Here’s my movie idea.
What I know best is my own life, so that will be my movie.
To make this movie all I need is a digivid and a friend who wants to do some of the camerawork. Talk about low overhead. That’s DIY for ya!
Now, after reading the movie script, maybe you don’t even need to see the movie. But maybe it would make something neat. Who knows!
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START: Show Martha’s sweet old handbuilt, emerald green Carlton errand-bike, then show her riding lovely little dirt roads til she pops out into minimallville. Then show her going to the grocery store, PO and bank. (3 minutes.)
Scene 2: Steve F and I meet on our classy, versatile bikes, in casual-yet-stylish attire, at a local parking lot full of lycra-clad pro-style riders, on a busy road. We head out with everyone then split off a ways into the ride, with a couple others, onto dirt roads, leaving the pro-dudes to the pavement (but it’s nice pavement and everyone in each group waves goodbye to each other). We drop into scenery and birdsong and a route that shows a lovely view. (4 minutes.)
…3: Me canoe poling down our only local river in the colorful autumn. After canoeing, I bike-ride back to the car by way of a trail along the high banks of the river. The trail goes past a bunch of McMansions. (4 minutes.)
4: How do we make a living around here? …We go to Martha’s art show booth, where she sells out of her art stuff, raking in tons of cash, and trades cool things with fellow artists. (5 minutes.)
5: We go sailing in summer on the only local lake with a friend who built a lovely little wood two-masted skiff (that can easily hold his wife and 2 kids) that you can also row. He shows how they sleep on it in a little boom tent and says they vacation in it. We take out at a dock among a bunch of jetskis blaring and hotrod boats with V8 engines roaring. (5 minutes.)
6: Show our little kids making things that also sell out at the art show—they rake in cash. (3 minutes.)
7: We go visit our Baldwin trailer by the pristine creek. Show the busy main river nearby with fancy Orvis guided fly-fishing boats and wads of drunks in canoes. Then show me doing “boat-o-cross” on our brushy creek with no one else around. Show a big trout down below my canoe in the clear water. Show me catching a big trout for lunch. Show the poverty of the trashed doublewides and burned-out homes in the vicinity. (10 minutes.)
8: Show me packing a box of books to ship out to a web customer (and a stack of other boxes going to shops). Show me calling on a bookstore to restock sold-out stuff in my standard vintage attire, fedora. Then show me selling books at my wacky booth at two contrasting shows: the outdoor/canoeing/hunting show and the underground zinester show. (7 minutes.)
9: We go further north, where life is slower yet, to the Keewenaw, to a campground on the beach with our vintage trailer, where I sit and edit a book on laptop. Show deep, crystalline bays where the canoe floats as if in mid-air. Show gorgeous multi-color wet beach stones. Show the 100-yr-old Lindell’s cafe—mosaic tile floors, walnut booths, tin ceiling, ice-cream fountain, mixed drinks, $3 fresh local lake trout sandwich, old orthodox waitresses wearing crosses, polka radio station playing. (10 minutes.)
10: How do our friends survive? We drive past minimalls to go see the house that my bro Kelvin is finishing for his family: 2400 sq ft for $50K, from logs he sawed himself and salvaged and auction-bought supplies. Relate his theory about building your own home in 2 years as a $50k/yr-income job where you’ve paid yourself. We check out his garden and bees. Then go see our much smaller cottage-size house, garden and hops. We mention a lo-debt reality…and about the no-debt reality of very small houses and secondhand everything. Mention that our stout car, gorgeous kayak, fancy bike, lovely travel-trailer, and pristine vacation property all cost a total of $3500. (10 minutes.)
11: We visit our stay-at-home dad friend who is a conservative old-style carpenter but who makes gorgeous wood bowls and elite carbon-fiber canoe racing paddles and canoes and accessories while he’s at home with the kids in the winter. In the summer, the wife stays home. (4 minutes.)
12: We stop by Michigan’s biggest public event—the world’s biggest canoe race, the 120-mile $50K AuSable Marathon—and watch the carpenter’s wife and partner winning the race while he crews/feeds them from shore (he’s won it, too, but it’s his turn to be pit-crew). We show their little kids hanging out with other canoer adults. Show buff canoers strolling around town before the start. We show the crowds of 50k people and the grandeur of this un-media northwoods event. Excited local live radio coverage of the race gives some voice-over. Show all the families in this race, the age range of racers. (10 minutes.)
13: We visit our high-end architect hippy carpenter friend and show a fancy kitchen he just did then drive past generic ex-urbia to go see his organic farm pals—2 young ones on a new farm, 2 old ones on an old farm. (10 minutes.)
14: Check out a rural hippy folk music fest with our trailer, plus a northwoods micro-brewery folk music show, plus a traditional-conservative campground bluegrass gathering featuring a nationally touring pro bluegrass band. We say Hi to one of the bluegrass players after show and tell him to give our regards to his people down on the Gulf Coast—they live down there just like we do up here. Thus we hint that the whole DIY thing spreads everywhere. (10 minutes.)
Note: Folk, bluegrass and indy music is the soundtrack of the whole film.
So, is that a movie?
