Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Wow...

...We GOT IT DONE!!!

Well, almost. We got primary photography done. We still have to shoot a couple actors that appear as "talking heads", but I'll be doing that at my apartment in NYC - And I want to get a few more shots of the kids, but I'll do that in a couple weeks (I have enough, but it would be nice to have a little more to play with).

Needless to say it was quite an experience - Mostly good (but that's because I absolutely love making pictures). We caught quite a bit of said experience on B-roll for DVD extras.

I'll provide more details later, but here's some important points.


First point:

If you've never shot a movie before, whatever time you think you need to shoot it? Double it. And I mean, double it.

However, if you're a very organized and person who is obsessively compulsive about details, schedules, having everything just so, etc; and you're completely sure you've taken all the variables into account - Then triple it.

Seriously. You have no idea what you're in for. If you're the type of person who doesn't deal well with the controlled chaos of a fast-paced movie production (imagine the confusion and violence of a truckload of dynamite going off in a tornado stretched out over two weeks, punctuated by the inevitable blowing of stacks by various production personnel), you'll have a nervous breakdown in the middle of the shoot and won't get your picture finished.

Dana Offenbach gave me this advice (in not so many words) on hearing my proposed shooting schedule (she actually told me I was being wildly unrealistic and would lose all my money). So I doubled the amount of time I figured it would take.

Dana, you saved my picture.

...Which was merely the first of about a dozen bullets dodged during the course of production, all of which had "Cell killer #XX" engraved on the metal jacket. I may get into those later.


Second point:

If you're an actor, and you've given yourself a big part in in your picture - Make sure that your character is subjected to an absolutely ungodly amount of stress during the course of the story. This way you won't have to act much at all, and you won't need "stress makeup" after a few days.

Gotta go - I'm building a computer for our editor to cut this puppy on, and I'd like to make it home before the snow flies.

-Dave

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