Everything is Smooth, so far...

Last night we had our first of two days of shooting. It went really well. I went and captured the footage, without any problems. This is a tough script to act. At first, I was slightly worried about my leading actress. When we showed up on set, she didn't know all of her lines. A few simple scenes took several takes. In the end, she got it though. I talked to Stephen and he's made plans to work with her more on the script before our final shoot on Friday. We still have the two hardest scenes left to shoot. With all the preparation we have been doing for this project, I hope it works out well in the end. Visually the film looks great so far. I am satisfied with how it is coming along. Another weird thing is that a 330 student still hasn't signed up to help during the shoot. I hope this doesn't hurt my grade. I have been posting my dates on the discussion board, just no one has replied yet.

Supplies Needed

After some good preproduction meetings, I do believe we are ready to film this week. I have obtained 3 people from the beg audio class to help with not only location audio but any odd jobs while filming. The actors and I have adjusted some of the dialogue in the script - making it sound more natural after a few read throughs. Right now we're stocking up on supplies (dog collars, a webcam, sausages, wardrobe, etc.). We have decided to keep someone on site to manage hair/makeup. Our last class meeting really helped open our eyes to this aspect.

I can't remember how much music was discussed and how much control we will have over that direction. Personally, I don't see us using much music (if any) in this piece. However, in the event that we do decide to use a score, I would like to interact directly with the composer in some way.

Final Shooting preparations

My partner and I met a few more times this week to work out exact timings for shooting and what we want to do specifically with the script. This coming week the blog will be more entertaining because we plan on shooting Wednesday night. We are hoping to get all the shooting done in one night, but we chose to start this week in case we need next weekend to finish up shooting.

More to come later.

Set-backs and Finish-ups

So, we filmed last weekend and everything was looking really good time-wise, and I was pretty stoked about finishing up this weekend. That is, until I went in on Thursday to capture some of the footage so that my editor friend could see what we've done so far.
Turns out, the tape was all messed up. Timecode breaks like nobody's business. Not a single bit of footage was able to be captured.

I was bummed. Extremely so.

But, I talked to my crew and Stephanie (my co-producer/actor), and we planned out how to fit in re-shooting the scenes and finishing up the ones we hadn't filmed as well, and other than like, 2 scenes, we finished filming this weekend (or so I hope).

I'm pretty excited to start piecing it all together and seeing how it looks as a cohesive unit. Hopefully everything looks great and we won't have to re-shoot anything else before the rough cut is due. And, depending on how much gets done, I might have an okay amount of time to relax or plot how to fix things before the cut-to-time is due. That would be wondrous.

All is well!

On MLK day my co producer and I met up with our other actor and worked through the script. Both of them contributed a lot to specific decisions we could make to develop the mood of the film such as possible music ideas, wardrobe, and characterization choices. We also blocked out the script so we would be prepared for filming.
We started filming on Saturday and it went surprisingly well. We're a crew of newbies in respect to producing narrative films, so I was a little worried about the things that may come up that we wouldn't have thought of, but so far so good. I was also really grateful that things worked out with our audio team from 330. Both guys were extremely helpful and gave some great suggestions as far as camera angles, set design, and lighting.
Hopefully on Tuesday night we'll be finishing up filming, and I can only hope that it goes so well...

Actors Kan't Reed

I've added a small role which is being played by a kindergardener. I've shot with her a little bit and it is a lot funner than it sounds. She can't read yet but that's a minor obstacle, so far. The dog has been more difficult.

Scheduling has been a nightmare. My partner is involved with both the New York and the L.A.
We haven't been able to shoot on weekends yet because of her commitment to that. To top it off I had to go and write a kid into the picture. Her parents don't get home from work 'till 5pm and her she has to be done by 8pm. So there's about a 2 hour window to shoot. The family has been absolutely wonderful and I'm learning a lot from them about directing.

So, scheduling sucks but it sound like I'm having an easier time than Tori.

Keep going guys,
Andy

Still in pre-production

I'm still having a problem getting together with my co-producer.  She's been really busy with the show she's in and everything else she's doing.  We're most likely going to be meeting this Monday to really talk in depth about everything we want for the project.  I've been in contact with an audio team, so at least there's that.  They're trying to work out their schedules with our schedules and we'll try to make something work.  We're most likely going to be filming this upcoming weekend, on Saturday.  We also might film a bit on Sunday night if we need more and then after that we'll see how it goes.