In the thick of it

Where does the time go? Whizzing by my head, for the most part. But, lots of progress. It is all coming together.

My Director of Photography, Michelle Farrell, is signed on and already has most of her crew assembled. She is amazing, I am SO happy to be working with her. On the technical side, renting her equipment gives me access to almost every piece of gear you can think of, dollies, steadicam, you name it...and we are going to be shooting in high definition on an HVX, which I am very excited about. I recently went to a production meeting with my script consultant, Sean, to see the latest on his own production he is working on. Some of their footage was in HD on the HVX, some was not, shot on a DVX. What a difference! I was sold.

Michelle knows her stuff, is so easy to work with, and keeps me laughing. I can't wait to actually get on set. Our shooting schedule is locked down, July 31 through August 12.

This week I'm taking another pass at the script. I HAVE to knock it down to 90 pages. Doing the casting calls helped me to recognize the fat I can trim. Trying to get the gist of a scene into a one-page side will do that. This week I sent out longer sides to the actors that are coming in for callbacks on June 8. I hadn't looked at the script for awhile, and I was afraid that if I trimmed the fat, I would be cutting out all the funny parts. But it actually makes it funnier, and a lot tighter.

I am looking forward to the callback on June 8. I have some very talented actors coming in, and I will have some tough decisions to make. Proper casting is crucial to the film. There are no car chases, gunfights, or sex scenes to distract the viewer from mediocre acting. This is a character and dialogue driven film, the actors, and the script, have to carry it.

I'm having lunch Thursday with my other investor. He sent me a tantalizing email a few days ago to entice me to meet him in D.C. - a photo of the check he has for me, for $20K.

Along with Mikey's $10K already in the bank, there is my production budget. Pre- and post- are out of my pocket (and plastic), and will probably total about $20K when all is said and done.

Depending who is reading this, you probably either think that $50K is a boatload of money, OR you're laughing right now. It goes fast, that's for sure. But I have enough to do what I want to do, the way I want to do it. I have some fantastic people around me like Michelle, Sean, and others who are going above and beyond to help me make a quality product. And I keep meeting more of them.

Another filmmaker friend, though I've only known him since January, Is Eric Thornett, of Piranha Pictures. Currently he is filming his latest, a period horror film, at the mansion that I manage. I have seen a good deal of the footage, and it looks AMAZING. This is Eric's fourth feature-length, and I am happy to have him and his crew around, even if it means that when I open my apartment door there may or may not be a headless corpse in a tuxedo sitting by the elevator. I absorb a lot from watching him work and just BS-ing with him and his production team. They are a very fun bunch, and they work very hard. It brings it home to me how important it is to choose the right people to become a true team.

Well, have to get ready to meet an actor that I found outside of the casting call, someone I saw in one of the films Michelle has shot in the past. I average two meetings a day for the rest of the week, plus rewriting the script, and attending the Stonehenge auditions on Sunday. Monday I am off to London for 10 days, to chaperone the theater students from the Baltimore School for the Arts exchqnge program with my friend Matthew's school in the UK, Songtime Theatre Arts. So you won't be hearing from me for a couple weeks, but stay tuned!

Juggling Act

I can't believe it's been 3 weeks+ since I've written. Time is just flying, but that is because I've been super-busy shoring things up. Had the first round of casting calls Monday and Tuesday, they went very well. Found a lot of good people that I will be calling back for round two, but I need to watch the video-taped auditions over again before making any decisions. The camera sees things the eyes don't.

Also close to hammering out a deal with the person I want as my Director of Photography. That is a major key to the whole she-bang and I will feel more grounded when that and our filming schedule is set in stone, or at least wet cement.

Received and deposited my first investor's check a few days ago. I've never held a check that big in my hands before - $10,000. That's a lot of zeros. And a lot of responsibility. But I'm up for it.

People continue to surprise me by offering their services and resources. A neighbor of mine who does hair (though he is devoid of any himself :)) is interested in working on the set, and another neighbor has a collection of classic cars that I am definitely going to take advantage of, including a 1969 Lincoln-Continental Lehman-Petersen Limousine with suicide doors that will be PERFECT in one of the scenes. Just thinking of the production value that these cars will lend the film has me drooling.

Unfortunately, I have to go to Pennsylvania this weekend for a friend's funeral. But after dealing with that I am going to drive to the Poconos and stay a night at my friend Mikey's cabin to clear my head and do some more work on the script. I was up there last week and got boatloads of work done, and took a first pass at breaking the script down into shooting days. Now that in my head, pages = $$$, I am finding it a lot easier to slash and burn unnecessary dialogue that I once was in love with. I need to lop another 10 to 15 pages outta there.

Also have to figure out when and where the callbacks for casting will take place. It is a lot of balls to keep in the air. But I'm really loving it.