500 VOICES FOR BELARUS-- A SELF REVIEW

500 VOICES FOR BELARUS is a documentary film I wrote, directed, and produced. Its running time is 1 hour and 42 minutes. It was shot in HDV PAL format.

500 VOICES was a project that I wrote for the purpose of creating discussion about the former future presidential election in the Republic of Belarus.

It is obvious that my favorite canidate was and is Alexander Lukashenka.

It is also obvious that if I made a documentary film whose purpose was creating discussion about the Belarusian election, I desired for this discussion to favor Alexander Lukashenka.

I decided for the film to be shot in May of 2006 in time for the scheduled Belarusian elections, but when the election time was moved forward, I had to choose between shooting my film on no money, with no crew, or allowing my completed script to be wasted and never filmed.

I decided to go ahead and shoot this film on nickels and dimes. I shot this film with no money, no crew, and no film experience on my part save actually being a movie buff and having been to literally hundreds and hundreds of movies.

This film had the benefit of a very strong screenplay/script and every portion of what is said in my film is highly defendable and arguable.

This film did not have the benefit of money, or talent, or even good luck.

I will say to my credit that I did finish this difficult project and I ultimately did produce a "turnkey" finished product that was complete with movie posters, CD covers and the whole nine yards.

It was the nature of this project that it would be highly unlikely the people of Belarus would actually derive any benefit from it, and it was also understood by me when I was making it that proably no one would ever see it.

I made this movie because I couldn't stand to waste the script, and because I couldn't just sit on my hands while the people of Belarus were under attack from outside western forces, namely the U.S. government.

This film is absolutely RIFE with flaws and failures. For instance in the second scene I ACTUALLY MISPRONOUNCED Alexander Lukashenkas name 8 times!!! I didn't realize this until my editor was putting it all together for me, and at that point, there was no way to change anything. There was just no more time or money.

There were multiple camera wobbles, multiple sound failures. The list of cinamatographic failures goes on and on. There is literally one stupid classic mistake after another in this documentary!

There were essentially no paid for sets, no paid costumes, no paid crew except for my editor at M3M films who saved the project in the very last days with his film expertise.

I did the best I could. I had no experience, no knowledge, no anything but a sturdy script and a sense of urgency and enthusiasm to complete this project.

It was the darkest of times in my mind, there were LITERALLY 10,734,134 Belarusians with their lives and their futures hanging on the outcome of this presidential election. This election was the showdown between good and evil. This election was an example of the west attempting to stomp to death the final and last heartbeats of Soviet Socialism that existed in Europe.

Maybe Soviet Socialism wasn't the greatest form of government in the world, but watching it stomped to death by the CIA and the STATE DEPARTMENT wasn't something I was prepared to witness without DOING SOMETHING!

What can a little guy in America do if our government is off on some crazy witch hunt or war crime? Absolutly Nothing! Who can you call? Who can you complain to?
What can any little guy JOE CITIZEN do when he sees his country preparing to MUGG yet ANOTHER VICTIM?

The only thing I could think of was to write and shoot 500 VOICES. I just couldn't sit on my hands in good conscience and watch another witch burning and another village zippo raided without at least attempting to interveen somehow.

So, I did my best, I wrote a good script, and then shot a really crappy documentary film which did absolutely nothing to affect the Belarusian election WHATSOEVER!

Would I do it all over again? I think so, because I feel that my movie while it was a total and dismal failure, may teach future film makers some important lessons about what not to do. It may also inspire more talented and better funded filmmakers in the future to get into the action and at least try to make a difference in the world.

I am happy with the AMERICAUST CHRISTMAS portion of 500 Voices, and I am happy with the creative way my editor from M3M FILMS saved the third to last scene.

The third to last scene was sort of a roundtable interview between myself and 2 of the fellows that had joined me to make this film. The only problem was that the microphones went fuzzy and all of our sound was recorded as having some kind of weird "hiss" in the backround. This sound problem was unfixable without re-shooting the scene. We were out of time and money, and the scene was candidly shot without scripts. It could never be duplicated.

It was my idea to then "antique" the scene into chalky black and white and insert some ghostly scenes of historic Belarus into the scene in microsecond intervals. This was accented by gunfire added to the backround noise. This scene deserved an A+
as an example of how to save an absolutely ruined scene. It really bound the whole film together at the end and it looked as if it was suppossed to have been there all the time.

Anyway, my documentary film 500 VOICES FOR BELARUS is so full of flaws and failures that I proably don't know about all of them, and you don't have time to read about them.

500 VOICES was never intended to be played on European Prime Time Television, but it was intended to foster some discussion about certain subjects that nobody really seemed to want to talk about at the US government during and past the time of the Belarusian Presidential election.

Ultimately I was never able to secure any type of distribution for this film even though I approched numerous sources. I wasn't really surprised, but I at least wanted to give the film the benefit of multiple exposures to potential venues for its release.

I am in the process of copyrighting it and as soon as that is finished, I will offer it for sale at cost over this blog to anyone who would like to view it.

I would encourage anyone with any ideas to make a documentary film about their passions to go for it and take the risk. Ultimately my personal bottom line was affected less than 10K USD by the making of this film. But my personal self respect for finishing a difficult project went way up and I am satisfied with what I have done.

I am right now working with some friends on the production of another film, although this one will not be political in any way.

I am interested in making a drama or a comedy this time. Lets face it, there is nothing funny or entertaining about a documentary on the Belarusian Election and Alexander Lukashenka made by yours truly. 500 VOICES is DEFINETLY NOT a first date movie. If you play this movie on a first date you are GUARANTEED to get "no love". LOL

So, there are other works in the fire, and maybe my next picture will have fewer failures than the first, and maybe, just maybe it will be ENTERTAINING instead of intensely informative.

Michael Miller
Indianapolis
February, 2007