Over the weekend, most of you know, I was part of a 10 hour film competition. I was Assistant Director for a friend of mine, Jerry. The short film was writen, directed, and shot by Jerry himself. He busted his ass all damn day and through his hard work, we pumped out a damn fine short film called The Plan. Eventually, when he gets around to it, the film will be put up on the ‘net and I should be getting it on DVD. Those of you who haven’t seen it yet, you will, I assure you.
Here’s the deal. The film had to have three characteristics in it. The first was a fan. This could be anything from a ceiling fan to a sports fan. It just needed to be in the film in some fashion. The second was a director. A film of a dead director had to be inserted into or as a line of dialogue. The director chosen was Billy Wilder and we inserted Sunset Blvd. into our film. The last was a theme. The theme chosen was “an act of charity.” This theme turned out to be the only one that we had to work a good bit to get to work. I won’t tell you because it is kind of the end of the film.
Those three things were given to us the day of. We showed up at the Wesport Coffe House in KCMO, signed in, were given these, and were set out to make our film. Let me stress this: our film was shot, edited, and authored to DVD in a little under 10 hours. Even overcoming bad sound, broken mics, our actress leaving early, shooting out of order, importing video with dropped frames, and re-engineering our squib, we kicked ass. Jerry led the team extremely well and dealt with everything with a cool head.
Personally, I didn’t really see myself doing a whole lot during the shoot. I’ve said this a lot, as a few of you can attest. I swear, I am NOT trying to get sympathy or whatever when I say this. I was planning on keeping track of our shots, timecodes, all that. I didn’t, but to be fair, it didn’t end up mattering. We imported the footage into the machine in large lumps. Not my editing style, but obviously, it worked for Jerry.
This weekend got to me. I really enjoyed being a part of this project, but it also made me realize something. I don’t have access to nearly the resources that Jerry did. He had access to a Canon GL2, a good camera if used properly. He had several friends who are actors, which helped a lot and resulted in a good, well performing cast.
My next challenge is to figure out how I am going to schedule work, school, and any future projects. The weekend showed me that working on a film project like this is an amazing experience. Now, I need to put together a regular team I can work with. A group of people that wouldn’t mind working on my projects as long as I help them with any projects they have.
I really need to get my own equipment. That is a lot of money to spend, though. A LOT.
