Editor’s note: Jason Flynn decided to shoot a film for the Campus MovieFest. Then he realized, through practice, that was a horrible idea. And then he decided to write about it.

Everybody wants to be a movie star.

At least, everybody has whimsically considered being a part of a movie. So when Campus MovieFest came to town, I decided to take my shot.

When I started, it looked like a fantastic idea: they offered me a camera, computer and a screening date.

All I had to provide was the idea, time and talent.

Armed with a vague idea, Jason Flynn (right) began his career as a collegiate director with some disastrous results. SEAN TAYLOR/Staff

After I picked up the equipment, I sat down to decide on a plot — which seemed easy, since I’d had a few floating around in my head for some time.

It came down to an addiction story or an alcohol poisoning tragedy.

Considering the multitude of places I could film characters drinking, I chose alcohol poisoning.

Then came problem No. 1.

Going in, I had little experience making movies: when I was younger, my friends and I had a brief love affair with movie making, and would make choppy spy thrillers or murder mysteries on a parent’s camcorder. Stand-ins were often old stuffed animals, and minivans would take the place of SWAT cars.

The obsession was short-lived, though, and we moved on to the next new thing.

By age 8 I had retired from filmmaking.

… But as it turns out, experience is extremely important to the filmmaking process. It helps you gather actors, set up and edit your shots; and without experience, you end up just sewing together a choppy series of mistakes.

… Or, as I’ve started to call it, “my movie.”

Even so, I enlisted the help of a few friends and proceeded stubbornly ahead, with the goal of making a film that tells the story of a person who dies after a night of drinking.

But I didn’t want the product to have a political or spiritual message. It would just be a horrific occurrence after an average night.

Then came problem No. 2.

After writing down scenes and shots I wanted in the movie, my actors and I headed out to a bar to make the movie … or we would have if anybody had been able to show up to the first night of shooting.

The project was delayed before it even started.

The next night, we all went to Max Canada because it had a number of different spaces to serve as backdrops.

I filmed some approaches to the bar. We did a few scenes of the actors getting carded. There were a lot of shots of shot-taking and chugging Pabst Blue Ribbon.

After two hours we were basically finished.

There was little scripted dialogue, and I often shot them mid-conversation so the scene seemed unremarkable. But scenes in which they acted drunk required more choreography, in terms of where to walk or fall over. Still, the idea seemed so simple that I figured we didn’t need to rehearse anything, and I never filmed a second take for a scene.

Then came problem No. 3.

The next day, we were supposed to film my roommate choking on his vomit at my friend’s apartment — but a night of drinking and a busy weekend delayed that shoot as well.

With only a few days left until the entry deadline, I began editing the footage I had.

Then came problem No. 4.

As I looked through everything, I realized just how poor the quality of the footage was. There was almost no good lighting because the only added light was from my cellphone. There were random interruptions to scenes when a bartender would leave or my friends would start messing around in frame; and every shot blended into the next, with no buffer to cut down between scene change.

On top of that, I had no soundtrack to put over the grainy punk music from the bar.

Frustrated, I took a break to kill off my roommate and leave another friend unresolvedly traumatized.

We drove over to the apartment-turned-set, and scattered empty beer cans and boxes on tables and stairs.

I was ready to finish up.

Finally came problem No. 5.

Because I realized I left the battery for the camera at my house, and by the time I picked it up and came back, my roommate had to leave and the movie was left more-or-less unfinished.

While attempting to edit around the incomplete shots, my computer broke. And when it finally restarted, the sound in every scene was bumped 15 seconds off.

So, with no time left, I finished editing, and sent the movie off for entry.

Given how bad the finished project turned out, I’d say a four-and-a-half minute shot of steaming crap might have more merit than my movie.

It was worth the experience, though. After all, writers and directors aren’t just born with an innate knowledge of how to make a compelling film.

At least, that’s what I tell myself as I contemplate the booing and hissing mine will receive when projected on a screen.