2009 January

Update Jan 20th, 2009

Things are progressing.

• We have signed on Aram Bauman to DP, and will be shooting on the RED ONE 4K digital cinema camera. He’s known on DVXUser as Beat Takeshi. I will start a new post soon about the look of the piece and how it relates to the content. Then get Aram to add in his thoughts on it.
• Also, there is one serious VFX shot in the film. For that I have recruited a friend of my girlfriend, The Nikks, who works at the NYC post house, THE MILL. On New Year’s Eve, she said she would like help on one of my films, and even though she was three sheets to the wind when she said it, I got her to agree again when she was sober.
• I have contacted the relevant parties about about securing the final locations.
• Auditions are scheduled for next week. I have seven actors coming in to read for the remaining role to be cast.
• Storyboards will be done this week.

Update 01/14/2009 - Where This is Going…

Story

So Leah and I have gone back and forth on the story and the complete outline is about done. As I’ve said before the performances with be improvised, but now the scenes and beats making up those scenes, thus the archs of the characters, have pretty much been charted. Over the next two weeks, we will be honing this, refining the beats as much as we can. Then we will go into rehearsal and figure out which beats work, which ones need change, and with any luck, we’ll find a whole bunch we never knew were there. But this outline is a good starting point and very clearly indicates the characters’ objectives, so though the rehearsals will be improvised, we should be able to keep on track.

I guess it’s all right to come out with it now. This short is about a character who appears in a feature film I am working on.

I’ve been working on the script and the business plan for this feature film for some time, and in all likelihood, will continue to do so far into this year. But I knew I wasn’t going to be able to go very long without actually making something. Couple that with the fact that I need a lot more practice as a director anyway, I thought, I am going to produce a short or two this year, no matter what.

At the same time, I felt like I could not let myself get distracted with other projects, when I should be keeping my nose to the grindstone on the feature.

So I decided that all of the short content I would produce this year would be set in the world of the feature. I would use some shorts to explore characters, flesh out the world, etc. And at the end of the day, I would have a lot of peripheral content that might go along with the feature film.

So though this short fits in with the theme of Loss, it also serves as an exploration of one of my feature characters. And it’s having the desired effect. The things I learned about this person in the short, have already informed her behavior in the feature script.

For a long time, I’ve been an advocate of writing about your characters, fleshing them out with narratives, journals, biographies and such. So I guess this is just an extension of that technique.

I’ll go into some more detail about this in future posts…

Acting

Leah has agreed to start doing some blogging of her own on here, regarding her acting process. Hopefully she will have something within a few days. I will have a lot more on this as well once we go into rehearsals.

Business

Casting

Having lost the first actor I wanted to cast opposite Leah, I put out a casting notice and got many responses. I will be contacting the ones I want to see tomorrow, and setting up auditions for the week after next. If all goes well, by Feb 1 we will be cast.

Storyboard

Now that the outline is finished, I can start working on the storyboards. It’s my hope that these can be pretty much done by the first of Feb. as well.

On Podcasting

I meant to get on this, I really did. But in all honesty, when I’m working, it’s next to impossible for me to split my attention enough to film me working and talk about it at the same time. So I am going to really try to get some going, but can make no promises…

Update Jan 9th, 2009

Did some location scouting the other day. Here are the photos:

These are pretty bad photos, but show a sort of view of the city I would like to have in a certain shot. At night, the whole thing outside is lit up like nobody’s business. The location is on the 33rd floor of a building in the middle of Times Square.

The only issue I have is, I am not sure I can set-dress this room enough to be what I want…So I may wind up using it for something else instead…

Some thoughts on the Process of Developing Our Story

So for Christmas, I was in Dallas with my Girlfriend, Nikki, visiting friends and family. For the most part, I let this project go, not thinking about or doing any writing on it at all.

Then, the last night we were there, I could not sleep because the details of the short suddenly started forcing themselves into my mind, in very sharp focus.

It happens that way sometimes. You write, and work, and think, and struggle. Then you set it down for a week, and somewhere deep in your subconscious, it all gels. And you think about it one day, and everything is clear.

So that’s what happened with this one. The next day on the plane home, I wrote up the outline on my Palm Pilot.

I am going to continue revising this, but will not write an actual script until I rehearse with the actors. But this outline does contain the majority of the beats, objectives, and some suggestions for the actors. So it’s already a pretty complete story.

I am meeting with Leah and hopefully the other actor on Sunday, the 4th, to start work on this.

My plan is to spend the first meeting not so much rehearsing, as talking about the characters with the actors, based on the outline I sent out to them. The purpose of which will be to get their imaginations sparking in this world, and to bring out some hopefully new and unexpected details which will inform the script. I’ll document that meeting and have a first podcast from it next week.

Also, set a costume and make-up person.