The rush to the finish line

First post back since shooting my film The last two weeks have been intense. Where to start?

I was very fortunate to be able to finalise my cast a few days before shooting. Their enthusiasm was a big boost to me as it had been a while since I'd had some positive news. Ultimately, the thing I really want from my cast is positivity and cooperation - people who want the film to succeed as much as I do.

I'm not going to lie - I did find Sparks difficult to film. It took a while to implement some of the feedback i'd been given about simplifying the script. I'm glad I did as it was difficult enough just shooting in two locations and with four main cast members. But even during shooting I was still ammending the script as I wasn't entirely happy with some aspects of it. That obviously made it harder as it meant, in some cases, having to scramble to find extra cast members and props at short notice, which was stressful. One thing I regret, to a certain extent, was not having a seperate art director and/or producer. On set, I ended up spending a decent chunk of time on the phone arranging things (e.g. phoning the police communications dept to let them know we were filming with police lights). Although, I think that  would have bee less of a problem if I had shot the previous week as planned. Having to push my shoot dates meant sharing gear with Lana's shoot which meant it was a bit more work to sort out the gear. Having a few extra people around would have made it easier for me to focus on my job of directing the actors. To be fair though, I had originally lined up some of the first year students to help with some of this but they were signed up to be on Lana's shoot so I lost a few crew members there, and the remaining third year students were too busy to help. But the crew I did have did a fantastic job.

Another big challenge was that all of my film takes place at night and because daylight saving just started it doesn't get dark now until 9pm. We managed to get the interior scenes without too much trouble (by blacking out windows), but the exterior stuff was much more tricky. Stormy weather on the first two nights meant we had to finish shooting early and pushed a few scenes to the following day. Then there was a bit of protest from key persons about shooting past 10.30pm which meant I couldn't get everything I needed shot, and the stuff I did get was more rushed than I would have liked. On one hand, it was frustrating, but on the other I understand that people have work and other commitments and they are doing me a favour by helping me, so my options are limited. 

The next day we were scheduled to shoot all of the streetside scenes and car rig stuff but one of my cast was sick so we had to settle with just doing the car rigs. However, just as we were about ready to shoot, I discovered that I had misplaced the police lights I'd rigged up with the help of my flatmate! We hunted around for a while before conceeding that we were going to have to go without. Luckily, Ben (lead actor) saved the day by coming up with a great idea to use a cellphone app that simulates police lights - this actually ended up working reletively well.

I've started work on my edit but I'm not far enough into it to be able to comment too much at this stage. I still have one scene left to film tonight which means I won't get picture lock until Tuesday morning at the earliest, which leaves me one day to do all of my sound and grading. Gonna need a hellavalot of caffiene.

I would post some pics of my shoot, except my laptop screen died last night. It has been on the blink (literally) for some time, just hoped it would have survived another week or so. I'm typing this on my tablet and I don't know how to upload photos from here so I'll do that from tech when I get a free moment (hah! Free time? Yeahright!).

But all in all, got the main stuff in the can. I'm just hoping it will all cut alright considering I had to rush a lot of it. Regardless of the results, I'm very proud of my team and all of this year's filmies for pulling together to help each other out.

PICS UPDATE:

The sound team (Kyle and Kate) prepped for action.

Blocking out a scene in the hallway.

A bit of a peeping Ash shot as we review a take.

Dan - Guardian of the Light. 

Setting up for a dolly shot. It was originally going to be a jib shot but I felt the dolly
worked just as well and was much quicker to set up.

Ash's impressive car rig. I would have been much more
nervous about this kind of set up without Ash's expertise.

And here's the product of the car rig. 

Where do I even begin? Or end? Or do that bit in the middle?

About 5 more days before I start filming my short - before I have to start filming. Hitting all sort of roadblocks, so I can't guarantee a abundance of quality. I've been getting feedback on my last version of the script and most of it has confirmed issues that I had with it myself. The really serious problem I have is attracting cast to play the roles. I have one, maybe two days (max) to find some solutions. I need to simplify my script right down, somehow. I admire people who manage to write efficiently. To be able to balance character motivation and conflict, concisely, and then have it pay off in a meaningful ending takes real talent. It's something I haven't been able to grasp despite devoting a wealth of concentrated time trying to learn more about writing effectively, analyzing professional scripts (the one's I've been reading lately are Aliens, The Social Network and Collateral) and analyzing my own script. What's really frustrating is that there a few things I think work quite well, but I can't the pieces to fit together. So just remove some pieces? Sure, but then no one knows what character A's goal is any more, or why character B reacts the way they do at the end. Yeah, but then you can just fix that with *major deus ex machina*.

Script, casting and scheduling issues are also distracting me from being able to sort out my art department and are robbing me of pre-pro time with my DOP. Trying to speak to then police about using uniforms but I haven't been able to reach the person in charge of this.

Was hoping to use uniforms similar to this but I think I may just go without the vest and the hat - haven't been able to find anything that doesn't look blatantly costume shop.

There's a scene where I need to use fake blood on the ground so I've been researching fake blood recipes that don't stain the floor.

People on the site were saying how great it looked. Why does mine look like raspberry syrup!!

I got Johanna to attempt a batch so I can test it, but this recipe has turned out looking more like smooth raspberry syrup than blood. I doubt I'll have time/money to solve this problem before the shoot.

I've also been boom operating for Dan Delaet's film Rash. That's been good. Fun group of people working on a fun script. Footage is looking good.

Booming on Rash

More booming on Rash, at the boxing ring

Detours

I feel like I'm on the edge of a cliff with an untested hang glider, and with one step I could be soaring high - or I could fall to my death on the jagged rocks below.

I had to make a big call today - a vital cog in the system failed and left me with little choice but to postpone my shoot to a later date. Strictly speaking, it wouldn't have impossible to shoot, but it threatened to make the rest of the shoot a thousand times harder because of the ripple through the schedule. More importantly, the sacrifice in quality was something I couldn't bring myself to accept. Ultimately, it was too big a risk and the last thing I want is to be boxed in to bad decisions, and have a potentially good film fall flat on it's face.

But that's life in film, and life in general. Now, having literally bought myself some more time (having hired my DOP for an extra week) I have to make the most of it. I certainly won't turn down a little more time in pre-production. It will probably mean a few days less in post, but if it means I'll capture better raw footage, that's a long term trade-off I'm willing to accept.

I have been on a few other different shoots over the break. I was doing sound for Aman's film, Delicious cakes. Few tricky things going on with the mixer meaning I could only record through one mic - that was frustrating but hopefully it's all good. Also did a day of boom op on Sarah's shoot, but luckily Kyle is back from Byron Bay and took over as mixer to give me a bit more time to prep for my film.

Here are a few sneaky snaps I took on Delicious Cakes

Ol' Steve CakeBeard

Josh getting to grips with C-stands

A bit of blocking action with the director and actors. Vince is proud of has job with the C-stand.

Aman blocking with Nicola and Taylor

Aman and Taylor. 

Nicola reading through the script for the next scene