In retrospect Van Michael feels that this hiatus from his creative development was a mistake, but hindsight is always 20/20!
The bug of storytelling that was originally planted by his mother re-awakened in Van Michael in 1998 when he wrote the novel, The Amulet of Atlantis. Michael remembers, “A lot of time had passed by then and I was in my 30’s. Ever since then I’ve felt like I’m making up for lost time - and it gets tougher every year to stay with it.” His novel was published in 2005 under the name, “Mike Olafson.” In the interim, Van Michael worked on a short film with Don Henry called, “Legend of Caribou.” The film was never finished, but Van Michael learned a lot about production and editing while working on this project. Even though the raw and edited footage of the film still exists it is unlikely that Van Michael will re-visit the project.
Working on film projects has opened up the world to Van Michael. One project that afforded him an experience beyond the story that he was capturing was a documentary he shot in the Middle East. “I was shooting a documentary in Jordan, in the Middle East. After wrapping for the day, we sat out upon the Roman ruins of Um Quais, eating olives, drinking tea and watching the sun set as the lights of Tiberias reflected off the waters of the Sea of Galilee. Shepherds tended their flocks of sheep grazing among the ruins and the Imam would chant the evening prayers in the distance. It was a surreal experience for me - that trip had a lot of great moments. Meeting traders at deserted castles in the desert, seeing Petra, drinking tea with Bedouins in their tents - very cool stuff I’d never have done had I not been filming that documentary.”
Currently, Van Michael’s labor of love is the film, “Hot Lead Hard Fury.” This 70’s inspired story has enforced in Van Michael a need for patience when telling a story. The first “final” version of the script took about a year to finish, although he admits that this was actually the 31st draft! Despite all the time and effort that he put into this final product, Van Michael realized that the story was too broad and time consuming. Thus, he and his crew are in the process of doing a new script which is “shorter and more focused.” So far they have put a solid 5 months’ work into it. In addition to teaching Van Michael that story telling requires patience, this re-writing has also taught him to trust the characters he has created and the brains ability to absorb information and produce insights about the characters over time. He has found that, “at some point your characters will come to life in your dreams in the middle of the night and give you good ideas. The brain has to ‘stew’ on a script - let it digest and sink in - and after it has simmered a few months - consciously and sub-consciously - then it just might be ready.”
Van Michael offers the following advice to those who might seek to tell their story but fear that they are too old or too inexperienced:
“A couple of interesting things about getting started in something, or discovering your passion later in life, are:
1. You come into it with a bit more seasoning. You have accumulated a lot of real life experiences and so those can all come into play during your project - whether it’s writing, music, art, acting or directing – all of these can benefit from an experienced viewpoint.
2. You don’t have time to waste. You are not 24, fresh out of film school and able to move around, take odd jobs and build your resume. You might be 40, with a day job, financial and family responsibilities, etc. - but that is what lights that fire under your ass. In other words, do it now, cause you ain’t getting any younger and every day is one less tomorrow you have. Most importantly, you have to choose the stories that inspire you and align with your story telling style”!
3. Most importantly, you have to choose the stories that inspire you and align with your story telling style.
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