The five stages of no budget Filmmaking

I’ve been mulling over this thought during the day job for several months now and while it hasn’t been perfected I thought I would post it just the same.  It’s roughly modeled after the 5 stages of grief, but hopefully, a bit more humorous.

• Denial~ Otherwise known as the honeymoon phase of filmmaking.  This brief period of time occurs when you first decide to make a film. You run out, buy a bunch of equipment and video tape your cat, ferret, idiot sibling trying to open a childproof bottle of aspirin.  As you preview that ‘hilarious’ you tube buzz worthy footage you declare yourself a budding filmmaker.

“Look out Lucas, Ford and Coppola! All your Oscars belong to us!”

• Anger~ You have a few short films under your belt, but not setting the world on fire.  Any constructive criticism is instantly considered an attack on your artistic vision.  People obviously aren’t cerebral enough to ‘get’ the material and your talent is being wasted on knuckle dragging neanderthals who’d be more content watching season 16 of Jersey Shore: Seaside Heights Retirement Village where Nonni Snookie get’s the beat down from Pauly D’s walker. 

Something is telling me I probably shouldn’t have been able to pull their names out of thin air like that.

• Bargaining~ A few more films have been created and you are slowly getting ‘it’.  Not all of the films are going to be epic.  In fact a few of them you’d soon rather forget.  Lessons have been learned, however painful they might have been.  You are now on a barter system with people.  Actors actually get decent food on set.  In exchange for a location the business gets a plug in the credits.  Life it good.

To local business owner: How important is that wall over there?  Do you REALLY need it?

• Depression~ This happens when you wake up one morning and total up your expenses towards this ‘hobby’.  You instantly slip into a near catatonic state when you start delving deeper into filmmaking; legally and technically.  You are far beyond compositions and the happy little white balance button on your camera.  You are now juggling scheduling, re-writes, casting, location scouting, catering, crew, equipment, etc...etc...  You are overwhelmed, over budget and can’t remember the last time you slept more than four hours or ate something that wasn’t in a wrapper.  Overall you haven’t even scratched the surface on all that is filmmaking.

“OMG! WTF!”

• Acceptance~  Despite the odds being stacked against you you’ve come to realize you wouldn’t want it any other way.  You’re finally able to tell the difference between constructive criticism and ‘haters’.  Overall you embrace each project regardless of the outcome, but hope you are in that 1% that make a difference.

“I shot a film over the weekend.  What did you do?”

Videos are online!

I know, I know, they aren't posted here in my blog.  Only because they are quite content on the new site and I didn't want them getting lost as I continued to blog here.

Click your heels three times as you click on this link once.

A not so funny thing happened on the way to the Left Forum

In the famous words of Captain Kirk all I can say is:

Needless to say things didn't go as expected.  Next time I'm hiring Hannibal Smith to make sure everything goes according to plan.

New York, New York

T-minus 6 days until the left forum screening in NYC at Pace University.  Am I ready for it? No.  I spent the better part of the weekend reviewing the footage I had shot in LA and DC trying to make some sense of it all.  As it stands I believe that DLS will be talking a bit during the forum and then we will roll a clip of an interview that pertains to what she is saying.

Rinse, repeat for approximately 15-20 minutes.

It isn’t exactly the solution I had in mind but given the deadline drawing in close it’s either that or I reenact with shadow puppets.

I think once I get through the forum I will be able to take a bit of a breather and possibly go be somewhat sociable in Philly at the next MPEG gathering.  I’ll gather a bit of intel on what’s going on and possibly nail down some actors to help craft Junct.  I could message some of these potential actors via FB but I think it would behoove me to actually talk to these people in a social setting.  Last thing I need is to get trapped with some stick in the mud for a weekend shoot.  The cool thing about the next networking meeting is it will be held at Asylum Arena.  Which means I finally can put to good use the Mexican wrestling mask I have.

Just got off the phone with DLS and I should be getting her video clip wishlist before midnight.  I plan on pulling all the clips and hopefully before week’s end we will have whittled them down to a couple for audio and color correcting.  I was informed the equipment has been secured for the panel so that should lighten the load a bit for NYC.  I should find out in a couple of days if I need to bring my film equipment up as well.  Hopefully not.  Only because I want to get my fill of rice pudding afterwards.

Fear and Loathing

I had entertained the thought of doing a video post but decided everyone was better off if I didn’t.  I’m currently sitting here at my editing desk in my flannel cocktail PJs which is basically one step up from a snuggie while drinking hot chocolate.  No one needs to see that, especially since I can’t seem to get yesterday’s eyeliner and mascara off of my face.

In my last entry I was feeling pretty optimistic about the documentary. Now, not so much.  The more I’ve thought on it the more I know it is seriously lacking in *something*.  I spent the weekend talking to friends and taking in some of their suggestions as far as documentaries as concerned.  I watched three of them this afternoon back to back and slowly but surely things are beginning to sink in.

I truly believe that Junct can be this wonderfully eye-opening piece if executed properly.  It’s all a matter of finding that one character that the audience can relate to. Right now it just feels so ‘Wah me!’ right now.  The audience is NOT going to care about some teachers getting the shaft because honestly in this economy everyone that can be classified as middle America is taking it in the ass.  Just last night a good friend was closing the doors to her coffee shop after 14 years of business.

My biggest fear right now...Hell I can’t even narrow it down to one.  At this stage it feels like just about anything and everything can go wrong.  I think what bothers me the most is that each tape has interesting stuff on it but I can’t see the big picture.  I don’t know what Junct is going to be just yet.  Is it a union movement film?  A film focused on the complete failure that is higher education? Is it something that has yet to reveal itself?

I’m slowly buying a clue about the legalities in regards to filming a documentary and it doesn’t seem to be as strict as filming a narrative.  I just am afraid that I’m not going to be able to walk that fine line.  I’m either going to push the boundaries to the point where later on down the road I get bit in the ass over a legal technicality or I’m not going to push hard enough and not capture footage integral for telling the story because I’m afraid of getting sued.

In the meantime I’m in a holding pattern waiting for the next round of interviews.

No were not filming porn.

I think I’ve pretty much recovered from the DC, NYC, Quebec City trifecta this past week.  The worst of my traveling is over until May when I head off to Italy for 11 days.  In the meantime I will just be commuting up to NYC on Wednesdays to attend class and to be on the ‘Working in (commercialized) Higher Education’ panel at the Left Forum in late March.  As of the moment of this writing I don’t have any other scheduled trips for Junct.

A fair amount has transpired since my last entry and I will do my best to cover the shoot in DC as well as some of the behind the scenes stuff that occurred on my end.

The shoot in DC was fairly cut and dry.  I arrived the night before after driving to Greenbelt station and from there taking the metro in to Woodley Park.  I freely admit that I’m a cheap bitch and when I saw the hotel was charging 40 dollars per day to park I threw up a little in my mouth. I was not about to blow what could potentially be as much as 120 bucks for my truck to collect dust for three days.  What I didn’t know beforehand was that Greenbelt station not only charges for parking but they do not take cash or credit cards.  I was forced into purchasing a permanent metro card (that had a nice little 5 dollar convenience fee attached to it) and then had to deal with mass confusion when I tried to figure out at their kiosk how to add money to the card so I could get my truck out of hock that Sunday.  I’m now the proud owner of a DC Metrocard with 25 bucks on it.

Did I mention that math is not a strong suit of mine?

In preparation for riding the metro I streamlined my equipment down to the bare minimum; camera, junk tripod, china ball, soft box w/ stand, a handful of C-47s and masking tape.  I still looked like a sherpa when I got off the metro and shuffled up the hill to the hotel.  From now on if I have to shlep film crap I’m either getting an intern to do it or ordering a shit load of china balls from Burbank.

Once within the confines of the hotel room I began to set up the scene so I wouldn’t have to do it in the morning.  As I unpacked I realized I had forgotten to grab lightbulbs before I left the house and I was far too lazy at that point to run out to the CVS around the corner.  So I ‘borrowed’ the bulbs from the hotel lamps.  Within a a few minutes the scene was set after pinning up and taping down curtains.

The interviews went smooth with the exception of one hiccup involving security.  It was a complete misunderstanding and had nothing to do with the shoot but I think I still shit a brick when I saw the guy looming in the doorway.  He was an easy 350 pounds and not only did the man block out the sun, I was afraid I’d get sucked into his gravitational pull if I got too close.  When the man saw all the equipment set up I thought for sure we were going to get thrown out of there.

“Honest...this isn’t what it looks like...”

Luckily, that wasn’t the case and by the end of the day we had doubled the amount of footage for the Doc.  I packed up and grabbed a drink with DLS to celebrate pulling off 4  solid interviews in one day.

Since then I’ve imported all the footage we captured over that weekend, had the cover story on Philadelphia Weekly's website about a week back and as of tonight got our IMDb listing.  I’m currently in the middle of applying for my LLC, attending class at NYU and within the next two weeks will be cutting excerpts to be screened at the Left Forum.

In the meantime feel free to follow me on Twitter as I rant and rave about everything from Junct to food.

2255 FILMS goes to Washington

I got confirmation I will be shooting in DC next Saturday.  Not sure the number of interviews that are lined up for that day, but it doesn’t much matter.  I’m just happy my new light came in today.  Had I known it would be so compact and easy to assemble I probably would have bought in bulk.  Something I will no doubt keep in mind before this years P21 event in August.

Believe it or not I’m actually packing even lighter than the trip out to LA.  After doing a little research on the parking situation in DC I’ve decided to take the metro in on Friday night.  Parking for one twenty four hour period at the hotel is actually more expensive than parking at one of the metro lots for the entire weekend.  Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize the metro is the way to go.  I hate to lug film gear on the subway but it’s not like I haven’t done it before.  Nothing says miserable more than lugging light kits and a bulky 16mm camera on the 6 during rush hour.  My gear/clothes will be confined to a messenger bag weighing no more than 30 pounds.

This is already feeling like routine to me.  I’m not nervous about the shoot and currently the only concern I have at the moment is to get over this funk I’ve had for a little over a week.  I really don’t want to be sick during the shoot and I certainly don’t want to infect anyone with this plague.

The New York gig is on for March and DLS asked if I had a bio written up.  Just the thought of one makes my head hurt.  To actually whip something up would probably give me an instant migraine.  I have no idea what to write when it comes to things like that. In the grand scheme of things I’m pretty boring.  I don’t go out all hours of the night to party.  Which to me seems to equate to being a really lame read.  The bio isn’t even written and I can already hear the crickets chirping in the background.

The weird go pro.

LA was pretty surreal this past weekend. I still can’t believe I was out there filming for the documentary.  It was actually odd as I sat in LAX with DLS waiting on the flight home.  Both of us were completely exhausted as we sputtered out at random intervals:

Holy shit, we’re doing this.

I realize technically it began several weeks back with the shoot in Philadelphia but this weekend was the no turning back point.  This was the defining moment that would give us the boost to carry on with the project.  We didn’t achieve our over all objective of five interviews and one panel discussion, but we got damn close in the time we were allotted.  Overall I deem this borderline impromptu road trip a great success.

Friday

When I first arrived at the airport and met up with DLS I was a bit dismayed by the fact that our one interviewee was adamant about filming at the hotel.  This was a bit off putting since I had actually dumped the extra gear to the wayside at 2am the previous night because I was under the impression everything was to be conducted at the law school on Saturday.  Had this happened to me five years ago I probably would have had a complete meltdown before checking in my bag.  I was good.  No screaming or cussing.  I knew this was something I couldn’t resolve until I got to the hotel so that I could take inventory of what I had access to.  

Once we got to the room I scoped things out.  It wasn’t the best scenario, but I could work with it.  We dumped the gear and ran off to the grocery store to stock up on caffeine.  I knew there was no other way I was going to survive the weekend without it.  I was also happy to learn that not only is DLS not a morning person but she’s violent before that first sip of highly caffeinated tea. That’s where we hit a snag.  We found tea bags at the grocery store but our hotel room didn’t have any way to heat up water.  That’s when my inner trailer trash kicked in and I started to search the grocery store for a sterno can, cake rack and four cans of soup.  While the idea was brilliant, at least in my opinion it was, it was simply not meant to be.  DLS had to settle for a rockstar to jumpstart her in the morning and I was left wondering why I hadn’t thought of looking up a camping store in advance of the trip.

Saturday

Five minutes before the first interviewee arrived I was still in my flannel cocktail PJs in a blanket cocoon.  Thirty seconds prior to arrival I was caffeinated, dressed and setting up the shoot.  Interview went well and it actually went over the thirty minute allotment we had set aside.  As far as the documentary stand point this was great, scheduling for the rest of the day however took a hit as we found ourselves running to the diner up the street to eat breakfast in under fifteen minutes so that we could be at the law school on time.

We were late.  By about ten minutes.  The first panel was well on it’s way as we slipped into the back of the lecture hall.  It was an interesting observation for me considering I don’t have any sort of teaching background.  As DLS pointed various people out to me I couldn’t help but giggle a bit to myself.  There were several well known people in the literary world in attendance that afternoon, but it was completely lost to me.  What I found humorous was the grad students that flocked around these individuals.  You could see these twenty somethings with their mouths gaped and hanging on every last word of these professions.  They were essentially the rock stars of literature and they KNEW it.

I filmed the one panel we were slated for but then things got sort of grim.  We were informed that the law school would only have us until 5 that afternoon and the separate interviews might not happen due to time constraints.  Out of the four interviews we had slated we nailed down two when we combined the interview shortly after five PM.  I kep waiting for the security guard the throw us off campus, but he actually was very cool about us being there.  We didn’t leave the lecture hall until 6:30 that night.

The handful of people that were still left on campus invited us out afterwards.  The irony in the invite was that none of them were LA natives so none knew where to go.  Luckily an executive decision was made to return to our hotel lobby for cheap burgers and drinks.  We BSed with them (the literary rockstars) until about ten and turned in shortly thereafter.

Sunday

Got up, got dressed and flew home.

It’s probably going to take me the rest of the week to recover.

California dreaming no more...

Flight and Hotel are booked.  I will be heading out to LA on Friday afternoon, shooting on Saturday and returning home on Sunday.  Everything is packed with the exception of my clothes.

Clothes?  We don't need no stinking clothes!

Much ado about something

I was recently sucked into the holiday vortex and despite my best efforts I got absolutely nothing accomplished on the film front over the past week.  A part of me earlier today at work seriously considered breaking out the white board to list all the things I needed to do in the immediate future.  Depending on what I get accomplished tonight probably will determine if I follow through on that idea.  Personally I see no other alternative and nothing will grab my attention quicker than ‘Get off your ass and do something!’ scrawled in red marker.  Hopefully I can make headway on a number of projects the next three days.

Topping out the list of things to do is ‘Junct.  I’m currently importing the footage on my laptop from last weeks shoot in Philadelphia at the Moonstone Arts Center.  I plan to break it down into a few QTs for DLS to preview.  The footage is still worthless and will continue to be so until we get the proper release forms from the owner of Robin’s Books and the author A.K. who was doing the reading and Q&A.  I would plug the author's book, but I will hold off until I get that signed release form in my hands.

It’s safe to assume with only a week out that LA is a bust.  We had hoped to travel out there to film/interview people from the new faculty majority coalition during their counter conference.  I think it could have been a great opportunity for gathering footage for the documentary but without guaranteed release forms the point is moot and certainly not cost effective.  The sad thing is I downloaded an app for my iPhone to seek out roach coaches.  I had been looking forward to a lobster sandwich from the Lobstatruck and a hot dog from Pinks.

I just finished installing the newest version of iLife on the mac thinking I’d be making my life easier when it came to revamping my website.  I like the templates that come with iWeb, the problem is I’m not sure how to import the files into my web service.  So it appears that I will be booting up the PC and designing it with dreamweaver.  Boo-Hiss!  Someone find me an intern to do this stuff for me!

On the scumberland productions front I’m hoping to sit down as early as tomorrow to recut ‘Hollow’ so I can submit it to withoutabox.  I had put in for an IMDB credit nearly three months ago and haven’t heard a thing since.  What sucks is I spent several hours one night after work filling out all the information on the film figuring since it was part of the P21 lineup it would automatically qualify like ‘Eight Minutes’ had the previous year.

48HFP has a new competition starting up next month.  I put the word out to the cast and crew to see who would be interested/available the 18th-20th of February. The difference with this specific competition is it’s green themed and team captain picks the genre.  I have a few styles/formats rolling around in my head that I’m tempted to try.  I love filming but I’m half tempted to shoot stills with my canon and string them together like a comic book or La Jetee’.  If executed correctly it could be quite beautiful.

Tonight while the documentary footage compresses I’ll be working on ‘Gray’s Ferry’ I think.  I have fleshed out the outline for the entire 6 episode span so it shouldn’t be too difficult to knock at least one episode out tonight.  I really need to get on it since I got a message from F.T. the other night wanting an update.

Lastly, I offered to help a friend with one of her babies; Children of Lazarus.  I’m not sure if I will be helping in development, production or both, but I’m pretty excited about it.  K. of KYB Studios is a really creative and intelligent artist and I’m looking forward to working with her, regardless of the capacity.

Time for less blogging and more creating.  See everyone in 2011!