Last week, on the tail end of my trip to Melbourne, I recovered footage from a sixteen year old film called Ordinary — a film which I never finished. Ordinary is a musical about an actor striving to follow his dreams despite the expectations of life, work, and relationships. The title was drawn from the chorus of the main song:

“I don’t want to be ordinary
Working 9 to 5 is kind of crazy
Responsibility, I’m not ready
I don’t want to be ordinary”

The story was very much a proxy for my own dream to be a filmmaker at the time, my tendency to never be able to stick to a regular job, and my stubborn pursuit of filmmaking no matter the odds and cost.

Ordinary was filmed back in 2008, going into 2009. To say it was a challenge is an understatement. I held extensive auditions to find actors who could also sing. I had to recast the lead role because I made the wrong choice and the actor I initially cast pulled out. I wrote all the lyrics for the songs, but knew nothing about writing and producing music, so had to find various composers to write the songs. Then we recorded the songs in a studio at considerable expense before heading to set, months of shooting on weekends around the schedules of the cast, until finally the whole movie was in the can.

But the problems continued in post production. The project was too ambitious for me and my limited experience as a director and editor at the time. I made mistakes on set, resulting in more than one reshoot needed or other scenes with not enough coverage. The film was visual effects heavy, with quite a few uses of green screen and whole scenes requiring animation. I only ever managed to complete half of the film, the first six scenes with a runtime of 30 minutes, screening a preview at my own Made In Melbourne Film Festival in 2009 with a “To Be Continued” title at the end.

I attempted to keep editing but I got bogged down. I couldn’t get the scenes to cut together. I ran out of money, I couldn’t afford the animation and VFX needed, and I couldn’t keep sinking money (even if I had any) into a project that just wasn’t working.

I fell out with the DOP. I fell out with the sound designer. And my memory gets fuzzy around here but I believe I stepped away from Ordinary for a while, focused on other films like El Western and Dace Decklan: Private Eye, and when I did eventually try to revive the edit for Ordinary I discovered the harddrive had failed. As inexperienced as I was, I didn’t have a back-up. And I didn’t have the heart to start the edit again. So Ordinary was kaput, my first big failure as a filmmaker, the only film I ever shot but never finished, a black mark against my name.

But life goes on. I got over it and moved on. So did the cast. I moved to Geelong, I started editing professionally, I made more films, I got better at filmmaking. I got married, I moved to Malta, then Croatia, and I made feature film after feature film. I became a full-time filmmaker, living the dream, more or less, that the story of Ordinary was all about.

Then, two and half years ago, on a trip back to Australia, my mum decided to sell her house. That meant cleaning out my old boxes of stuff: books, CDs, memorabilia, equipment, and many harddrives. And as I tested each harddrive to see what it contained, I discovered one that had the files from Ordinary, including the old edit. The harddrive that had failed all those years ago was suddenly working again.

Over the next year I slowly put the Ordinary edit back together just to see if I could. Re-synching files, transcoding corrupt footage, experimenting with methods to uprez 4:3 SD footage into 16:9 HD footage, going over the edit, taking notes, making changes, fixing faults, finishing scenes that were never finished. I did this in my limited spare time, editing Ordinary as a personal project, with no expectations of success or failure.

I was drawn to the nostalgia of the project. That warm fuzzy feeling of looking back at old footage, relieving memories of a younger, more innocent time, even if those memories are tinted with rose. The cast of Ordinary has long since drifted away from my life. Tragically, one has passed away, and I'm uncertain if any continue to act. Yet, revisiting this footage creates a unique connection; each person is frozen in time, preserved in their youthful moments – whether it's an outtake, a laugh behind the scenes, or just a candid shot. This creates an illusion of a lasting bond, as if we still know each other and share those original dreams of living life as artists. Living life beyond the ordinary.

So this was a personal project I was enjoying. However, as I went along piecing it back together, I discovered there was still one missing scene. A reshoot we did where the main character, Anthony, crashes at his brother’s house after being kicked out by his girlfriend. I only had the original scene we shot, which was lit way too dark, not the reshoot we did.

So on this current trip to Melbourne this past Christmas, I scavenged through my mum’s garage to find the original MiniDV tapes. I played anything marked “Ordinary” on my old JVC GY-HD101E, a 25 year old camera which I still have in working condition. I rewinded and fast-forwarded through various scenes and outtakes and behind the scenes footage until I discovered the missing scene.

Next, I emailed several tape conversion facilities in Melbourne who could convert MiniDV tapes to ProRes. Some were very expensive. Others could not handle the JVC format. But once facility, Video Works in Tarneit was the right price and had the right equipment provided I brought in the camera. I went ahead and success, I had the missing scene! Or so I thought …

Late Friday afternoon, two days before I left Melbourne, I was packing up the tapes, going through a box of camcorder MiniDV tapes (not JVC) and one tape without a clear label caught my eye. Randomly, I tested the tape in the camcorder. It wouldn’t play, the screen reading ‘Wrong Tape Format’. Ok, it was a JVC tape. So putting it into the JVC, I discovered that the tape contained more footage from the reshoot, footage I didn’t even know existed. I quickly fired off an email to Video Works, asking — pleading — if they could convert one more tape on the weekend?

Thankfully, they answered they could on Sunday morning. I was leaving Sunday night. The job was done just in the nick of time. I finally had all the footage I needed to finish Ordinary.

Last month in our blog we talked about looking to the future, this month I am looking back to the past. A personal project for 2024, a side quest to complete just to say I did it, even if nobody else from the film cares anymore.

It’s my goal. It’s my challenge. And a challenge it still is, with yet much to be done to finish Ordinary. VFX, animation, cutting and re-cutting. It’s never going to be a masterpiece. The footage is still average. There is still coverage problems. My directing isn’t great.

But the real triumph is in bringing this long-abandoned, overly ambitious musical to its conclusion after sixteen years. This isn't just about finishing a film; it's about fulfilling a promise made to myself. When the final scene is cut and the last note fades, I'll stand back with a profound sense of closure. Ordinary will be a testament not just to a dream pursued, but to a chapter concluded. And in that moment, I can finally say with relief and satisfaction: "I did it."

Written by Ivan Malekin

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