Thursday | February 09, 2012
What Makes People Happy? Young Filmmaker Finds the Answer
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By
Patricia Xavier
11 March 2004
While his childhood friends disappeared into the streets of Harlem, Aaron Mighty went to college. As his college peers spent their money on fraternities and parties, Mighty invested in the stock market. When his graduate school colleagues sought out teachers to ask questions, Mighty spent nearly $10,000 to get an answer.
The 24-year-old University of Central Florida business student has accomplished what millions have dreamed of doing. Mighty answered a question about life and in the process released his first independent film.
The film, which opened recently in selected cities nationwide, is an attempt to answer a question Mighty posed to himself while still an undergraduate at the University of Florida.
Plagued with self-doubt and uncertainty about his future, he wondered, "What makes people happy?" The answer came in the form of the feature documentary film, "One Happy Movie." The film catalogs a cross-country road trip by four college students visiting a variety of cities, towns and landmarks, posing the question to a litany of people.
Mighty, executive producer of the film, did not have any filmmaking experience when he decided to take on the project. After spending several years developing the concept, he combined savings and money he earned through stock investments with skills he acquired while earning degrees in business and human resources to finance, market and distribute the film. He collaborated with a group of film students from Full Sail — a private film school in Winter Park, Florida — who shot, designed, and edited the film.
Joined by co-directors David Acevedo, Paul Witteberger, and production assistant Mario Framingheddu, Mighty spent months sleeping in cheap hotels, driving in rental cars, and renting equipment while touring cities up and down the East Coast.
The students worked for free with the hope that the subject matter would strike a chord with audiences. While critics doubted that a film about happiness would resonate with audiences post 9-11 and as the war in Iraq raged, its makers were not deterred.
"The originality of the concept is what intrigued people," Mighty said. "When I first told people I was making a film about happiness, they mocked me and said, ‘There’s no happiness in the world,’ but obviously there is. A lot of people, especially college-age people, think about it all the time. We constantly think about our direction, what our focus is, and what we want to do in life to make us happy. "
Acevedo, who directed the project, agrees. He said he was drawn to the project because he wanted to see how answers would change depending on people’s social, economic and racial background.
"We got several deep responses, and many weird responses about what made people happy," Acevedo said. "It surprised me how people could be from so many different social or racial backgrounds, people of all ages, from small towns to big cities, rich and poor, young and old, but so many of them had such similar answers."
Besides the lack of experience, the crew faced various challenges during the production process. They were unable to use certain equipment, such as a boom mike, while shooting on the streets of New York for fear they might be fined for shooting without a permit.
"It was a guerrilla style of filmmaking," Mighty said. "We didn’t want to draw too much attention because we didn’t have permits to film in cities like New York and Philadelphia, where permits are a couple thousand dollars."
But with independently produced films seeing a boom in business since the early 1990s, the filmmakers said they hope to follow that trend. Mighty, who attends the same university as did the creators of "The Blair Witch Project," said he hopes the low-budget film will also serve as an example for other filmmakers who want to work outside the mainstream Hollywood system.
"One Happy Movie" will be submitted to a number of independent film festivals this year, including Sundance. Their hope is that the film will be picked up and distributed nationwide.
Meanwhile, plans for a sequel, "Another Happy Movie," are in the preliminary stage. Mighty’s next project is starting a production company he is calling Creative Entity.
The young filmmaker feels satisifed that he learned the answer to the question he set off to answer years ago, regardless of how much money the film generates.
"I know now what the answer is," Mighty said. "It is the simple things in life. It’s not about what kind of car you drive, how much money you make, how big your house is. Those are things that are truly irrelevant, and those are things in the most part we didn’t get from people. I’ve learned that life is just about living. It’s about going out there and enjoying life and being happy."
For more information, visit the film website at OneHappyMovie.com.
© 2008, Young Money Media, LLC. All rights reserved.
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Blake Livlin said:
Great college comedies – really brings meaning to college. If you look at comedy movies what you really get is http://www.filmcrave.com/list_genre_movie.php?genre=Comedy for all the comedy movies. |
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Padraig said:
You forgot Rudy! |
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Tim said:
Umm… Stanford isn’t an Ivy League school genius |
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danish kaleem said:
very good topic nice |
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danish kaleem said:
very nice |
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