Spewed Thoughts on the Aftermath of Filmmaking

This past weekend I’ve been busy filming a short film titled “A Future of Fortune”.  It started off as an idea.. which I presented to a classroom of people, who later voted and decided to make my idea a short-film.  The class chose 5 ideas to make into films out of everyones pitch that was presented.  I knew I envisioned what the film looked like in my head but I had no idea what type of dialogue was going to come out of this.  With the help of my team members, we created scene by scene how the story was actually going to play out and created the script.  I posted an add on craigslist for actors who wanted to be apart of a short film and I got at least 30+ responses.  We filtered through people and selected a group of individuals to come to an audition.  We auditioned them for hours and eventually found our actors.

Day 1 of filming – A nightmare.  I woke up at 6AM and opened  an e-mail from one of my actors that said they weren’t going to be able to come down from Orange County.  I quickly realized I needed to recast and reschedule for this scene.  It wasn’t so bad because I figured it would give me more time to shoot the rest of the scenes for the day.  Then I realized I totally forgot to invite one of the actors who I needed to be in the same scene as another character.  I had to problem solve quick and ended up shooting the scene without both characters in the same shots, which hopefully will work out.  And the problems continued.  We mistakenly left behind an actor for over an hour who patiently waited for us to act his parts.  It was embarrassing, unprofessional and a lesson learned.  Part of this disaster was I only had one other team member on set with me, so we we’re trying to manage everything.. scheduling, lighting, filming, directing.. you get the point.

Day 2 and 3 went pretty good.  I’m satisfied with the shots that I’ve capture and very excited to see how the film comes out.  It’s in the early stages of editing and needs to be finished by Mon. May 11, 2009.  I will probably continue on with the edit to perfect the film for possible film festival entries.  It’s my first “Romantic Comedy”.  When I originally wrote the idea I had an experimental feel for the film with a touch of “Romance?”.. but with the help of my crew and cast it has developed into the film it’s going to be.

The weekend before I spent a total of about 40 hours filming and editing “Fatal Frames“, the short-film we had created for the 48 Hour “Media Carnival” in Carlsbad, CA.  We had 2 guidelines to follow which we’re to incorporate a toy of Sleepy the dwarf from Snow White that was provided to us.  Also, the story had to involve a change.

This past Sunday the film was screened along with others at the Carlsbad Village Theatre.  We won best in show, best cinematography and best experimental/artistic film.  We’re working on perfecting a few things, reshooting some scenes and entering the film in a few other festivals.

Currently I’m working on a handful of projects.  I don’t think I can even count the number of projects on one hand.  The deadlines are soon, so you will see more within the next week.  I also went to Encinitas today for a meeting for a few freelance projects this summer.

Overall, I’m loving the life of a filmmaker/editor.