After the success of my short film “Trapped” I jumped into the next year of school weeks before it even started. I had signed up for the DMC 192 course, which was a portfolio project class wherein I had a full term to produce a piece of work on my own having utilized all that I had learned in the film program. Right away I wanted to revamp a great idea and a mediocre script titled “My Inspiration” (interestingly enough, the major project I am currently working on right now). After adjusting the script and turning it into something much stronger than it had been before. But still I had a long ways to go in terms of making a really solid film production. I had the education, I had the equipment there to check out, but I was still learning how to put it all together into a serious piece of work. There I was, still mediocre experience as far as even working with a crew and I had a 50-page script that I needed to shoot and have edited in less than ten weeks.
The project was flawless in getting set up but from there it was a nightmare. With the length of the script I knew we had to hop onto filming fast. Furthermore, over half the film were exteriors. I was happy with my male lead, but not so much with my female. I was just going with who worked right away because shooting needed to begin. Not at all aware of what an overwhelming project this would be the first day’s shoot was disaster. I was edgy, still learning some of the trick of the camera and I honestly just wasn’t ready. I was making little mistakes and it took nearly two hours to set up and shoot a 10-shot, 2/8 of a page long scene. We were only going to shoot 2 1/2 pages and had to stop at half a page because we ran out of sunlight. The next day my lead actress bailed because her “schedule got to busy”. I knew what she meant. I had slipped back into my old habits and once again looked like I had no idea of what I was doing. Already a week into the term and I had only my lead cast and what little we shot on day one was going to have to be reshot. I took the initiative and accepted the fact that this project was going to be a disaster at this rate. I pulled the plug.
However, I was still left there now with about eight weeks to start from scratch and shoot a whole piece. From nothing I pulled out a rather horrible script I had written, trying to be deep that didn’t go anywhere. In essence, it was a woman who had once been a victim of rape and it showed how her life was in experiencing that. She then is visited by an ex of hers and they discuss the experience and she is uplifted from the experience. Again... really no story. But the notion of seeing the afterward of a rape victim was something that grabbed me. It’s what so few of us ever see and it’s incredibly traumatic at the same time. I took that idea and used it as a starting place, but I needed to go somewhere with the story. I figured what better way to get the story going than to get the lead out of her house, out there in the world where anything could happen.
I dabbled with the idea of her needing to go on a long drive, a drive that put her out in a rural locale where she would be completely isolated. For a brief time my second draft had her picking up a stranded motorist and exploring the awkwardness that would form between the two of them. But still the story was coming off stale. I knew there was something more lingering there. And then it hit me to have this other stranded driver be one of the men who had assaulted her in the past, but it was so many years later and they had both tried so hard to block out the memories of that night that they wouldn’t recognize each other at first. Suddenly the characterization of these two leads came full circle. It was in that time that my mind opened up to extensive possibilities and suddenly I found myself expanding the significance and symbolism as to what occurred in the film. For instance, the female lead becomes stranded when her car breaks down and when her former attacker shows up, working as a mechanic, he is able to fix her car up, in exchange for giving him a ride into town to get help in fixing his own car. There is the interesting dichotomy then that the man who attacked and broke her, upon being introduced in the film, shows up and comes to her rescue.
This was the first time I had ever completely stopped work on one project for the sake of starting another and it was one of the greatest decisions I ever made. Much like when I produced Trapped, I found myself incredibly cramped for time. My lead actress had a relatively easy schedule to work with and I was able to cast her first. And even then our meeting was somewhat awkward, primarily from my part. I found myself in desperate need to cast this film, having taken an extra week to completely start a new project. But we discussed it and went over the script and I thought she might work well. She ended up working better than I could have imagined. After shooting the first couple of pages of script, showing what her life was like at home, I still needed to cast my lead. As I was scrambling around to take care of that the car that my actress had borrowed, a Honda Accord with a chunk of it’s bumper cover missing (perfect vehicle for a struggling and lost young woman) broke down. Unfortunately her real car was practically brand new and would have stood out as a continuity quandary seeing as she was supposed to be a struggling woman just barely getting by and, in the script directly, her car is supposed to have some mechanical problems. This created further delays as I finally cast the male lead in the film.
There we were, the month of November had already started (and the final project was due the first week of December) and I had just completed casting. But I only had my lead actor for about ten days during November between projects for him and the Honda was still broke down. Magically they got it running again and around November 10th we crammed four different shoots into five days, in which we shot the bulk of the film. I had the film equipment out much longer than was often allowed and I practically had to beg to keep it a few days longer. We started this long shift of shooting on a Friday. Needing to turn the equipment in by Tuesday afternoon, we shot over the weekend and literally the last shooting was done Tuesday morning, giving me just enough time to go home, dump the audio and video before turning the equipment. I had also contracted a bad cold and a temperature lingering around 100 degrees. But we still fought through, shooting on a very cold Sunday night and then, of course, Tuesday morning. The Tuesday shoot was the worst, being rushed and I was even sicker. I remember wearing three layers of clothing to keep warm and ultimately becoming so overheated that I nearly passed out.
The project was flawless in getting set up but from there it was a nightmare. With the length of the script I knew we had to hop onto filming fast. Furthermore, over half the film were exteriors. I was happy with my male lead, but not so much with my female. I was just going with who worked right away because shooting needed to begin. Not at all aware of what an overwhelming project this would be the first day’s shoot was disaster. I was edgy, still learning some of the trick of the camera and I honestly just wasn’t ready. I was making little mistakes and it took nearly two hours to set up and shoot a 10-shot, 2/8 of a page long scene. We were only going to shoot 2 1/2 pages and had to stop at half a page because we ran out of sunlight. The next day my lead actress bailed because her “schedule got to busy”. I knew what she meant. I had slipped back into my old habits and once again looked like I had no idea of what I was doing. Already a week into the term and I had only my lead cast and what little we shot on day one was going to have to be reshot. I took the initiative and accepted the fact that this project was going to be a disaster at this rate. I pulled the plug.
However, I was still left there now with about eight weeks to start from scratch and shoot a whole piece. From nothing I pulled out a rather horrible script I had written, trying to be deep that didn’t go anywhere. In essence, it was a woman who had once been a victim of rape and it showed how her life was in experiencing that. She then is visited by an ex of hers and they discuss the experience and she is uplifted from the experience. Again... really no story. But the notion of seeing the afterward of a rape victim was something that grabbed me. It’s what so few of us ever see and it’s incredibly traumatic at the same time. I took that idea and used it as a starting place, but I needed to go somewhere with the story. I figured what better way to get the story going than to get the lead out of her house, out there in the world where anything could happen.
I dabbled with the idea of her needing to go on a long drive, a drive that put her out in a rural locale where she would be completely isolated. For a brief time my second draft had her picking up a stranded motorist and exploring the awkwardness that would form between the two of them. But still the story was coming off stale. I knew there was something more lingering there. And then it hit me to have this other stranded driver be one of the men who had assaulted her in the past, but it was so many years later and they had both tried so hard to block out the memories of that night that they wouldn’t recognize each other at first. Suddenly the characterization of these two leads came full circle. It was in that time that my mind opened up to extensive possibilities and suddenly I found myself expanding the significance and symbolism as to what occurred in the film. For instance, the female lead becomes stranded when her car breaks down and when her former attacker shows up, working as a mechanic, he is able to fix her car up, in exchange for giving him a ride into town to get help in fixing his own car. There is the interesting dichotomy then that the man who attacked and broke her, upon being introduced in the film, shows up and comes to her rescue.
This was the first time I had ever completely stopped work on one project for the sake of starting another and it was one of the greatest decisions I ever made. Much like when I produced Trapped, I found myself incredibly cramped for time. My lead actress had a relatively easy schedule to work with and I was able to cast her first. And even then our meeting was somewhat awkward, primarily from my part. I found myself in desperate need to cast this film, having taken an extra week to completely start a new project. But we discussed it and went over the script and I thought she might work well. She ended up working better than I could have imagined. After shooting the first couple of pages of script, showing what her life was like at home, I still needed to cast my lead. As I was scrambling around to take care of that the car that my actress had borrowed, a Honda Accord with a chunk of it’s bumper cover missing (perfect vehicle for a struggling and lost young woman) broke down. Unfortunately her real car was practically brand new and would have stood out as a continuity quandary seeing as she was supposed to be a struggling woman just barely getting by and, in the script directly, her car is supposed to have some mechanical problems. This created further delays as I finally cast the male lead in the film.
There we were, the month of November had already started (and the final project was due the first week of December) and I had just completed casting. But I only had my lead actor for about ten days during November between projects for him and the Honda was still broke down. Magically they got it running again and around November 10th we crammed four different shoots into five days, in which we shot the bulk of the film. I had the film equipment out much longer than was often allowed and I practically had to beg to keep it a few days longer. We started this long shift of shooting on a Friday. Needing to turn the equipment in by Tuesday afternoon, we shot over the weekend and literally the last shooting was done Tuesday morning, giving me just enough time to go home, dump the audio and video before turning the equipment. I had also contracted a bad cold and a temperature lingering around 100 degrees. But we still fought through, shooting on a very cold Sunday night and then, of course, Tuesday morning. The Tuesday shoot was the worst, being rushed and I was even sicker. I remember wearing three layers of clothing to keep warm and ultimately becoming so overheated that I nearly passed out.
There we were, the month of November had already started (and the final project was due the first week of December) and I had just completed casting. But I only had my lead actor for about ten days during November between projects for him and the Honda was still broke down. Magically they got it running again and around November 10th we crammed four different shoots into five days, in which we shot the bulk of the film. I had the film equipment out much longer than was often allowed and I practically had to beg to keep it a few days longer. We started this long shift of shooting on a Friday. Needing to turn the equipment in by Tuesday afternoon, we shot over the weekend and literally the last shooting was done Tuesday morning, giving me just enough time to go home, dump the audio and video before turning the equipment. I had also contracted a bad cold and a temperature lingering around 100 degrees. But we still fought through, shooting on a very cold Sunday night and then, of course, Tuesday morning. The Tuesday shoot was the worst, being rushed and I was even sicker. I remember wearing three layers of clothing to keep warm and ultimately becoming so overheated that I nearly passed out.
I had less than three weeks to edit once we finished shooting, which was cut down even more after I was bed-ridden for a few days after shooting was done. Over the course of about fifteen days I cut, re-cut, and re-cut the film several times over again making endless adjustments. And while most students in the program shot 15-30 minute long films, mine ended up running 42 minutes. I would later make a director’s cut version that ran more in the 37 minute range. As with Trapped I worked and I worked until the last second. It was two o’clock in the morning the night before the final was due when I finally finished the piece. When I turned it in I had burnt myself out so much on slamming the film together that when I wandered in with a daze I had no clue what I had made anymore. But still I turned it in and aced the course.
In the more than a year and a half since this project I have grown to appreciate The Way We Are more and more. The acting performances were strong and I felt it was a strong combination of staunch realism mixed with cinematic exploration. And once more, this was still a very early piece of work. I consider it my first real film. It was short but in running over forty minutes it was still a substantial piece of work. I have little to no regrets, setbacks or moments when I feel like, “Oh! If only I had changed that.” And once again I proved to myself I had the chops to make a quality piece of work. I showed I could do it more than once and that the first time wasn’t just a fling.
Can be found on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9I2Ezuga6c
I had less than three weeks to edit once we finished shooting, which was cut down even more after I was bed-ridden for a few days after shooting was done. Over the course of about fifteen days I cut, re-cut, and re-cut the film several times over again making endless adjustments. And while most students in the program shot 15-30 minute long films, mine ended up running 42 minutes. I would later make a director’s cut version that ran more in the 37 minute range. As with Trapped I worked and I worked until the last second. It was two o’clock in the morning the night before the final was due when I finally finished the piece. When I turned it in I had burnt myself out so much on slamming the film together that when I wandered in with a daze I had no clue what I had made anymore. But still I turned it in and aced the course.
In the more than a year and a half since this project I have grown to appreciate The Way We Are more and more. The acting performances were strong and I felt it was a strong combination of staunch realism mixed with cinematic exploration. And once more, this was still a very early piece of work. I consider it my first real film. It was short but in running over forty minutes it was still a substantial piece of work. I have little to no regrets, setbacks or moments when I feel like, “Oh! If only I had changed that.” And once again I proved to myself I had the chops to make a quality piece of work. I showed I could do it more than once and that the first time wasn’t just a fling.
Can be found on YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9I2Ezuga6c
No comments:
Post a Comment