2nd Edit

So now I'm in the process of re-editing the movie. I've watched over the first cut many times. The first time I just watched it, then the following times I had pen and paper. After several viewings with and without additional audience I've submitted a long list of things to fix in the future cut. We'll be working on a trailer simultaneously but I expect the 2nd cut to be done first since it's arrival will be deciding factor for my acceptance in SXSW.

My editor is on vacation and won't be ready to start working again until the 6th. I've got a trailer written out so hopefully we'll have one next month as well.

I watched my movie

I just watched my movie for the first time and...it was hilarious.  I had my doubts, which I guess everyone does, but after watching the 1st cut I'm excited.  Me and the two other people that watched the movie laughed so hard we were exhausted.  My editor did an unbelievable job.

One of the toughest part of watching a movie you made is getting over how surreal it is.  

There's still a lot of glitches that need fixed(and soon for SXSW) if I want to get accepted.  So now it's time to watch the movie 80 more times with a notepad and get this film into the best shape possible.

SXSW Submission

---

Awesome news. Inside Joke will be reviewed for SXSW despite the mishap.

We're working on getting the final cut done soon so that we have a better chance of being accepted.

1st Cut

My editor has finally finished the 1st cut, just before his back went out on him from hunching over a computer everyday.  He's done an awesome job and we had it ready just in time for the SXSW film festival on Dec. 11th.  While working on his other paying project he had the DVD burning at home and something went wrong with the compression.  So he wasn't able to get it to the post office in time.  

They tried to get the post office to give them the Dec. 11th post mark anyway, but they couldn't for auditing reasons.  So I had them overnight the DVD anyways and have emailed the festival everyday since and will continue until I can find out if my movie will be able to somehow make the festival review due to the circumstances and the fact I payed $100 submission fee already.

Hopefully things will work out.  I don't plan on waiting around all year for the biggest festivals because I'm tired of being in post production.  I know once you enter a festival you lose your world premiere status and that's the status you need in order to get into the bigger festivals, where distributors actually show up to.  But SXSW was my best hope and demographic for the movie I made.  

Yeah, it was only the rough cut but they would allow us to send in the final cut if done in time.  I'll let you know what happens as soon as I here some news.  In the meantime, we'll be working on the final cut, trailer, and getting the damn poster done.

Working to work

I haven't done a post in two weeks. Wow.

Anyway, hopefully should know within this week if the film will meet the deadline for SXSW.

In the meantime I've been working to pay off my editor and earn a meager existance with what's left over.

Should have some bigger news this week, trailer date and poster. So look out.

Blah

Still editing. Finishing the movie poster. I'll post it soon.

Ready to finish this project like a mug. Trailer at the end of December.

After the movie

With nothing left for me in Warren Arkansas I moved to Orlando Florida to find an editor. But my DP ended up being a better editor than anyone I could find so we decided to have him edit the film and I'm glad I made that choice.

He's done an awesome job so far. We're halfway through the first edit right now and the pacing is phenomenal. All I do now is go over the editing with my...editor, make money to pay him with, work on marketing(i.e. this blog), and all other facets of post production.

For now on posts will be short and frequent.

Last Day of Filming

Hey, been busy getting the movie edited among other things. But I'm back for some more story telling.

So now I've got to film a scene where I've got eight people playing football. How do you choreograph something as complex as that?

It was actually pretty easy. We went to the football field, made plays, recorded it, the end. Everyone knew what to do, and everyone went automatically went into the state of really playing the game. So it all came off organic.

There were a few problems such as when a player RAN INTO THE CAMERAMAN.

Sometimes the camera couldn't keep up with the action and things such as that but no real problems.

We had to film during the day which I didn't like. I wanted magic hour but time did not permit so we filmed then. Hot as hell and brighter than I wanted, but besides that it was great.

Another scene was shot at the basketball court but with all the dialogue in the scene we weren't able to get as many master shots as I wanted. It was getting dark soon, the curse of magic hour, so we concentrated on getting all the close-ups we needed and with the time left we got what masters we could. Enough to make it work in editing.

This was the day the photographer showed up, so all we got were photos of us playing basketball. So when I post photos of the movie people think it's an entire movie about basketball. Lesson learned, always have someone with a camera on set and make sure the photographer shows up the day they were supposed to.

That's it for the filming of the movie. Any other questions, just ask.

Next I'll move on to what to do after filming the movie.

Controlling Chaos

I'm back! So now is the conclusion to the cliffhanger of yesterweek. Me not have no place to film the movie, where me go? New house didn't want us to shoot there because the woman of the house determined her place too messy.

We were shooting our opening scene and another big scene. Luckily the actor who was going to shoot his one and only scene had his own place and his 3 day late pregnant wife gave him the okay to let us shoot there.

It was really a blessing in disguise, we wouldn't have been able pull off what we were planning on doing in the house we were shooting in. Too loud, too raunchy, too much liability for breaking things. This house was perfect with it's open spaces and being my friends house we could get away with a lot more.

Plus as I mentioned last time, it added another location to the movie.

So this first scene is action packed as all first scenes should be. We set up all the actors hoping with the limited given instructions they could coordinate themselves without looking stupid or rehearsed.

It was a night scene but we were shooting during the day, since it was an interior scene we were able to take care of that. We taped trash bags to the outside of all the windows and we were done.

The DP used the wheelchair as a dolly and we taped it. It turned out being the best first take through out the entire shooting! The ceiling fan got hit a little bit but that was it.

The shot after that was even better, non-pro's can be the best actor's imaginable if you know how to use them. The shot and acting was unbelievable. It didn't require a lot of skill for the acting but it was undeniably authentic as much of the acting throughout the entire filming was.

Some of the scenes were so crazy I couldn't believe my actors were so ready to do them. But a problem that had been eating at me was one of my actors had just got off work and we needed to get him here now, or we wouldn't be able to film the scene. I was finally able to get ahold of him and had another actor who had finished his scenes pick him up while we finished up other scenes.

Now as good as we were doing, the actors still had problems remember lines. Which made it difficult when trying to get your master shots. We got a decent amount of master shots, wish I could've got more but for the sake of time, and the DP's sanity we moved on to the next scene.

My two actors were now here just in time, we filmed an even crazier scene, and we were done.

My friends/actors were always able to help with crew jobs such as holding lights and such, helped out a lot. One friend blames me for ruining movies for him, the magic is gone for him now. He thinks about what's going on behind the camera every time he see's a movie now.

Wish my non-pro's had a little more time to rehearse so they would've known their lines better for more master shots in the big scenes. But if you look at all the things that you didn't get then you're fucking yourself up. Just learn from it for you next project and think of all the things that went right that could've easily went wrong.

Two scenes left! They're outdoor and require a lot of coordination.

The Saw Mill

Usually by this time the cast and crew would be ready to leave or kill you. But since less footage was necessary to shoot and we actually had time to eat and sleep now, it wasn't a problem.

Now we were able to shoot each scene multiple times, with lots of coverage. With all the time I was now able to dedicate to each scene now, I wonder how the hell I was ever able to shoot the huge amount I was doing before when Yvonne was around.

So even though less needed to be done each day, we were still spending the same amount of time doing it. And there were some complicated scenes with lots of characters in them that were coming up. Two of which could only be done during magic hour in order to do them right.

The saw mill scene was one of them. I had a choice, either shoot the scenes during the afternoon which I knew would be hard with the schedule at hand or get four hours of sleep and shoot at around 5:30 am. As much as I hate waking up early I chose the latter.

We got there in morning and it further showcased why acting and filmmaking are not as glamorous as people make it out to be. We drove out to the saw mill on a saturday knowing no one would be there, and shot some exteriors while the sun was rising. Then started filming with Jacob(co-star) and I working, just like we once did years ago in real life. We grabbed two shovels and went to work, we threw some sawdust on ourselves to look dirty like we would and with all the filming and non-sleep we were getting it gave us the tired look we needed.

Then a problem happened, one of the actors had to perform a number two. But we didn't have access to the buildings that supplied the bathrooms. We had some pages from the script that had already been filmed so....yeah.

So we went back to filming, then an optimal member of the crew also had the same problem, so with the other pages of the script that had already been filmed he...yeah.

I've read scripts I wouldn't wipe my ass with, so I took this event as a good sign.

Acting like we were at work was just as hard as when we used to actually work there. When you're toting a huge log across the mill and having to drop it at just right angle, over and over and over. You get pretty damn tired.

We were done just before it was too bright and hot to be there. Now we had to shoot three more scenes. Thing is the house we had been shooting in was not about us shooting there on this saturday, we had understandably overstayed our welcome. Which was okay because these scenes could be shot in another location without a problem, just a small rewrite and we were good. It actually made it better and added another location to the film.

Uh oh. The new location that was good with us filming there had a change of heart and now we've got nowhere to film!

If it's not shot on that day than it's going to be very hard to find time to shoot it. And I've only got my actors and crew for a few more days!

Find out next time.

Shooting with a deadline

Hey, hey, hey now, it be me with another one of these. I could take you through everyday individually but this all took place in June and I was too distracted to write in my journal(not a diary) to be exact so I'll give you a good culmination of the things that took place and the lessons you can learn from them. So get ready to get educated.

My main goal for right then besides learning everything as I go, was to get all of Yvonne's(actress) scenes shot before she had to back on tour in her musical, Spelling Bee.

So the next day, with the little sleep I had, I gathered up my non pro's and pro, got them breakfast despite the fact that I would be late meeting my DP at the location, got there and got chewed out for being late. Which I deserved.

It was supposed to be a simple scene that day since we were shooting a pool scene, makeup was not necessary and there were not many lines, but the thing was it was about to start raining so we had to rush to get the scene done.

Good thing about rain is it doesn't pick up on camera too well, so unless it's really fat rain you can shoot without it picking it up at all. The bad thing about rain is...it's rain. And worse was the fact that this rain would be on the heavy side.

The rain came and left, so we would periodically go out and film then go back inside and start over again.

With such a tight schedule we changed the following scene to an indoor scene without really sacrificing anything.

We filmed till about midnight. The next day we started all over again.

We filmed and filmed from early in the morning till about midnight. I barely even had time to feed my cast and crew, due to how much footage we had to get shot with the deadline we had.

I could also tell that my host house that we were shooting in was beginning to get a little annoyed. It's fun at first, but once you've got fifteen people walking all around your house with equipment on top of forcing you to stay in one room as quietly as possible, it takes a toll on hospitality.

One of my main duties as a director was to make sure that everyone was having a good time. When you're not handing out six figure checks to each employee you have to be resourceful and charismatic in order to keep things running smoothly.

Those two attributes come in hand with everything, from me obtaining my cast and crew, to securing the locations.

Which brings me to the final night of shooting with my actress. We shot at the movie theatre in the next town over, luckily I had gone to high school with the manager so he had no problem helping me out. It was actually a late matinee that night so it wasn't a problem staying there past 2 AM.

My DP had shot in movie theatre's before so it came out looking awesome. We had Wolverine play without sound on the projector so it would give us the authentic movie theatre lighting in addition to giving our actors something to work off of.

After a 15 hour day of shooting I drove Yvonne to the Little Rock airport two hours out of town, drove home and crashed, knowing that the toughest part was out of the way...or was it.

On the 1st day of filming my true love gave to me...

Alright, so I've got an editor. Which means a trailer should be ready in about a month. So, yeah...

Anyway, now a journal through the days of filming. So the first day of filming I pick up my actress from a greyhound bus station that was actually just an old Sherwin Williams. It was so small it was hard to even find it, luckily she was the only Asian in the entire town so she was easy to find.

After an hour drive from there back to my town I dropped her off at a motel so she could catch up on sleep. She had been on a bus since about 3am and had been on it for about 9 hours.

I then checkup with everyone and everything to make sure it's ready for tonight.

I pick up Yvonne(actress) and I'm back at the house again, even larger group of people because everyone wants to see this movie that's been hyped up for months. I meet my DP for the second time, since scouting locations together.

The DP and his assistant have their gear ready, and head on down to the grocery store. Meanwhile the cast and I are getting our makeup done by my a friend. Who at the time I thought was really good at makeup...

We finally leave to the grocery store, but first I stop by the doctor's office to borrow a wheelchair from the good Muslim to use as a dolly.

By the time we get there I'm about 10 minutes late but it doesn't really matter since the store hadn't fully closed yet. Although I'm sure my crew waiting for me didn't feel the same way.

How did I get a grocery store to let me film in their...grocery store?

When you don't live in LA it's not as much of a bitch to get people to let you used their locations. Plus I pretty much knew everyone in the town and if I didn't my friends did. I did have to go through a few people to get the location but I didn't have to pay any money.

The most awkward thing was just asking to use it. I ask a guy in a Gilbert Grape grocery store in a town that's the size of a college campus if I can film a movie there.

So with a decent sized crowd waiting outside we start setting up and film the scenes. Halfway into getting everything set up I remember I'm about to act in front of the camera. But since I was basically playing myself it wasn't much trouble getting into character.

It was incredible looking at the footage between takes. Derrick was able to make my camera do so much more than I could.

What I was hoping would take two or three hours ended up taking about five hours. I could tell the manager was ready to leave, I promised I'd buy him a pizza from the gas station the next day if he just put up with us a little longer.

We then filmed for another two hours in the parking lot, then went home to sleep for about five hours before we got up early for the next day of filming.

Storyboarding

Been a while. I promised to go into the actual making of the film this time, but I forgot to talk about storyboards. But that goes hand in hand with filming the movie so it works.

Here's a question, to storyboard or not to storyboard? Now most will tell you to storyboard. But most are people with no skill and regurgitate what they read in Directing 101.

Some say they can't draw or some shit like that. To quote Dov for the fourteenth time "If you can't direct a pencil, you can't direct a camera".

On the other hand, Werner Herzog is against storyboarding. ""Coincidences always happen if you keep your mind open, while storyboards remain the instruments of cowards who do not trust in their own imagination and who are slaves of a matrix... If you get used to planning your shots based solely on aesthetics, you are never that far from kitsch. -Werner Herzog

And if you're wondering what kitsch is, it's not good.

So you make your own decision. I'm with Herzog, but I don't have enough experience to recommend anything.

Everyone thinks they know what each scene will look like, but until you draw it out you don't realize how much you don't.

If you're a person who likes the characters to explore their space and just be natural, than you'll probably do alright without storyboards.

If your very particular about what you want, like Kubrick or the Coen brothers, than of course you'll want to storyboard. Don't worry about how great the drawings are. The more time you spend animating the longer it takes. Draw some stick figures in the position and shot you want and move on.

Even though I'm with Herzog on coincidence and exploring what happens, I was starring in the film so I needed to get across what I wanted. So I drew about 40 pages of storyboards, and it was exhausting.

I learned a lot about directing from doing that. Go ahead and draw some storyboards and see how well you do.

Robert Rodriguez used to draw comic strips when he was a kid, which helped him a lot with his directing skills.

So what I'm trying to say is there is no answer. And that goes beyond storyboarding. Not to sound cliche but find works for you.

Next time I'll go into the first day of shooting and give you an update on post production.

This is a Rewrite!

Today I'm going to over screenwriting again, since it is the most important part of the entire production. After you've already written the script, you take a break, maybe even feel some sort of accomplishment for following something all the way through.

I didn't really. I just felt like some intense pressure that had been looming over me was going to give me a week off. Now you come back to it and start rewriting. So how do you know when you're done rewriting, you don't. Some will tell you that you'll have a feeling when you're done. Others will tell you, you're never done. I felt it was done but could always be polished, so I rewrote a little bit everyday while getting the rest of the production ready.

After finishing your screenplay, you might feel the need to send it to some of your closest friends or a script doctor. Avoid it. That's just the weak part of your mind either wanting fained compliments to make you feel good or an "expert" opinion to tell you how you should feel about it.

You just finished your first of many, many drafts. Why not wait till the third or fourth draft before you do this. If you send your friends a crappy first draft, how excited do you think they'll be to read your sixth draft?

Why spend $200-300 on a script doctor on something you already know needs work. Save them till the end.

Some will tell you to rewrite your entire script you need to do a complete rewrite. Well, I tried that. Guess what, it was a complete rewrite. It was an almost entirely new script. When you rewrite the script from the beginning, how much do you want to follow the last gameplan. Kind of boring, at least for me.

It was like reliving past experiences, so the only way to make it any fun is to make different choices to see what happens. So my new script was completely different. Now, there were some good things to come out of it.

I took a few of the ideas and used them in my old draft, but most of it was just successful in a writing excercise.

So I went back to the original, and never sent that script to anyone. Why? Anyone? No? Okay, I already told you but I'll tell you again...Don't send the first draft to anyone!

"But Steve wasn't that technically the second draft or some shit"?

Well said, but it was more like a first draft in the sense that it was completely different and would need polishing in a completely new way.

Now I didn't follow my advice, because I didn't have the advice till I made the mistake...which is how I got the advice.

I not only sent my first draft to a script doctor, but all 250 pages of it. Wow, I don't think you need an idiot like me to tell you to never do that. But just to let you know, I like to make my own mistakes rather than follow rules from a screenwriting book at Barnes & Noble.

Follow Syd Field or Robert McKee if you want, I just like to make mistakes first then read their books after I'd made a few screenplays so I can look more objectively than just follow blindly.

Anyway, not only did the scriptdoctor complain about how long it was, I had to pay an extra $50. The script doctor bascially told me things I already knew, too long, too many characters, etc.

He told me it was really funny, but needed to get some serious cuts. Which may be the hardest part of the screenwriting process, cutting your favorite scenes. You love them, they may be the funniest part of the movie. But if they're not necessary, you're gonna have to cut them.

My friends told me it was funny and didn't think it was too long. But they don't know how long a movie's supposed to be. When they read the new 90 page version they thought it was too short.

Hopefully you'll get lucky and have that one friend who's completely honest. He let me know my first draft was all over the place.

Pretty much all the advice I got were things I'd already come to terms with. It's just nice to have the validation. That's mostly what you'll pay a scriptdoctor for, to validate the little things you already believe in the back of your head.

I only paid for one scriptdoctor, one time. The best way to go about it two pay for two scriptdoctors, two times. But I actually wanted to make a movie this year, so I skimped on that.

I knew what I wanted and that's all that mattered. I did find outside sources for criticism though.

Triggerstreet.com enables you to have horrible screenwriters critique you as you critique other horrible screenwriters. I'm sure there's some decent one's there, I just haven't seen any. And if I seem pessimistic I'm not. If you had read a screenplay about a prostitute that convinces a 70 foot cyclops to kill everyone last man on earth and it wasn't even the worst of the screenplays you'd read, than you might feel the same way as me.

I'm not sure what else I can tell you. Write, the rewrite as many times as possible before you shoot it. Get outside opinions, keep it around 90 pages, and don't be predictable.

I'll never understand why people want to make a movie that's already been made a hundred times. Where does that passion come from?

Know you're talents and your...non talents. I'm awesome at dialogue, but I'm not good at...something? Maybe I'm good at everything. That's the kind of self confidence that get's a movie made.

By the way, if you suck at dialogue, than there may be no hope for you. Unless you're writing Rumble in the Bronx II chances are you will whither into obscurity. So if it's possible, learn to write realistic dialogue.

Also, read your script aloud to someone, you'll be able to tell when they're bored or if they think something's funny.

And oh yeah, WRITE! Don't think about writing, that's thinking. Just write! Bad writing doesn't hurt anyone unless it's the final draft or somebody read it. But you're still better than all the thinkers out there, or the talkers. You wrote so you're a writer.

The only time you should stay away from writing is when you've finished a new draft, stay away from it for a few weeks. That way it's fresh when you come back to it. If you still laugh at a line, get excited during an action scene, or wince during a horror moment. It's good, and best of all you wrote it.

I didn't come up with all this, some of it is sound advice I regurgitated from the greats. But I used all of it so I know it works.

That's it for today, next time I'll get to the actual making of the movie.

Audio Mo Fo

Too much suspense? Are you finally ready to hear... or read who I chose for my DP? Alright I won't torture you anymore. I chose the cheaper guy with more talent that didn't require lodging. Sounds like a pretty simple decision, but the alure of a Red One and the "If you're gonna do it, do it big".

But I follow a motto by (gasp) Dov Simons which makes much more sense. Especially when it comes to your first film. KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid. Plus it's always good to hire a DP who is um, skilled in...LIGHTING! Besides numerous other things he had going for him.

So that's that and that's my DP.

Now what about audio, huh. Audio as I've said before is either just there or it sucks. Unless you're some audio geek you're not gonna leave a movie talking about how crisp the dialogue was, or how innovative the room tone was in setting up the atmosphere of the final scene.

But, when audio sucks, it really sucks. It's like a lineman in football, when he does his job no one really notices, but if he fucks up, people will...I guess, I don't know. I don't really watch football but you know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, there's a quote from...some guy who had attended numerous screenings of low to no budget digital movies "I finally saw one that I could hear". I think he was an EA(guys with money for your movie), so you want to impress this guy.

So any of you thinking of skimping on audio better have a good reason. First of all the on camera mic is horrible, so unless you're innovative and know a way to get around it, don't ever use it.

Then the boompole takes a little skill to use, so whoever you get to do it better be competent and have good shoulder endurance. And he needs to know a few things like how ride the frame of the camera, which means have the mic as close to the actor/s as much as possible without getting it in the camera. Which means he/she/it needs to do mic checks with you the director, or whoever the hell is behind the camera. Also needs to make sure the boompole isn't casting any visible shadows as well. Besides that that's all there is too it.

Some of that is pretty obvious, basic stuff that you may already know, but you'd be surprised how many bad movies are made where people skip this. So if I can stop one more fucked up movie than I've done my job.

Now everyone is going to say that you should get a sound mixer as well. I didn't, and I've known others that didn't. Not to be the guy that uses this line, but you can actually fix a lot of that in post. From my little knowledge of it, sound mixing basically saves you a lot of time in the editing room.

Keep in mind we're talking about low budget movie making. If you can get it, than get it. But if you can't, you can live without it. Just make sure to avoid echo and static at all costs. You can't fix either of the two in post.

You want to shoot in places that don't have perpendicular walls, so as to avoid echos. Hard surfaces, low ceilings, and wooden floors don't help either. Non perpendicular walls, soft furniture, shelves, high ceilings are much better for interior shooting. Maybe even buy some foamcore.

Don't get any of that white noise crap going on either. If the air conditioner, or something is making noise either try to get it to stop, or make sure it's there the whole time. And recored about a minute before of just audio with that sound so you can identify that sound while editing in order to EDIT it out.

In fact always tape a minute of just audio before every scene so you have room tone. That allows you to edit that tone into the scene later one, or edit it out. Like background actors making noise. Record them seperately, then record your actors doing whatever the hell they do. Then edit them together. Don't tape at the same time!

Also, get you $100 pair of headphones so you can check your audio levels so you know if they're consistant, suck, or whatever else could be the problem. These are kind of the industry standard, Sony 7506.

Know your mics as well. If shooting interior dialogue, use a hypercardioid, or maybe just a cardioid. Shooting outside, use a shotgun. Shooting an documentary, or recording an interview use a lav mic. Pretty simple. I could go more into detail with them, but I would run the risk of misinformation, plus this is your starter page do the rest of the research on your own. If I'm you're only source than you're gonna fail big time. Always, get lot's or sources from people who know that the hell they're talking about.

A good start would be buying this expensive ass DVD, http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/562036-REG/Books_DRT_DVD_Sound_for_Film.html. Don't complain either, I got it for $90. This will solve most of your problems. Others suggest visiting or working on sets, buying volumes of books. I say just get the DVD, try a few forums like this, http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/forumdisplay.php?f=29, and just shoot the damn thing.

A good place to get mics would be http://oktava.com/.

Make sure to get windjammers, or windsocks, or whatever to block...wind. Even if you're inside always use one.

Get XLR cables to run from your camera to your mic, the longer the better. Ask any girl that.

Boompoles are expensive even for the crappy models. I made my own for about $30 but ended up using a real one because my DP already owned one.

TANGENT ALERT

That's the cool thing about hiring people, they usually have their own equipment. My DP had lights, mic, boom pole, crane. So most of the stuff I bought wasn't used. He even had his own camera. A Canon XL2 that had native 16x9.

I bought a $500 add on so I could get 16x9, which is the new industry standard. But didn't even use it cause he had the newer model of the camera that was used in 28 days later. So even my camera wasn't necessary. More waste of money. Consider this when making your movie. Your crew may have the equipment you need already!

I DIGRESS

So I just gave you a lot of information. And it was on audio. Something I barely understand, and don't even like talking about.

Did I follow my advice? Somewhat. I shot in good interiors, I let my DP make the decisions cause he had the experience and I was too busy acting in front of the camera and directing actors or doing one of another hundred things.

My DP actually used a shotgun for everything, didn't use a sound mixer, but besides that I basically followed the rest of the rules.

Alright, I'm worn out from typing about something that bores me. In the future I'll be able to hire someone to do all the thinking on this subject.

Stay tuned for next time where I talk about something that's different from this.

You Down with My DP?

I've gone from updating every two days to going almost two weeks without an update. I've recently just moved from small town Arkansas to big city Florida. I sort of got a rythem now, so I don't predict any shortage of updates happening to you guys anytime soon.

Anyway, I thought I'd go over getting a DP on your low to no budget today and how I went about it.

Last time I'd brought up that I'd made the revelation that having a well lit movie with production value was a good thing to have. I'm just brilliant aren't I?

I got on craigslist, dvxuser, backstage, and a few others I don't remember. Craigslist was by far the best.

I got some offers by some guys that had made some decent music videos or shorts, and some creepy guys that shoot micro machines roaming through their bedroom on some sort of flash freeze thing and wanted to move in with me. That's not that weird for Craigslist though.

I got some good offers but I haggled them to get a price I could actually work with. You got to do this. They need the credit and reel as much as they need the money, so you're the one in control. If they give you a hard time about how much money they want, just remind them of your budget and ask them if they'd rather sit on their ass for a week re-cutting their demo reel for the 18th time, or get paid DP'ing a movie. Well, you might want to paraphrase that a bit, but you get the point.

I finally got a great offer by a guy that not only had experience DP'ing an actual feature film, and it looked great. He understood the budget, asked for the least amount of money, and had family that lived near me. No paying for lodging!

The only thing for debate was the fact that one of the other guys had a Red One which is the best digital camera known to man...or at least to me. That stupid movie Jumper was shot with one.

But the guy wanted more, money, needed extra money to get his Red One shipped from storage, and he's not exactly awesome at lighting. Which is kind of like a director that doesn't work well with actors. David O. Russell?

Also, with the fact that I'm working with non-pro's, I'd rather work with a more non-obtrusive camera so as not to distract the actors from their naturalness anymore than the boompole would be doing. Which was how John Carney worked with his non pro's in Once.

Plus the camera would be beast as far as setting up goes. As apposed to my DVX which would take no time to set up and would let the cast and crew move quick and let us shoot in a week.

But, I've always heard if you're gonna do it...Do it Big!

I've never done this before, though. Do I want to pay more money than I have for a better looking movie that may make everything else suffer.

Kevin Smith shot his first on 16mm, so did all the other indie forfathers. So I can at least shoot on a digital camera.

So who did I choose?

I'll leave the suspense till next blog. And don't worry, I'll only make you wait a couple of days.

Casting my Actress

After I postponed the shoot to find a cinematographer, I knew I was going to have to deal with the backlash of scheduling. I conveniently had everyone I needed at that time. But I thought of the old quote "haste makes waste". Even though I could have made it then, what would be the point if it wasn't worth a damn. I'd reschedule for the Summer when people would be free again.

In addition to the challenge of searching for a talented cinematographer in ARKANSAS, I had also received news via email that my actress would now be too busy to play the role of Christina.

What's this? One of your friends dropped out of the movie?

Before I'm bombarded with the "I told you so's" in reference to depending on your friends. Let me point out that she wasn't a close friend of mine.

She's a girl from my hometown that not only had the exact look that I wanted but she also wanted to become an actress.

Here's a better question, did I ever audition her?

No, I didn't. But before you judge me remember what I've said about wanting to work with non-pro's and it giving me the authentic feel I wanted. Plus almost all wannabe actors that have experience usually suck. Watch most low-budget movies or any College theatre and you'll know what I'm talking about.

I tried to work it out with her, and see if I could change the schedule to suit her needs but she wasn't having it. Which led me to believe it may have been something else.

Maybe...having to KISS ME?

Whenever you have to do a kissing scene it's always awkward but you learn to make it work. In my acting experience I've had to kiss a girl that I completely hated, kiss a guy, make out with an ugly girl for about a total of 20 minutes, and grope a girl I barely knew. And two of them were smokers (as if that could make it any worse).

But you find a way around it to make it less awkward every time. Some of those required a lot of imagination.

This time though, it was more awkward than ever. Because I wrote the scene and was casting it. It's like "Hey you, you should be in my movie...where you end up kissing me, because I wrote a part where you kiss me and I picked you to do it".

You're probably thinking I'm thinking too much about it, but people think about that kind of stuff. Especially actresses.

So who knows, that may have been it or maybe not. But whatever,,no point in wasting time there. I knew I needed to move on if I was gonna have this thing ready for Summer. I searched all over for a good way to cast actresses.

I used mandy.com, craigslist.com, backstage.com, nowcasting.com, and a few others I don't remember.

Backstage beat them all.

It's funny. All this time I'd spent auditioning and trying to get cast. I was now on the opposite side and you learn so much from it.

Another crazy thing is all the beautiful actresses trying to be cast in the movie. I can imagine all the losers that use their position to get those girls in another position. And believe me, from what I've heard, it happens a lot.

I wasn't finding anything in state or anywhere close. In fact the three of the best actresses I found lived in the New York/New Jersey area.

I wanted a Hispanic actress since it would add more to the almost all white cast. Plus it would show another part of small town southern culture, the thriving Mexican community (not exactly just a southern thing).

I actually saw an Asian girl on Backstage that fit the look despite the fact she wasn't Hispanic. She also had a lot of experience, was currently living in Memphis, and was into experimental film making. So I asked her to audition for the movie.

I first interviewed them over the phone to see if they were someone I could get along with and had the personality I wanted in the character.

Then I had about ten of the actresses audition via YouTube since they all lived so far away.

After looking them all over, one stood way out from the rest. The Asian girl I mentioned. Not only was she exactly what I wanted, she was able to have fun and improv too. Not to mention she was confident enough to burp in the beginning of the audition.

I talked to all of them and sent them some direction and had them do it again. To see if they could take direction. Even though she did it right the first time.

I knew I wanted her for the role, but I acted like she was one of the dozen I was in talks with. Then after about a week I let her know I chose her and that was it.

Not only that she was super easy to work with. To get her here I offered a plane or whatever, she chose the Greyhound. I guess she was used to it with the touring she'd been doing with her Musical.

Great actress that fitted what I wanted, was local-ish, and completely fell within the budget.

I know I was actually using a non-non-pro. But sometimes a cheap SAG actor can work and seem natural. And she was awesome.

So that's how I cast her. That was just casting one character. I couldn't imagine having to cast every character. Another reason I'm glad I cast my friends.

Look how it worked out though. I would be able to get a DP, got a better actress, and still be able to get everyone together for the movie.

And they all lived happily ever after.

What Else?

Hey, hey, hey new blog for the day.

So let's just check where we are now. I wrote a script, got a job where I make sort of make money, formed a game plan, and barely dodged a scam deal on a camera.

So after all that I was still working as a substitute I was finally able to get the money to buy my camera for Christmas. Well, my my grandparents threw in an extra $1000 to help me out for my Christmas gift. But a lot of people get money from family members to make a movie so I don't feel bad about it. The Duplass bros. got $10, 000 from their parents to make their movie.

Anyway, I had the camera now. And some tape. So I was experimenting with the camera, filming things, learning how to white balance and the iris and all that crap.

Now I mentioned earlier that I had all the actors committed. Now let me tell you a little story about that.

I told you I was going to cast my friends in it. But how easy was it to that. Well, pretty easy actually. Once you let anyone know you going to make a movie and it's actually happening instead of just some pipe dream coming out of your mouth. EVERYONE wants in on it. Especially the people you don't want anything to do with.

The toughest part of the casting, besides making sure they don't suck is making sure you can schedule them and they show up. Now the business model for this is to always pay anyone that's going to be on your cast and crew, that way they'll show up and not come up with excuses. I actually didn't follow that model but I've got better friends than you so it worked out.

So Winter Break would be the perfect time to get everyone together to shoot the movie. My friends wouldn't have school and all that mess. So there it is.

Got a script, camera, actors, crew(mostly), got a schedule, ugh....what else?

Audio!

I need a mic, but what kind?! I heard the biggest problem with low budget movies is the audio. So many people with bad audio in movies. It's one of those things that you only notice when it's bad.

So I get all kinds of message boards, buy a $90 DVD on audio, and then more research. Be careful with the people giving you advice. If you ask an audio guy for advice on audio, he'll know what he's talking about, but he'll take his job too serious and try to act like it's the most important part of the movie. He'll tell you all this shit about hiring about four people to do sound, getting a mixer, blah, blah, blah. Fuck that. We're taking about a no budget movie. So I rented a no budget movie off of Netflix and looked up his crew and even emailed him. I didn't notice any problems with his sound and he told me he only used a DP and a Boom guy for his crew.

I will advise you to research your stuff, but don't go overboard. Know your mics, keep you mic as close to the person as possible without getting in the shot, and avoid echo and static as all costs. You can't fix that in post.

So after buying over $500 worth of audio equipment, and making my own boompole. I think again. What else?

I heard I needed an Anamorphic lens because all movies needed to be 16x9. My camera was 4x3. So I went through an ordeal on eBay to buy an Anamorphic lens for my camera. After a long ordeal where I didn't get the bid I just said fuck it, I need this camera before Winter Break is over so I chose Buy It Now and got it for $500. But I kept thinking....what else.

I need to make sure my footage doesn't look like crap! I've studied lighting through different websites and I wasn't taking to it at all. I decided to ditch my original realism idea with natural lighting and get some good lighting in the movie. Because nobody wants to watch your movie if it doesn't look like a movie.

So made the difficult decision to postpone the shooting of the movie and hire a cinematographer to give the movie a great look and run my crew. For if hire a talented guy with experience he can make me look like I know what I'm doing.

Pretty smart huh? Yeah. I'll go ahead and answer that one for you.

But when you postpone a movie, people's schedules come into play. So was it a good decision?

Watch out for the CAM SCAM

Now when I started researching the DVX100, I found it was hard to find. It had been upgraded to the DVX100b by the time I started looking for the camera. I looked around all over the web for the cheapest price. Cause as cheap as $2500 is for a movie camera...it's still $2200. And boom, I found it. $800!

My blog title is kind of a spoiler but pretend you're just as naive as I was and stay excited with me.

Now this sounds too good to be true, $800! I check up on other websites and I find about eight other websites that are just as cheap with the DVX's. And to think I was about to spend $2200 for one from NewEgg.com.

So according to the website at hand I could get all types of extras for adding a few hundred more dollars. Things such as a battery, some lenses, a camera bag, an AC/DC charger, and even a few tapes.

So I'm saving my money up for this camera, which wouldn't take long. Letting my cast and crew know we'll be ready to shoot in a matter of weeks. I'm also rushing to get everything ready so not only can I get the film shot during Winter Break, but the quicker I get it done the quicker I get the hell out of Warren, AR.

Just in case you were wondering how I was earning my money, I was subbing at the schools. Mainly the middle school and high school. Yeah, in case I didn't have enough stress with the movie I have to relive my year of being a teacher all at once. Shitty pay but better than any other job around, and it was never boring. I'd just plan and research my books while I let them do busy work and gossip. Just in case anyone reading this plans to ever teach, don't. If you're still desperate enough to do it call up Sir Richard Branson and tell him you'd like to sign up for the Mars Colonization, since you're life on Earth is worthless.

But I was making enough money, with moving in with my grandparents I had no overhead so all the money was going straight to the production untouched. Soon enough I had the money by Christmas, and called to order it on Black Friday. Called up the number, guy answers non-Chantilly with a Jersey accent. And if you want to imagine what he sounded like, just imagine some short, fat, balding, cigar smoking, guy who spends his spare time eating at a cheap Strip Club Buffet. I've got a weird imagination, I know.

I ask him if today is the last day to take advantage of the Black Friday sale, and he says "You bet". I told him my bank wasn't open that day, and was wondering if they could hold it one more day. He starts laughing and says "Can't help you chief". Completely unprofessional but for some reason I'm still talking to him (cheapness).

So I endure and ask him about the battery deal, and say "Even if I don't get the deal with the 2 hour battery, that's an extra battery anyway. The normal package comes with a battery already attached right?" Guy says "Nope, just the camera, battery's another $200."

As naive and dumb as I am, I still said "$200?!"

Jersey guy "Look you gonna buy something or not?"

I hung up.

Yayyy!!! I didn't fall for it.

I saw another website that had the same deal as them at the same price and ordered from them. So I get it cheap anyway. Boomshakalaka!

I don't even call this time. I just order it off the Internet and wait for my camera. I let the school and kids know that I'll only be around for a little bit longer.

Things work out sometimes. So I thought I'd check up on the company I ordered from while I had some free time.

You know where this is going.

Turns out there's all kinds of complaints on these people. They run a little shop out of Brooklyn. But it can't be the same people I dealt with before!?

It can! They've got over 30 different websites and phone numbers, and there were plenty of horror stories from previous dumb people that fell for it on a forum. The company even had an award on eBay, and they were con artists!

Things don't work out sometimes! Fucking bull shit! All this money! All this time! To go to some people who scam people and what's worse is they get away with it and laugh at their buyers like idiots!

I rush to the bank to beg them to stop my transfer. They said it's too late. It's been three days since I made the order. What the fuck! I plead with the staff to find away. One of the younger guys working there tries to help me out and looks it up. He said the money hasn't been received yet, so I could just cancel my card.

Bam, done. Like a movie with a last minute happy ending. Except this is just a blog about some whiny, idiot that fell for the fifth oldest trick in the book. Still similar though.

I get a phone call a few days later. Not the same Brooklyn/Jersey guy, his scam artist nephew or something. He says he needs my CVC 3 letter code on the back of my card.

What? This whole time I went through so much shit and they couldn't even get my money anyway till I gave them the number.

So I then just proceed to fuck with the guy, but it's been so long and it was so random I can't even really remember what I said. Probably was only funny in the moment anyway. Then I hang up on him.

He still calls back then I tell him he's a scam artist and he got caught.

If you want to prank call them, just call 888-450-4111. Tell them you want a buy something, then keep adding on extras and warranties, then tell them to cancel all the extras and you just want the camera. They'll hang up on you and maybe cuss you out first.

And in case you were wondering how they would've got away with the scam, it's easy. They just sell you a grey market version, with no battery, or lens, or mic, or LCD, or eyepiece, or...yeah you get it.

I'll post some of the websites if I find time to find them and feel like it. Which means I probably won't.

Just don't buy really cheap...or really expensive. Just buy from bhphotovideo.com and save yourself time and money.

Moral of the story, I was a lucky idiot.

THE END

Research before Finance II

In my last blog I talked about the fact that it's not the money that matters, it's what you got. Think in terms of what you need before money. And we got to the part where I had chosen a camera, the Panasonic DVX100. I looked it up and found that the best price would be a little over $2200. That's not that bad, especially considering the fact the camera will be most of my budget.

Camera most of my budget? Huh? What? Who? Yeah!

Stay with me a minute. Now I'm making a movie about true life experiences and real life people I know. So who do I want to play these people?

1)Do I want cheap SAG actors who don't live anywhere near me and judging from the latest low budget horror movie they were in, they're not exactly the thespians I'm looking for.

2)Another option could be hiring actors from a local community theatre or universtiy. As you know from the earlier blogs there is no community theatre within two hours of where I live. And the closest university that has a theatre program is only thirty minutes closer. And it's the same university I graduated from, and believe me I don't want anything to do with that. Trust me, if any of you have ever seen a university play you know what I'm talking about.

Some of you may be thinking "Steven, how could you? Weren't you once a hopeful young theatre actor from Southern Arkansas University at one time?" Well, actually none of you are thinking that but I'll answer it anyway. Yes I was, and that's exactly why I don't want to deal with theatre actors. The theatre program teaches you to be a worse actor in my opinion. Too much reading and getting inside your head. It forces you to think over act. But the main thing is...COLLEGE THEATRE ACTORS SUCK!

3) But no worries inter-pals, I never wanted to go that route in the first place. You see, I had a plan all along. Who better to play my friends, than...MY FRIENDS.

Uh, oh. Typical indie filmmaker mistake alert! Or is it?

Me thinks not. I've always been a fan of non-professional actors (big word for people who have never acted before) in movies. They're is something more natural about them. Of course they're not going to be great at acting in something like Transformers or American Beauty, but for the style I'm going for it will be perfect. Directors like Gus Van Sant use non-professionals a lot, as well as those crazy mumblecore people I mentioned in my last post. While the story and overall dynamic may have been very slow and boring, the acting was completely believable. In fact so believable, normal acting seems so blown up and performance like it's hard to watch sometimes.

With a cast of relaxed non-pro's directed well with suitable material, you're actors will seem so believable people will think they're watching a really good reality show. That's what I always tell people, act like you're on a reality show. That's more real than reality?

Which I was estatic to find out, because I wanted to cast my friends the whole time! Now I found that many people had done this and it worked out well!

So what does this have to do with research and finance? Well I researched some experimental (not to mention award winning) filmmaking and found an easy practical way to cast my movie for free!

Research and Finance. They're both there.

So the camera and actors are accounted for...kind of. Still gotta cast them and all that, but for now will stay with what we got.

But what about all this other shit? Sound, Lighting, Make Up, etc.

Well, you don't actually really need that. You can make your movie right now if you want. Script, camera, and actors are those are the most important ingredients. And if you're making mumblecore you can just skip the script part.

"Wow, Steve, so you've basically taught us to write about our boring lives, buy a $2000 camera, and shoot my stupid friends while they stammer and look into the camera." Say's some imaginary sarcastic reader of this blog I haven't even posted yet.

No, I'm just saying you can do that if you're talented enough. Think a great script and acting are the two most important parts of a movie, everything else is just an add on. But you probably won't be talented enough to pull that off, and even if you could why skimp on the other things when they're so easily obtainable.

If you want your movie to get seen...it should look like a movie. There's no better feeling than when you're watching your first movie and it looks like a real fucking movie you could rent from Blockbuster!

And I imagine it would feel pretty bad to spend all this time on your movie and it looks like some crappy youtube video about a kid falling off a trampoline. Even if it was good people would probably just lose interest because it doesn't look like a movie.

So why did my movie look like the former rather than the later? You'll learn that soon enough, first I'm gonna tell you how I made money and the story behind my camera...in my next blog that is.

Research before Finance

How would I go on to fund an entire movie with no funds? Well, first I needed to think in terms of what I needed before I started thinking about money. As long as you got what you need, money doesn't matter. Like that guy who just won at Cannes Film Festival with a $70 zombie movie called, Colin (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1278322). If anybody needs to be writing a blog it's him. But for now you're stuck with me.

By the way the guy who directed Colin, Mark Price, was another former Student of Dov Simens. I need to stop bringing him up before I really start annoying people.

What's the most important thing in order to make a movie? The one thing that seperates theatre from film... a camera. Wow, I'm really breaking new ground here aren't I. But seriously, it's the number one thing. So I need to pick out a camera, and one that doesn't make the film look an old home movie.

Now everything else is debatable, no matter what you think. If you wanted to you could film some old G.I. Joes being chewed up by your dogs and call it a movie, you could. Burn it on a DVD you can call anything a "Movie" and say it's artistic in some manor.

So with everything else being debatable depending on type of project I wanted to make I decided to research movies that were close to type of movie I wanted to make. Clerks and Swingers were the two movies that were the closest to what I wanted. I knew I wouldn't be working with a budget like Swingers so forget about that. Clerks seemed more around my budget, so I checked their imdb page (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109445/fullcredits#cast). Financing a crew for a feature film didn't seem as intimidating. Notice how a lot of the cast and crew are listed multiple times under different titles as well.

And I'd be shooting on DV, which meant I'd have it way easier than our indie forefathers. They all had to hassle with buying expensive film, renting out expensive film cameras, loading the film, watching dailies, and having to be so frugal throughout the entire process that they had to shoot almost entirely in master shots. Clerks (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94wGndbOIPk) and Stranger than Paradise (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpQ3HrmjjSc) are perfect examples of this. Can you imagine paying for all that money for film and during this scene someone misses their line or something? That's a lot of expensive film wasted. That's where the ol' "Cat in the Window" shot comes in. Notice in Clerks how Kevin Smith literally put a cat in a window during that scene. That kind of coverage covers your ass. But when you're shooting DV you have plenty of tape so you can get as much coverage and as many angles and takes as you want with no worries.

Which was good for me because I wanted to get a lot of footage. Since I wanted my movie to a true slice of life movie, I wanted to tape people having mundane conversations, hanging out, improving, and you can't do that when you have to be frugal. But if you remember the previous blog I brought up a movie called Hannah Takes the Stairs (http://www.hannahtakesthestairs.com/). That movie was obviously digital and it seemed like it was similar to the movie I wanted to make that was shot in a very realistic manor almost as if it was a documentary.

So with my new Netflix account I rented lot's of low budget movies like Hannah Takes the Stairs that were part of film movement called mumblecore. Which are no budget movies shot digitally with mostly non-professional actors without a script. I watched them and learned something very valuable...IT'S BORING! I was at one time thinking of doing something akin to that so that it would show how life was truly lived, but the thing is that it's very, very, boring. Hannah was the longest 90 minutes of my life, Funny Haha(http://www.funnyhahafilm.com/) was better but still boring, but The Puffy Chair(http://www.thepuffychairmovie.com/home.html) was actually good. So if want to make a mumblecore movie, try to follow the Duplass brothers example.

Either way all these movies won at Film Festivals, such as SXSW and Sundance. Like I said earlier, even if you make a bad or boring movie it can still be considered art and win festivals. Just make the movie that you would want to see. The point is I watched a lot of low budget movies to learn before I make mine. You actually learn a lot from watching bad movies. Because when you watch good movies it's hard to see what they're doing right because they make it look so easy, but when you watch bad movies you can learn things to avoid.

I looked up The Puffy Chair to see what type of camera they used and in an interview they talked about the DVX100(http://thefilmlot.com/interviews/INTduplassbros.php). So that was it. That's what I would save my money for. Now you're probably thinking "great you got a camera, but how did you pay for actors, lighting equipment, all this other stuff". Worry not my friend because we're getting to that, it's just that this blog is so long I think it's best if we continue that in the next blog. So stay tuned for part two.

Writing and Copywriting

I'm still in Warren, AR as of right now. Checking out different editors that have submitted to me but I'm just going to interview them when I get to Melbourne. Gotta make sure it's someone I can depend on and put up with for long hours. As of right now I'm just doing this and letting the movie "INSIDE JOKE' be known to the masses.

So we left off in our last adventure with me back where I came from with no script, and no money. So whatever did I do? As far as Ideas went I wasn't at a loss.

You're probably wondering why I decided to come back to Warren to make a movie? So many people in LA were interested in what it was like living in small town that I knew I needed to make a movie about it. One that was AUTHENTIC, with AUTHENTIC ACCENTS. Please don't believe the accents in Varsity Blues! Plus, how would I fund a movie in LA when I could barely fund myself. To grandmothers house I go!

In a record driving time of 2 days I got back just in time for the Annual Pink Tomato Festival. My best friend, Jacob, was in Warren for a few days before he had to head back to Florida. I agreed to drive JACOB down there and hang out for a few weeks, I deserved a vacation plus I'd be bringing MY BROTHER back who was already down there hanging out with HIS BROTHER. Complicated I know, same reaction the cop had who pulled me over in Alabama when I had to give him my reason for driving cross country. I literally had just driven coast to coast.

So after travelling to Melbourne, FL (bad ass place by the way) to drop off Jacob and pick my brother JOSH, then I go to TX for my sister FELICIA'S wedding, then I'm finally back in Warren to make things happen. The only place left to hook up my computer is a room that's so small and hot it feel's like a boiler room, but whatever.

So I decided to write the story, which is all based off awkward dating experiences and hanging out with my friends. So yeah, it's got a Clerks/Superbad-ish thing going for it. I just decided to take all these true life stories I've been telling for years making people laugh, combine them into 90 pages and make a movie of it.

Now for anyone that writes, you know what it's like to sit infront of keyboard to write. You think too much, and you're mind tries to get you off track and think of a hundred other things you need to do. Don't listen to it. Just type and type anything. It's a first draft, so it's gonna suck and you'll rewrite a hundred times anyway. In Finding Forrester, Forrester say's something akin to "Just type, don't think. You write the first draft with you heart. Then you can go back and use your mind."

That was my mentality, which is probably why the script ended up being around 250 pages. So yeah there were some problems, way too long, too many characters, lot's of people just hanging out talking about things that happened somewhere else, all in one location, and some loose ends.

You may have already learned this stuff from experience or reading a book but I beleive experience is the best teacher and I'd rather learn the hard way than listen to some guy's theory on something. This way you learn the reason for a rule or that you don't care for their rules at all.

But it acheived the following things 1) It was done 2) It was funny 3) Easy to produce 4) Great dialogue. So I registered the treatement with the WGA, and sent the script to the library of congress to get copywrited. And sent the script to a script doctor in LA, who basically told me what I already just named but repeatedly mentioned how much I tortured him with 250 pages in one location, haha.

So I fixed all that stuff over time with several re-writes. And after talking to people, I realized that since I was filming on DV I didn't have to write it as if I was shooting on 16mm. So I added more locations, combined characters for depth, etc.

So I had the legal stuff out of the way and I had a great script that's easy to produce and would get better after every re-write I did periodically from there on in. But how would I finance it and what kind of talent pool would I be working with in small town southern Arkansas. Find out next blog on the Adventures of Steve and Friends!

Self Education

So I'm still in post as of this blog, actually pre-post. In about a week I get to go down to Florida and edit the movie, but more on that later.

So I let's start with the decision to make my own movie. Great idea for a number of reasons 1) The crap I was auditioning for anyway was horrible 2) It was such a rat race 3) Always wanted to make my own movie anyway 4) One of my jobs was working at Blockbuster and I saw preview for Hannah Takes the Stairs (hannahtakesthestairs.com) and knew I could make my own movie.

There's those two types than inspire you to do something. One is so inspirational that you feel it's your calling to follow in their footsteps, the other is the kind that looks so bad or easy that you know you feel "I can do better than that". I'll let you guess which one I thought after seeing that trailer.

But one of my roommates had given up the dream of being an actor and decided to back home to Little Rock and be a loser that tries to pick up girls by telling them about how he used to live in Hollywood and the other roommate finally found out he was gay after having gay sex for the first time with his friend now turned boyfriend and decided to move into his apartment. So now I had no place to stay, and the seminar was in a month. So I decided to use the ol' puppy dog eyes on a girl I was seeing to get her to take me in for a month. Wow, those Armenians. She cooked for me and treated me like a king at first, soon as I moved in I was a Pariah. I've waited tables and taught high school students. I can up with a bitch that goes off on me because she can't stand the sound of me clipping my fingernails.

So after a month of her, and driving three times the distance to get to work for a month I've finally got to the seminar. I walk into some big stuido lot (Paramount Lot I think) and find my way to the auditorium. At the risk of sounding like somebody on his payroll, he is the guy to talk to if you want to make a movie. Anyone with common sense should know film school is a waste of money and time, all you get are contacts which you'll be doing anyway when you're doing the real thing. To paraphrase Tarantino (former student of Dov's), "Why spend money on filmschool when you could be using it on...your film?"

That was a bit of a tangent, but that's what I do. Anyway, I'm in there surrounded by a bunch of other people in an auditorium. Some of which were wearing expensive clothes indicating that they're TV actors or low level producers or some shit, there were also a lot of regular looking people, and people who knew way less than I did. Dov walked in before the seminar just checking over stuff and told us to mingle since we're all in the same boat. Who do I have around me? A kid from highschool who earned this trip in some Arts program...wow. I payed $400 and stayed in an apartment with this annoying girl for a month to learn how to make my dreams a reality, this guy doesn't know what the hell it's about and has no fucking idea how to handle all the info he's about to recieve. Guy on my right is some foreigner who kept taking his shoes off and proping them on the seat infront of him stinking up the adjacent seats...one of which would be mine.

So for two days I'm in this auditorium while Dov (webfilmschool.com) is blowing my mind with info for I think about eight hours a day. Trying to take notes while others are asking questions more advanced questions. One guy's a producer asking what the chances he'll get a return in investment on a movie he made starring Mickey Rooney. Dov say's he highly doubts it, I mean it's Mickey Rooney. Another woman is talking about a movie she's making in Hawaii. Dov say's he hates it here because it's like a small town where everyone and their cousin hears about something and they want in on it and hound the production. Just made a movie in Warren, AR so I know what that's about. Where the fuck are these people getting this money from in the first place, I'm wanting to hear about his low to no budget advice while I'm waiting for him to finish off the big budget stuff for all these money bags producers. Another guy asks what should he pay himself as a producer, Dov says "Pay yourself? Take money out of one pocket and put in the other. Ask a stupid question get a stupid answer." Not a person to suffer fools.

He did suffer me though, I asked him a lot questions during intermission about raising money and copyrighting. I got this 1) Whatever movie I'm making, save it for a later project. I'm too green, it's too big, and I'll fuck it up. 2) Judging from what he see's I'm not the kind of guy to raise lot's of money from Dentist's (he'll tell you all about that), just get $10,000 together and make it on DV. 3) He gave me and everyone else his phone # to call him with problems. Which I've used around six times.

So it's all said and done, I've packed, ditched the Armenian, made a two day trip home, and now I've got to come up with a plan to make money and write a whole new script. This might take longer than the three months I intially thought. But I better make it fast...or else I'm that guy that left to the big city and failed and has to come back and live with his grandparents.

People were treating me like a celebrity even though I hadn't really done anything but learn. And I was all cocky with my big ideas and stuff. But it was cool to get away from the city and come home...for about a week. Plus people didn't really know what to say when I said I'm gonna make a movie in Warren either.

So what did I do next? Where did a whole new script come from? How would I raise the money? Where would I find actors? Stay tuned for the next exciting blog and find out.

1st Post

This is my first time ever blogging, I probably would never have blogged if it weren't for the fact I thought I could help others. Aren't I just something special.

Either you want to learn from one who's been where you want to go, or you're just interested in the whole process of how it's done and that's it. Well, you're hearing it straight from someone who's living it so this is a pretty damn good oppurtunity for you.

There's better teachers who have more experience and make millions and do seminars, such as my mentor Dov Simens (webfilmschool.com), but here you're learning from someone who's making a movie IN THE NOW and you get all the little things that people don't tell you.

But we'll get to all that later, right now I'm just going to set up a little exposition. I'm from a crappy small town called Warren, AR. If you're town is actually smaller than mine than I'm impressed. We're also landlocked, it's a two hour drive to the nearest mall. People hang out at Wal-Mart for fun. Yeah.

Fast Forward and I've got a B.A. in Theatre from SAU, in Magnolia, AR which is not much better than Warren. So after I get done learning the Meisner technique among others from a university surrounded by cow pastures I leave to make things happen...with my Theatre degree. I choose Nashville, TN since my dad lives there. That way I could find a job to save money and move to New York, plus I could do some community theatre or something while I was there.

Well instead of getting some job at a Sam's Club I ended up getting a job...Teaching High School Spanish! I still don't understand how that happened, did my Theatre degree actually do something for me? Anyway, I was making so much money moving would be no problem, plus I could pay off bills, stock up on my wardrobe, etc. and I was acting in a play at the same time. I was making so much compared to my past part-time jobs that is was almost hard to give it up. But then again, it's teaching so I quit.

I ended up moving to LA since I was and am still young and that's where all the money is. I got an apartment,. two jobs, a manager and joined an improv group, not bad for someone from Warren, AR.

The bad, with two jobs I had no time to do anything else and I was still barely making a living. With the little extra I had I used it on acting classes, headshots, etc. I wasn't getting many auditions either with their being a WRITERS STRIKE. Really bad timing. In my little spare time I wrote my first movie. Never read a book on it, just did it. Why read a book that teaches you to write just like everone else?

Anyway, I missed my flight going snowboarding on Spring Break and tried to kill my nine hour wait by buying a magazine called SCRIPT, there was an add for a guy called Dov Simens who seemed to be the answer to everything. Well, he was. I took his $400 seminar, and knew what I had to do.

I moved back home to Warren, wrote a smaller budget movie, saved money, rewrote, read books, and repeat. One year later I finished it and now I'm getting it edited.

Now you want to know how. That's begins in my next blog, thought I'd just let you know how I got it started.