There is a rush when you hear, “that’s a wrap!” That moment when the director yells “cut” on the final shot of a production. This feeling washes over you — it is relief and excitement. You made it. We made it. The team made it. We had some difficulties along the way (read our earlier posts). And we had some (many) triumphs. We pushed and pushed and made it across the finish line!
Then you take a day to decompress. You’ve earned it. Then you wake up — after all, that last night of shooting took place overnight , into the next day. And when you do wake up, refreshed, you glance up and notice that the finish line you thought you just crossed has somehow moved far into the distance. You didn’t cross THE finish line, you crossed A finish line — one of many.
So, now it’s on to the next move. The next step. The next journey to completion. Remember, we are doing this with a limited team and a limited budget. We can’t simply hand this off to someone else. We are actively involved in every step of the process. That’s the fun of it, actually.
With two hard drives of footage — one actually, that has been mirrored onto a second drive so that we are safe from losing all that we’ve captured — we are ready to start constructing this thing. Rob, our director will put together an assembly cut – a rough cut of the scenes so we can see how the story comes together. Are we able to tell the story effectively? Once we have this, we’ll bring our editor into the mix to make tough creative choices and bring a renewed perspective. He’ll work with Rob and with us to put the pieces together. Then we’ll bring in our composer to create the music that will add the appropriate layer of emotion to the film. Throw in some crucial sound design, color correction and audio mix and we end up with a film that is ready for people to see.
We are almost there, yet we are so far away. But we can see that finish line getting closer. But, what’s that in the distance? Oh….it’s another finish line. More on that in a little while. Stay tuned.
With principle photography, anyway. But more on that in a minute.
We gathered at 9 pm on Saturday night. The plan was to prepare for the loading in so that we could set up as quickly as possible within the bookstore and get our first shot off on time. We had a long night of shooting ahead. We needed to be out of the store, as if we were never there, by 9:30 am Sunday morning. We had a shot list that was aggressive, to say the least. But we knew we had to get everything for this location done that night. We couldn’t come back again. This had to be it. Our entire team had to be focused and on target with the plan. Ending with this location worked well. By this point, our team was familiar with Rob’s style of shooting, everyone knew how each other worked and our equipment was all in place (and we had our backup lenses). We were in a great position.
I think it’s important to say at this point that everything went according to plan. Really. There’s no “but…” here. It all worked. We got through 34 shots that night. That’s a ridiculous number to get in one night of shooting. And there were no mishaps or missteps. It worked because our team was committed to getting the job done, and getting it done right.
Most of the scenes “early” in the evening were with the characters of Henry and Albert. It helped that we were only working with two actors for much of our time at this location. Once 5 am hit, the other actors started to arrive. If we weren’t moving along on schedule (or pretty close), seeing everyone else come in might have initiated streams of sweat pouring down our faces. But, the timing was good and we were able to move rather quickly into their scenes.
There’s not much more to say about the night, really. As we approached 9 am, we were moving into our final shot. Simultaneously, members of the crew were breaking down the equipment we didn’t need so we could get out on time. Once the shot was done and we all took a moment to reflect on what we had just accomplished, the load out kicked into high gear. By the time we had removed everything and done a final sweep for odds and ends and water bottles, it was 9:31 am. Not bad, not bad at all.
But we weren’t done. Close, but not yet. We still had our car crash to shoot. It’s not what you think. If it was, we’d never have it in the budget to finish this thing. Green screen is the best option for us to make this work. We did a company move up the street, set up our green screen, put a car in front of it, set up the lights and camera, invited our actors to the set, and shot our scene. This went quickly and we were officially wrapped by noon. RIght on time.
So, we’re done. Well, not really. We’re done getting our footage, but now we need to move to the next stage – post. Mind you, we did take a couple of days to recharge. Now, we’re back at it. Time to continue (not start) thinking about music, color correction, and editing.
Stay tuned. We’ll be back. Soon.
Thanks to Patrick Van Beusekom for our behind the scenes photos from the night. Check them out here.
Okay, we’re obviously not really starting over. But it kind of feels like it.
When last we left our intrepid troupe, we had rounded out the second weekend of filming, which should have been the end of principal photography. Instead, due to an equipment failure during one of the days, we found ourselves needing to reconvene to make up the lost time.
Simple enough, right?
In a word – ha!
For starters, we needed to schedule the time to get back into the original location – which has proven to take some doing, since we are relying on the kindness of generosity of the store owners and, to everyone’s shock and astonishment, they have lives and priorities of their own!
In addition, much of the production administration infrastructure has expired. Insurance, permits, equipment rentals, all have to be restarted from scratch.
And of course we need to coordinate the schedules of our cast and crew.
So, in some respects, it really does feel like starting over.
But with a big difference. This time, we know exactly what we need in terms of insurance; we know how to add the additional riders to our original permits; we know what equipment we need and where to get it; we have a cast and crew that already know each other and know us and had really begun working well together when we hit our little hiatus.
And here’s the other thing that is a game changer: we have our footage so far. We’ve shot three-quarters of the film, we’ve seen the dailies; we’ve even done a rough assembly of one section to get a feel of how the final product will cut together. And you know what? It looks pretty damn awesome. That gives us a lot of momentum, and a lot more confidence, going into next weekend, which is when we are now scheduled to get our final day of shooting completed and move into the next phase of this little adventure.
In the meantime, I’ve been reading a very helpful book called How Not to Make A Short Film by Roberta Munroe (http://www.amazon.com/How-Not-Make-Short-Film/dp/1401309542) — a must read for anyone out there looking to make a short. Advice tip #1: read the book BEFORE you start shooting.
The first rule of fight club is…okay, the first rule of fight club is don’t talk about fight club. And the second rule is, too. But I’m pretty sure that, like, the sixth or seventh rule of fight club is, if you get knocked down, get back up.
Friday night, we got knocked down.
We wrote last time about a string of problems we had leading up to our second weekend of filming — losing our grocery store location, the scramble to find a new location, the scramble to get all the paperwork associated with the change, the brief elation that we’d averted disaster…and then the other shoe dropping. A whole “day” (okay, night) of shooting lost. On a four day shoot, that’s a big bite, and more than a little demoralizing.
But we licked our wounds and got back to work. Sunday morning was bitterly cold (by Southern California standards — cold enough that the truck’s windshield had to be scraped before setting out) but the sun was bright and, as it turned out, provided beautiful natural lighting. The same camera that drove us to tears two nights before was now capturing gorgeous footage.
Not happy footage, mind you. Sunday morning we filmed the “post-funeral” scene, mourners wandering around chatting awkwardly as the grieving parents stood in shock. (Have we mentioned this is not a happy story?) As scripted originally, the scene actually took place during the funeral itself, but we realized early in pre-production that shooting in a cemetery was not going to be feasible from a logistical (and financial) standpoint, so we were able to shift the scene’s location without materially affecting the intent and impact of the scene. To make matters even more fun, a couple of our crew make cameo appearances as mourners – again, logistically, it made more sense and was easier to have a couple of us throw on dark suits for a few shots to fill out the crowd than to try to find more extras to work for free at 8 a.m. in Long Beach, even if they hadn’t known beforehand that it would be 35 degrees outside.
And the scene was another good example of how translating the page length to the shooting schedule is an art, not a science. On the page, the scene was 6/8 of a page (for reasons too boring to go into here, scripts are broken into eighths of a page for scheduling purposes). However, given the coverage needed for this scene, it took us half a day to get what we needed. Which meant the other 3-plus pages to be filmed that day had to be crammed into the second half of the day.
Fortunately, the “company move” (change in location) was 5 blocks away, returning to the location of our first day of shooting. And in keeping with the morning, we got beautiful coverage of some very difficult and very moving scenes, including a knock-out scene between our grieving husband and wife (Jonathan Levit and Maria Falgione) that was so powerful that we may end up keeping it as a single take without any cuts – no reason to gild the lily. Everything that went wrong at the previous location went right this day, and we got every shot we needed, including a couple of pick up shots that we missed the first time through this location.
So where does that leave us? We were supposed to wrap Sunday night – day four of four scheduled days of filming. Best laid plans o’mice and men and all that. Instead, we need to schedule another weekend, which in some respects means starting from scratch, at least in terms of some of the logistics – re-securing locations, insurance, equipment rentals, etc. It makes it a lot easier than we have a truly awesome cast and crew who have all agreed to make themselves available to get the footage we need from our aborted night-shoot.
So the production phase forges on – more to come, more to share! You’re not rid of us yet, not by a long shot.
Aside from one pick-up day (involving a green screen), we were scheduled to be wrapped with our film this past Sunday.
Unfortunately, no matter how hard you work to stay on schedule, no matter how much planning you do to put all the pieces together, no matter how many i’s you dot and t’s you cross, sometimes Murphy makes an appearance. Or, as my father says, Sullivan shows up. Sullivan says that “Murphy is an optimist.”
We had some difficulty ramping up to the shoot, originally scheduled for Saturday. Our location fell through due to unfortunate circumstances that were out of our control. That’s okay. It’s production and, more importantly, it’s life. Move on. Find somewhere else. And when you do, there is a chance that it will actually be a blessing in disguise. In this case, that is precisely what it was. We found a new location that worked within the context of the story and the characters – a bookstore, independently owned, that I immediately felt a personal connection to. The owners and the spirit of the store are wonderful. I knew that I wanted to shoot there.
The only catch was that we would have to shoot overnight, after the store closed for the day. That meant a 10 pm start time, finishing at 8:30 am the next morning. It was Thursday and our permit had to be ammended to account for the new location – before we started rolling the cameras. It was a race, but we got there.
We’d have to be fast, efficient, focused and on target to get it done. And we were. Again, our team impresses me with their dedication and skill. Logistically, we were all set to film like a well oiled machine. When we arrived at the location that night, it was as if we were orchestrating the perfect bank heist. Equipment was unloaded and quickly moved into place. Care was taken with our location. Prosthetics were being applied upstairs, food was laid out, stands were standing – it was all moving smoothly. we were prepared.
Time to shoot.
The first shot was set. The camera was in place. The director yelled “action!” We ran the scene 3 times, and then “it” happened. Sullivan made an appearance. I didn’t see him walking into the store, but he was there – watching from the back of the room. And when he said “hello”, we knew it was over.
The one piece we had not accounted for, happened. Our lens froze. It stopped working. It was strange. Nothing that we had done caused this to happen. We are still not sure what happened to the lens, and won’t know until it is checked out this week. But one thing was for sure – we were dead in the water. Joe, our DIT, was quick on the draw, making phone calls and trying to find us a replacement lens. But it was the middle of the night. It just wasn’t happening. After much deliberation, we had to make the call. We were done. Let’s pack up, call the actors that were set to come in later that morning, and go home.
What could we have done? Could we have planned for this? Remember, we are a small production with a limited budget. It was already quite costly to shoot that night. I’d like to say that there was nothing we could have done. And I suppose that no matter how much planning occurs, something can always go wrong. So, what will we do differently the next time? And be assured, there will be a next time, because there has to be a next time. We still need to shoot those scenes. We still want to use that location. We will still need to shoot overnight. So, the next time, be assured, I will not go into a night shoot without a backup lens. Period. Let’s hope that will be enough to keep Sullivan off our backs.
We regrouped. We had to. We had to focus on our next shoot day, Sunday. We will write about that next. But know this – it was great. Great. And it all but erased the sick feeling we had from the previous night.
Yep, it all depends on what website or news source you listen to. So, as our first day of shooting was wrapping up, and we were thinking ahead to day two, we had to guess at what our day would look like. Part of the day called for all exterior shots, and the rain certainly wasn’t going to help us (at all). Do we postpone, and lose time and money (and possibly resources, our location, actors, etc, etc)? Or do we go for it?
But, I’m getting ahead of myself.
The good news is we have completed our first weekend of shooting! And I am proud to declare that we got the shots we wanted and I believe we can say it was a successful two days. The actors were prepared and threw themselves into their roles. The crew never stopped – they were moving constantly for the whole weekend. These are all pros and everyone worked to get the job done.
We had some difficult logistical constraints due to our locations. As a producer, the sincere hope is that you can leave a location in the same condition as when you arrived. It should be as if we were never there. In the case of our locations this weekend, we were shooting in three historical homes and in the offices of an eye surgeon. Care had to be taken. It’s not always easy when you have this many people moving around, in and out, lugging heavy equipment. I couldn’t be more proud of the way our crew handled the days. Everyone knew their role, performed it to the highest standards, and each person often had to wear additional hats to get us to the finish line. I’m glad to know that I will be working with this team throughout the rest of this production and I look forward to working with each of them on future projects as well.
Our director, Rob Garcia, was a champ. He clearly took the lead of his team and brought everyone together to work toward the common goal and his vision for the film. He had to deal with Cary and myself as we were often asking him to hurry things along so we could stay on schedule. All the while, we are asking him to make sure he gets the shots he wants and needs. That’s a fun juxtaposition to shoot for.
Were their pitfalls and obstacles? You betcha! We started our first day with some equipment issues. There is a degree to which this is to be expected. We are using the Epic Red camera as well as a jib and dolly to give us some nice camera movement. It seems the weight of the camera was causing us some difficulty with our dolly track. We were in need of a more secure system. This would involve some heavier track, which, of course, we didn’t have. We were able to get through the first two shots of the day, which gave Cary enough time to drive to one of our equipment suppliers (thanks to Jay, our star gaffer, for making this possible) and pick up the track and get it back to us in time for the rest of the day. There seemed to be a lot of that over the weekend – just in the nick of time.
And speaking of Jay, he and several others have our deepest gratitude for reaching out to their friends and colleagues to help us obtain the necessary bits and pieces that we needed and will need, and usually at the last minute. Each member of our team has made this production possible – that is abundantly clear.
Then, of course, there is Albert. Albert, played by the masterful Edward Edwards, is a zombie. He’s not the typical zombie that you may be used to. He’s an active member of society. He’s nothing to be afraid of. He can’t speak, and in those contacts, he can hardly see (sorry, Edward). But he still has to convey all of the emotion and feeling that he would if he were “alive”. He brought so much to this role, I can’t imagine anyone else playing Albert.
And we must not forget Steph Koza. While Edward was becoming Albert internally, Steph was responsible for transforming Edward into Albert on the outside. She’s simply amazing. She expertly drained the life out of Albert, and in so doing, she has brought life to the story.
The work behind the scenes, away from the shooting itself, is also crucial. Craft services and anything else that needs to get done. Dina Michelle seems to have been there every step of the way. She’s helped from day one, coming up with creative ideas for cast, locations, food, any pretty much anything else I and we haven’t thought of (that list is pretty long). She’s been another invaluable addition to the team. Prida jumped in to take over our craft services needs. Keeping the crew and cast happy and fed is perhaps one of the most important parts of the process. It’s true! It’s an overlooked task and it shouldn’t be.
Speaking of “Behind the Scenes”, you’ll be seeing a lot more of it, thanks to Patrick Van Beusekom. He’s shooting footage, both moving and still, to document the process of making our film. We’ll be posting videos and interviews as well as photos on this blog site, so keep checking back. He has a difficult task of being everywhere at the same time and, as always, he gets it done!
So, what about that chance of rain? We were set to shoot at our doctor’s office in the morning on Sunday and then move to Santa Monica to shoot our external scenes. But the forecast was telling us that it was set to rain later in the day. This meant we could flop our day and shoot outside first and then head indoors as the rain came. But, this is Southern California, and no forecast really means anything. It changes minute by minute and has often, fortunately for us, the forecast is completely wrong. We stressed. We changed our schedule. We crossed our fingers that everyone (cast, crew, locations) could make the change. Everyone was accommodating, Rob got his shots, and we finished 30 minutes ahead of schedule!
Oh, I can’t forget near the end of Saturday when the question was asked, “hey, what are you going to do with the generators and the equipment during the week?” Oh, right! Where are we going to put all this stuff? Cary was fast on his feet. He pretty much had a call into U-haul before the question lingered too long. That Sunday, he would drive from Santa Clarita to our set in Santa Monica, set up, then drive back to Santa Clarita, pick up the van, drive back to Santa Monica, right on time to load up and move to our new location. It’s almost like it was all planned.
All in all, it was a success. We are starting to look at the dailies and it looks like we are on our way to putting something together that we can all be proud of. Thanks to our stellar crew, cast, friends, colleagues, supporters…it’s thanks to all of them that this is happening.
Whoa. Things got quiet there. The calm before the storm?
Um…no. That was the storm. That was the maelstrom of last minute activity, tying up the loose ends, securing the final crew members. All the final details, and there are a million of them. (Okay, maybe not a million. Well into six figures though.)
The amazing thing (I’m learning) about an ultra-low budget movie, even a short, is that all of the myriad things that need to be done for a big film only scale down so far. There’s still equipment to rent, crew to secure, locations to lock in, insurance to buy. In a big movie, the first thing you do is hire department heads; folks whose job it is to take care of the details within their respective areas — the Production Designer handles wardrobe, art department, make up, etc.; the Production Manager handles all the paperwork and logistics, the Director of Photography would be in charge of the Camera Department, etc. In our case, the department heads ARE their departments. And in many cases, Jonathan and I are the department heads.
So we had to make sure we had everything in place, that our department heads had what they needed. Lots of hats being worn, lots of balls in the air, lots of chipping in, doing whatever needed to be done. And everything, everything, everything at the last minute. (The last text I had from Jonathan was 3 a.m. this morning.)
Good example:
If you shoot a film in the Los Angeles area, and you’re not shooting real run-n-gun/guerilla style, you’re going to have a footprint. And if you have a footprint, you need a film permit. And to get a permit you need to have production insurance (you need insurance to rent any equipment too). Our first day of shooting is in Long Beach. Insurance is in place, but Long Beach needs an additional endorsement. For three days, we wait for the endorsement to come through. It has to be in by 4 p.m. Friday (yesterday). At 2 p.m. I’m told that the underwriter is working on it. At 3:20 I’m told they have some questions, so we quickly call the Long Beach permit office (they are awesome and understanding and jovial and totally cool with the fact that I’m trying really hard not to panic). Questions are answered, we get the information back to the insurance company. And we’re waiting for the endorsement. And we’re waiting. And I’m trying really hard not to call them AGAIN FOR THE 15TH TIME THAT DAY…
We get the endorsement at 3:53 p.m. 7 minutes before the permit office closes. On the day before we start filming.
Now, mind you, much of this is self-inflicted. We’re handling all these details ourselves because, among other reasons, we want to be sure we have a firm understanding of them all. It’s all a good learning experience. Hard on the heart, but good for the brain.
And now here we are. The first day of filming. All the chaos and heartburn comes to fruition.
Here we go.
Postscript: As a good example of last minute chaos, I had to take a break from writing this entry to run downtown and pick up some last minute camera equipment that we needed.
We are proud to present our cast for “The Borderlands”! The process of casting is not an easy one. Not only do we have to find actors and actresses that possess the talent to play a specific role, but we also must achieve the proper synergy between the characters to create the best on-screen relationship. We are so thankful for all the actors and actresses that have agreed to bring their talents to this project! Here they are:
Today, we visited our locations with our director, Rob Garcia. For this film, we have five major locations. Finding the right spot for each scene of the movie can be a frustrating and nerve-racking part of the process. The goal is to find a place that makes sense visually, while offering the production the appropriate needs for shooting. For instance, we thought we found what would be the perfect neighborhood grocery. However, we quickly realized that the space within the store was too limiting to accomplish what we wanted with regard to the scope of the scene. As a result, we were forced to find someplace else. Then, of course, with a production such as ours, we need to keep our costs down. So, this piece of the puzzle isn’t easy.
Fortunately, we are surrounded by very good friends. Through their generosity, and a little bit of luck, we have secured all of our locations! And, that grocery store we loved so much – they are allowing us to shoot the exterior of the store. This combined with the interior of another store, which has agreed to let us shoot within, is giving us the perfect neighborhood grocery!
Rob has now seen all of these locations, taken photos for his reference, and he now has a clearer idea in mind of how he will shoot each scene. The pieces are coming together!
We had our first makeup test today. With the look of the zombies, especially our lead zombie, being so critical to setting the proper tone for the movie, we wanted to be sure we were all good with the final design as executed and that it was going to look good on camera.
Our special effects makeup artist extraordinaire Steph Koza (more to come on her) did close to a full application on our actor Edward Edwards, and Rob Garcia got some video footage as well as stills. Everything was just under natural light, but it did give us a good idea of how the makeup was going to play on camera, highlighted some areas that we will want to tweak a little further, and generally was completely cool in starting to bring this character to life (as it were).
We even got the full effect with the contacts in. Bravo to Edward for powering through the first time of getting lenses put in his eyes! Looked awesome, and once they were in he said they were pretty comfortable.
Absurdly exciting! This is what it’s all about – starting to see it all come together!
There is no substitute for having the right team of people work on a project. Understanding your own weaknesses, and strengths is vital to producing a project — any project.
One of our reasons for doing this short film is to help us gain experience in areas that we haven’t dealt directly with as much, with the intention of touching every element of production — casting, crew, equipment, locations, props, SAG paperwork, insurance, payroll, craft services, makeup — to name just a few pieces of the puzzle.
Of course, the scope of these elements may change based on the size and budget of the project, but for the most part, the same elements are required.
Fortunately, Cary and I are blessed with extremely talented and passionate friends and colleagues. We have humbly asked several of these people to lend their expertise to this film. We are so grateful and thankful to everyone for being willing to contribute.
Our first step was to decide who should helm the production. We needed a director that would handle this material well and would provide a clear and creative vision for the telling of the tale. Truth is, this wasn’t a difficult decision for us. We knew the moment we agreed to do this film that we were going to approach Rob Garcia to direct. Rob is an extremely talented artist, with an absolute zest for moviemaking and a love of genre material (science fiction, horror, fantasy). He throws himself into any project he takes on. He surrounds himself with other talented individuals. He brings brilliant ideas to the table, and he is someone we have wanted to work with for some time. We approached Rob and thankfully, he jumped on board immediately. You can find out more about Rob at his website: http://robgarciafilm.com
With our director in place, it was time to find a cast.
“I caught the zombie weeping in the middle aisle, between breakfast cereals and cookies, staring at an empty patch of moonlit wall near the ceiling.”
That was the first sentence that came to me. Maybe not as timeless as “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” But that sentence and image came to me and then I had to do something with it. Why would a zombie weep? And what was he doing in the middle of a grocery store at night?
The Borderlands is a zombie story, but not a horror story, at least not in the purest sense. It’s about a father’s grief at the loss of his child, and about the toll of that grief in a world where the dead do come back sometimes and are functioning, if not wholly accepted, members of the social order (no brain eaters here). Would you want your loved one to come back, even if they no longer had the ability to know you or feel emotion? And what sort of halfway state, beween life and the afterlife, do zombies exist in? What is the toll on them? Why is the zombie weeping?
So I did figure out what to do with that sentence, and the story was published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (the first story I ever sold, as a matter of fact), and for those who care about such things was well received and picked up a few votes for inclusion on the Nebula Award ballot from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, but didn’t make the ballot. Didn’t come close to making the ballot, but the fact that it got some nominations for inclusion, and some of them from people that weren’t friends, meant a big deal.
When Talking Horse Productions decided we wanted to go ahead and film a short, we discussed whether to create something wholly new, or adapt a short story, and if the latter did we want to option something we were fond of? It was Jonathan’s suggestion to plunder my own backlist, which honestly had not occurred to me (strange; any armchair analysts in the crowd?). We settled on several candidates, and discussed cost and logistics and feasibility of each before settling on The Borderlands.
It’s actually a small, very quiet story, in a contemporary setting with a small cast of characters, which meant that it was something we thought we had a chance of pulling off. And, based on reactions to the story and the script, it packs an emotional punch, with opportunity for good visual storytelling and nice character moments for actors to sink their teeth into. All those things are important – we’re making a movie, not printing a story. They are very different media with very different needs, and I’ve done a couple of adaptations and have gone through the challenge of trying to translate one medium to the other. For example:
The Borderlands as a story is told in first person with lots of narration and filling in of background. Obviously, that doesn’t fly in a script, so out it went. A scene that might have been two pages long in the story becomes a single shot in the script – the whole essence of a long interior monologue boiled down to one visual: a headstone. A picture is worth a thousand words (or roughly 500 in that case).
It was interesting to adapt my own work, as opposed to adaptations of other people’s work as I’ve done in the past. It actually went quite quickly, with new scenes and different, more filmic versions of key sequences presenting themselves fairly easily. Now I’m eager to see the next ‘translation,’ from the scripted page to screen. More on that to come!
That’s the great frustration of the film business, all the gatekeepers. All the people who have to say “yes” for a project to go forward. All the waiting for someone else to give you permission to create something. Projects gestate for a long time, they come together, they fall apart at the last minute, they come back together. It all takes time. And it’s not even just hearing “no” (we’ve got some “yes’s” and “close to yes’s” in the pipeline and hope to be able to share those projects soon too). But it’s the getting to “yes” that can be brutal.
So we decided we were just going to go out and make something.
That something is a short film, titled “The Borderlands.”
We’re already heavily into pre-production, with an accelerated schedule under which we want to shoot in early January. Yeah, like 4 weeks away. Because we’re idiots.
We’ve been wildly fortunate in that we’ve already been able to attach some tremendously talented individuals, in front of and behind the camera, and we’re hoping to wrap up all of the cast and crew positions in the coming week.
Locations, too – again, we have benefited enormously from “the kindness of strangers” (or at least friends, and friends of friends), and that “we’d like to thank” list at the end of the credits is going to be long and heartfelt. We still have at least one major location to nail down (a small mom-and-pop grocery store, which we need for a whole day), and one of the joys of this level of filmmaking is you don’t have a lot of money to pay for locations (we’re self financing this baby).
But so far, so good. We’re mostly on track, only vaguely frantic, and having a hell of a lot of fun. Which is also part of the point of the project.
And what is The Borderlands about? Oh, look. I’m out of room. Better come back for the next entry.
With principle photography, anyway. But more on that in a minute.
The first rule of fight club is…okay, the first rule of fight club is don’t talk about fight club. And the second rule is, too. But I’m pretty sure that, like, the sixth or seventh rule of fight club is, if you get knocked down, get back up.
