12 Films In 12 Months

For the month of August, I made a western.  It was incredibly fun and the shoot went really well, but doing a film set in a specific time and place definitely added some new challenges that I hadn’t had to deal with while producing the other films.  There’s a very specific aesthetic that westerns have and I wanted to try and match that in the film.  I had to find things like location, costumes, and props that worked for the story as well as for the time period that the story takes place in.

A couple days before the shoot, my wife and I went driving out east of San Diego to try and find a good location far from telephone wires, houses, cars, noise, and any signs of modernity.  Eventually, we found a spot that worked really well and wasn’t too far off of the beaten path (because I also didn’t want to make my actors hike way out into the middle of nowhere).  That same day, between a couple of thrift stores, some items the actors already had, and a costume rental shop, I was able to get the costumes nailed down.

The morning of the shoot, I swung by a couple places to get the final props I needed to pull the film off: guns.  A friend of mine has an old double-barrel shotgun that fit the look of the film perfect.  He was kind enough to let me borrow it for the shoot.  Then I swung by my friend Brent’s house and picked up some rubber hand-guns.  He’s a prop master in Hollywood and was able to get me some good-looking rubber revolvers to use for the film.  I also was able to use an old wooden chest that my parents had left over from a pirate-themed party we had thrown years ago.  Apparently this chest really did come out west on a wagon many, many years ago.  It worked great for the look of the film.

I got back to my house to meet the actors and prep for the shoot.  My three actors this month include two that I’ve used in other films: Blake (who was in Mystery Box and The Pick-Up) and Fox (who played Sven in Paper Covers Rock); and a new actor: my friend Sam Saavedra.  They got into costume, we went over the day, loaded into a couple of cars and headed east to the location.  When we got there we found the spot where we were going to shoot, got set up and started shooting.

The shoot itself went very well.  Once I got the guys out into the middle of the wilderness, in costume, the whole thing started to come together.  The shots looked beautiful and the guys did a great job with their respective parts.  Although it was a little rushed at the end, we were able to finish the shoot and be back at the house only 10 or 15 minutes past schedule.

One thing that I was really excited about and really added another level to the film is that I was able to get some production blanks for the shotgun, so we were able to fire it for a couple of shots.  I wasn’t sure quite what to expect, but it looked really cool with all sort of smoke coming out of the barrel; but it sounded more like a large cap gun (which was fine as I have a good collection of sound effects and the visual was the more important part of it).

Overall, it went very well and the footage turned out great.  I put some pictures up on Flickr here.

“Never work with children or animals.”  W.C. Fields’ famous quote proved itself half-true in the course of production for my seventh short film.  On top of trying to work with a dog and a six-year-old, I planned stunts, special effects, and a tight shooting schedule that ultimately proved to be a bit overambitious.

We started at 9am on Saturday the 19th.  My brother, Blake and his wife, Jenna came over to my apartment and we started right away by trying to shoot the few scenes I had planned to use a dog.  My Great Dane, Darby, is many things, but one thing she is not is a trained, screen dog.  The scene called for her to look menacing (or at the very least, not happy) while riding in the bed of a truck.  She had never been in the bed of a truck before and would not settle down.  No matter what I tried, she was more interested in our surroundings then she was in putting on a good performance.  In the end, I couldn’t get the shots I needed and I had to write her out of the film.  Sorry Darby.

After spending the first forty-five minutes or so of production unsuccessfully trying to shoot the dog scene, we quickly packed up and moved on to the next location.  We got to my friend Allison’s house, unloaded the equipment and then set up for shooting inside the house.  She and Blake had a scene together and then we shot a couple scenes with just Blake before stopping for lunch.

As of lunch, we were about an hour or so behind schedule and I was determined to get us back to where we were supposed to be.  After everyone finished eating, we packed up a car and drove around, looking for an appropriate shopping center parking lot to shoot in (as one of the scenes called for it).  The one I had originally planned on using wasn’t that great in reality once we were there and planning the set-up.  Looking all around us, we ended up finding a spot that looked like it would work across the street.  For the scene, we followed the direction in the script but I ended up improvising most of the set-ups since the geography of the location didn’t match the geography I had planned on in my storyboards.  All in all though, I feel like it turned out good.  Blake and Allison both gave solid performances and I got some good coverage of the scene.  Even though we were shooting pretty quick, we were still not any closer to being back on schedule.

We quickly moved on to the next set-up in which the second half of the “children and animals” equation came into play.  The script called for a young child and Christina and I have a six-year old niece named Caitlyn who was very excited to be part of the movie.  Christina worked with her on her dialogue as well as her performance.  She took it very seriously.  In fact, I was told that before they came to meet us, Christina overheard Caitlyn rehearsing her line into the mirror inside the bathroom.  Thankfully, her half of Fields’ quote did not prove true as she gave a great reading and did a terrific job with everything we asked her to do.

It was after shooting this scene that I looked at the time and realized that there was no way we could catch up to my original schedule.  We dove into shooting as much as we could in the time we had left.  After shooting one more scene, this one involving some dialogue between Blake and my friend Tom, I took stock of what we’d completed and what was still left.  After talking it over with the others, I decided that the best option was to call it a day and finish the shooting on the following Saturday.  Most of the remaining scenes involved some form of stunt work and the extra planning time would be helpful for that.

One week later, on the 26th, Blake was back at my apartment at 9am; ready to shoot.  We had a full scene to shoot, a couple pick-up shots, as well as a re-shoot on two shots that hadn’t turned out well from the previous weekend.  All in all there weren’t a lot of shots, but since they included some stunt work, they were more complicated and we spent a little more time rehearsing and walking through them.

The majority of the shoot involved Blake and my truck.  My dad helped out all day as my on-screen driver for most of the car scenes.  It was strange, but literally after we got the last shot with my truck, he parked it and turned it off and when we went to start it up again, the battery had died.  Thinking back a bit, I realize that in the seven years I’ve owned that truck, I’ve never replaced the battery.  It was weird that it died the moment after we finished, and fortunate.

By the end of the second day, we got everything I needed to finish the film.  I’ve been working with the footage over the last few days and I’m excited for how it all turned out.  We shot a few pictures on set the first day and if you want to see them head over to my page on Flickr here.

This month has been something of a rollercoaster in terms of production.  After getting film #5 completed and online a week into June, I went on a trip with my wife and took a very necessary week off from planning or thinking about producing any films.  When I got back into it, I spent another week running down the path of several different stories, genres and production plans only to hit complications (or have my plans become too large and complicated to pull off) each time.  I landed on doing a story loosely based in the style of a fairy tale in terms of narration and structure (but not so much in terms of far-away lands and such).

Two of my friends and co-workers, Holli Bibler and Carrie Clausen were kind enough to star in the film this month and we managed to shoot it all in less than two hours on Thursday of last week.  We shot around the office at Youth Specialties where we work (and a big thanks to Marko and YS for letting me use the office) and it went really well.  We had a couple of shots to reshoot and add this last Monday but that went really fast.  Of course, I was the fool who wanted to shoot as quick as possible for the reshoots so I didn’t bother to mount the light on a stand this time and instead tried to hold it over my head along with a reflective surface to bounce the light while running the camera and directing the scene (I’m beginning to think it might have been faster to just set up the stand…oh well).  I posted a couple pictures from the shoot on Flickr here.

Then, last night, my friend Robert came over with a couple guitars and we closed ourselves into my office at home for a couple hours to record the soundtrack.  I’m excited for how it turned out.  Robert brought a lot of thought and creativity to the music and we ended up with a pretty unique feel for the whole thing.

After he left, I stayed up and finished the sound and final cut of the film.  It will be up very soon.  Stay tuned!

This last Sunday was the shoot for my fourth short film of the year and it all came together really well. We managed to stay mostly on schedule and get everything shot by the end of the day. While this film didn’t have as many individual shots as the last one, it had it’s own challenges including longer shots, a lot more camera movement, and the fact that it was shot primarily hand-held. The film stars Tom Pollard and Courtney Clevenger who both did a great job in their respective roles. They also both filled in as crew alongside my friend Chris and my dad, Bruce.

We got together at around 1:30pm to get started with the shoot. The first series of shots were the most time-consuming by far because they required the most equipment and setup. We set up everything in my apartment to shoot some interview scenes with both Tom and Courtney and as I’ve mentioned before, my apartment doesn’t always fill with a lot of natural light. Fortunately, Tom had some lights that he was able to bring along with him for this setup; and so we set about completely rearranging all of the furniture in my living room, double-checking the fuse box, and getting everything set up for the interviews.

One of the more ridiculous things is that my Great Dane, Darby, not wanting to be left out of the excitement, spent the majority of the shoot laying in the middle of the room just out of camera range. I posted some pictures to Flickr from the day and you can see her next to the tripod in a couple of the shots. I don’t know if she just wanted to be warmed by the lights or felt the need to not be left out of whatever was happening, but fortunately she mostly managed to stay out of the way. But speaking of the warm lights, my apartment was roasting. I don’t know if you heard, but it was hot in San Diego this last weekend. Add that to hot lights, closed windows, and turning the AC off and it got very hot in my little apartment.

After we were finished shooting in the apartment, we shot a number of scenes driving around in a car. We all piled into my wife’s Jetta and drove around my neighborhood while Tom and Courtney ran through their lines. Again , it was really hot with closed windows and no AC but Tom and Courtney did a fantastic job. And Chris did a great job keeping me organized and slating the shots from the back seat behind me. Once we finished in the car, we shot a couple exteriors at a sandwich shop and parking lot; and then finished up the day shooting a few scenes on the front porch of my parents’ house. All in all, it was a good day and I’m excited about some of the shots. Thanks again to everyone who was part of it.

The shoot for the third film last week went great. I felt more prepared for this one then I had for either of the prior two films. I had a production schedule, a full storyboard for the whole film, and a shot-list; which all proved to be invaluable as I had more then 100 shots to get over 6 locations during the course of one day. But, thanks to some semblance of organization as well as a great cast and crew, we were able to make the schedule and get the entire film shot in a day.

The film stars Allison Welch, Fox Clark, Todd Tolson, Tom Clement, and Derek Emery. Derek also doubled as crew along with my friend Chris to slate each shot and help me stay on top of the shot-list and storyboard. My wife Christina and I filled in as extras in the crowd scenes.

We got started at 9:30am, shooting a dinner scene between Allison and Derek at my apartment. Fox showed up around the time we finished up that scene and we headed over to Journey Community Church (where Christina works) to shoot the rest of the film. We primarily shot in the middle school room, using the stage and some side rooms to create the different locations. We spent most of the rest of the day in that room shooting the majority of the film. We finished up in there around 6:00pm and went to a back parking lot to shoot the training sequence with Allison and Tom. The shoot was finished and wrapped by 7:30pm. It was a long day, but good!

I posted a few photos from the day on Flickr here. Be sure to check out the one of Fox as “Sven” posing with our Great Dane, Darby. Classic.

The shoot on Tuesday turned out well. But wow, it’s been a while since I’ve produced and directed anything completely from scratch. As I mentioned, writing the script wasn’t exactly a quick and disciplined process. Nor was it done with much time to really plan the shoot as well as I would have liked. No, I finished writing the final draft of the script at around 7:30am the morning of the shoot. I spent the next hour storyboarding as much as I could (which ended up being about half the script), and then charged through getting the apartment and equipment set up for the shoot. And by equipment, I mean camera and tri-pod; and a couple of old work lights…this is a no-budget production after all.

At 9:30am, my brother Blake (the lead in the film) arrived, followed by my friend, Chris who offered to help out any way he could. When I went to actually print out the script, my printer decided to stop working. It printed out one page of the script, followed by a page missing random lines and half-lines of text, followed by white sheets of paper. I switched cartridges, but it did nothing. The cartridge had ink, the printer head was moving across the page, but all I received was blank paper. Not wanted to waste too much time, I decided to shoot off of my storyboards (which as you’ll recall is only half complete).

We got off to something of a slow start (which was entirely my fault - a result of not being in the habit of running a shoot), but eventually we got a good pace going. Chris had to leave halfway through the shoot; but just before he left, my friend Allison was able to come over to help out. Their help was indispensable. Of course the fun part of the shoot came when I ran out of storyboards. I would periodically check the script on my computer to make sure I was still on track, but for the most part the second half of the film was shot completely from the hip. You’ll have to let me know if you can tell.

I’ve already logged and imported all of the footage and I’m really excited about how some of the shots turned out. If nothing else, I know I’ve got a few good-looking shots that I’m proud of. I’ve got a lot of work to do on the sound as well as color-grading. Light was hard through most of the shoot. My apartment does not fill with natural light well (which is what I had been counting on) so I was constantly using a mixture of natural and tungsten light and only really felt like I got it right a couple of times. So, I’m counting on my ability to fix it in post (which is never a good thing to count on…seriously). I’m planning on shooting the title sequence this weekend as well as some foley sound; and then it’s all about the editing.

All in all, the day went well. I was able to shoot the script with a fair amount of coverage, dive head-first back into production, and have fun at the same time. Shooting this film gave me a lot to think about and remember going into the production of the next one. Namely, how I plan and organize the schedule and shoot beforehand.

Stay tuned for the completed film in just under a week.