Making A Movie

This last weekend was the beginning of the culmination of years of work for me. Since 2001, I've been practicing the art of screenwriting, following my work on musicals and plays. Well, screenwriting has stuck with me the longest and to date, I've written some 60 screenplays, teleplays, and shorts. I'd taken one of my features and decided to shoot it myself. It is a no-budget script with five people and one location: a house. It's a straight drama with no effects and lots and lots of dialogue. For having no money, it's perfect.

The plan was to shoot the entire 80 page script in a single day starting at 8am and going right through till 11:30pm. I had every shot planned and every scene timed out to the minute. I had plenty of tapes; the Engineer was running the sound; we had bright lights to make sure we got a good picture. It was perfect.

Well, almost. There were a few things I failed to take into account. First and foremost was my own inexperience. After all, I was undertaking the mammoth task of shooting this thing. I'm the director, producer, and cameraman. There were no assistants of any kind. This inexperience lead to some blocking issues, some weird shots, and extra time take trying to figure out the real life versions of what I saw in my head.

The other issues concerned the actors themselves. I failed to allow for something I can only refer to as "diva time." This would be the time that actors use to primp themselves into what they feel is presentable for the shoot. Understandable completely, but one didn't start doing this until I said, "Let's go." They almost completely failed to be on time for most of the shots, and then there was the matter of knowing their lines. Most of them knew their lines just fine most of the time. There was a couple that nailed almost every one. Some needed prompting the first time through a scene. One barely survived two lines without needing help...every time. This latter one caused some frustration (which I contained exceptionally well) not only from me but from the rest of the cast as well. And I'm not saying anything here that I don't suspect he knew already...

So, with all this, we got through most of it. There are quite a few scenes we didn't get to, but fortunately, the people who allowed me to use their house are allowing me a second day on November 1st to finish up. According to my schedule, it's only the evening, so it won't even be all day that we shoot. I'll send out a schedule revision later, but it's mostly night scenes anyway. I'll also go through what I did get shot to see if anything need to be redone.

Anyway, it is exciting, and I can't wait to get editing on what I have to see how it turns out.