% there.
Back to the topic. At some point, they really wanted a TV to watch some stream in the garage, so I obliged. Then they needed a DVD player. I only understood why when they handed me a case with my face on it. They all got together and made a documentary about me. Every. Single. Person. Took some time out of their lives to talk a bit about me and share some anecdote. Not to mention all the time it took to organize and produce all of it. Even though it's all part of my pre-transition life, just like a few very special moments with my partner, I really felt seen at that point. I was touched.
And I took it as a personal challenge.
When the next big birthday celebration came closer almost ten months later, me and my friend Lucas got together with a lot of wine and put together a script for a movie. It was awesome. We had a lot of fun. Since the birthday kid could not participate in the movie, and I didn't just want to do another documentary, we made it a little crime thingy. He was kidnapped (which is why he was never in the movie), his friends were looking for him, and with the help of a grumpy detective and his sidekick (played by yours truly), they managed to deus-ex-machina the whole thing by using the turn-the-time-back-machine, which is completely different than a time machine, to return to a point before the kidnapping and make sure it never happened in the first place.
It was full of dumb references to our own friend group and lame visual gags, but mostly there was a lot of heart. Everyone gave it their all. We shot the whole thing over two days just before Christmas, two months before the party, spent some time editing, and then Lucas and me circlejerked for a few weeks among us about what fucking geniuses we are and how good this thing is.
Spoiler: It really was not worth the hype.
So when the day came, we had about 30 people in a small 15m² studio. It was Lucas' place, and it was like the HQ for our group.
Also, the shower was next to the kitchen. I just find that remarkable.
So we had a beamer, not much space, and the movie was a hit. Everyone loved it, we laughed, the birthday kid couldn't believe it, and the whole evening was a shitload of fun.
Lucas and I had tasted blood. And it didn't lead to one more project, it led to four, of which the last one was over 2 hours long. We made a little coherent universe out of all of it, and to this day, it's probably the work I have put in the most effort into.
Something I always wanted to do is take the original scripts and turn them into readable stories, obviously with some names, locations, and other identifying things changed, because I really would like to share it, but firstly, the original stuff is all in German, and there is no way anyone (especially me, since it's all pre-transition Cass) is comfortable having their face and voices on the net.
I think I did write some jokes that have merit without the reference, and towards the end I really tried more and more to make it generally funny. I would love for this to be available for me to share. Might be a good project for the coming weeks.
Next time, we'll discuss the next two projects, a mixtape and an audioplay.
Have a good one!
-- Cass