MISSED: Pre-Production So over a year ago, I spent a weekend directing a short film for festival distribution, with the help of a number of very nice and talented folks. It was a fun, if exhausting, process and I loved most every second of it -- the chance to bring to life an idea close to my heart, yet hopefully appealing to others, was really kind of rad.
Then a combination of my own problems and other difficulties meant that I didn't have picture lock until this June. This has been one of my great embarrassing secret shames of the past year -- but now, dear reader, we are on track! There is picture! Soon, there will be sound! And by the end of the month, I will be able to prove that when I said I could make a short film, I wasn't just joshing. Whether or not it was worth the wait remains to be seen. But I remain optimistic. So optimistic, in fact, that I'm finally going to talk about the process publicly, in preparation for having to write up notes for Without A Box and all the film festivals I plan to submit to. So please enjoy the story. It's not over yet, but nothing wrong with a work in progress.
How it started is simple: nearly two years ago, I saw a short film written and directed by a friend of mine, and thought to myself, well, self, that looks easy. Sure, it's been a few years since film school. But you could probably do that.
The idea itself took a little longer to generate, but in the end I drew upon one of my favorite themes -- romantic comedies are really stupid -- and added an exciting twist that (I hoped) gave it some freshness. I wrote the first draft of Missed in November 2005, and over the next six months rewrote those six pages no fewer than nine times. Originally, the script took place in the 1980s, would have been shot in my apartment and my hometown video store, and had three pages of extraneous dialogue. These were, needless to say, absolutely awful ideas. But most of them were fixed when the time period moved to the 1970s. Because the 1970s were much much cooler than the 1980s. FACT.
The script also had a lot of really funny lines, but when I started showing it around to people, the main note I got was that the tone was inconsistent. So I cut all the funny lines. Then people thought the tone was fine. And really, those lines weren't too funny anyways.
At the time, of course, the whole thing was incredibly in the abstract -- until that spring, when I filed my tax return for 2005 and found out that despite all the freelance work I'd done, my many months of temping meant I'd actually be getting money back from the government. I looked at the numbers on the bottom line, thought about my sad little savings account for approximately two minutes, then started hunting around for a producer.
Jillian and I met through a friend, and she liked the script enough to tell me what was wrong with it. If the twist of Missed works at all, it's because Jillian kept on me during the rewriting process, forcing me to push the double meaning to its limit, until in theory you can watch it backwards and forwards with no conflicts.
Pre-production on this scale mostly consists of "what is the bare minimum of stuff we need, and what's the cheapest way to get it?" Luckily, the big stuff -- camera and actors -- come pretty easy. In the case of camera, I ended up reconnecting with Maya, who I knew vaguely well in film school but never worked with until I sent out a mailing list query for a DP. Maya had several sterling recommendations -- talent, niceness, and her own camera -- plus the same enthusiasm for getting back into the filmmaking game. We became great friends as a result. (This is by far one of the nicer things to come from the production of Missed.)
Actors, meanwhile, worked out pretty easy. I really enjoy the casting process, because actors are insanely fun -- and it finally begins to feel real at that point, because people who aren't your friends are actually interested in being in your movie and that's just weird. One girl sent her headshot with a very simple cover letter: "I know I don't have a lot of experience, but if I suck, you can punch me in the face." Damn right I brought her in. She was just okay. Not great, but not quite worthy of physical abuse. Ah well.
The first actor we cast was Kathleen, as the best friend with a secret, in large part because she could do a French accent. (The character wasn't actually French at that point, but Jillian suggested we try it and I loved how it played.) Men are always much easier to cast than women, because there are simply fewer male actors, but Joachim made it even easier. True story -- he originally auditioned for the part of Sergei using an accent he'd perfected for a performance of Dracula. As I am a cultured and worldy young woman, I could not tell the difference. And Bonnie, our lead, just brought it every time, giving each run a new twist... Casting is all about experimenting and possibilities and finding out what people can do. It's always a pleasure.
The one big missing piece was location, and that was all Jillian, who tracked down a just-opened coffee shop that would be happy to let us in before they opened. The problem with coffee shops and cafes is that they often like to be open during daylight hours -- but this place didn't open until 11, which meant we could sneak in before they opened and get the scenes we needed. All we needed to do was wake up at 4 AM. Um. Easy.
I tell you all these details because it's fun to remember them, the work that went into this. It's also fun to remember that it really happened, that it was actually possible. Just a matter of saying you're doing it and digging in.
Notes for myself, for the thanks: D. and Dad and K. for reading drafts, JS and Aimee for reading with actors, JG for the audition space. Plus all the usual suspects.
The story of production a little later. Right now, I have to listen to composer reels. Slamdance early deadline is August 27th. Sundance is September 7th. Dig in. Get it done.
Because it can be.Labels: projects:missed
posted by Liz # 11:16 PM
Comments:
Post a Comment
• • • • • • • • • •