Mitusents

Saturday morning I awoke and it was like a switch was thrown.  Instead of feeling heavy each time I thought about Treasure Hunt (or, really, anything), I was motivated and excited.  So weird.  Anyway, I finally completed my crowdfunding website (https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/shenandoah-treasure-hunt-movie#/) and began the arduous process of identifying people to email about it (Gmail tells me I’ve communicated with over 1,800 people, but only a small fraction of them will ever care about my movie).

My expectations for the crowdfunding aren’t that high; I really don’t have any experience with social media.  Pretty much my only efforts are blogging and I’ve never promoted any of them.  I used Google Analytics on one and was quite depressed to find that when I put out a new post I got a ‘spike’ of visitors that averaged a whopping 10.  I probably got around 1-2 unique visitors a day, and this was when I was blogging on nearly a daily basis.

I don’t Tweet, nor Facebook.  I used to LinkIn a lot, having been practically an alpha customer, but when they decided to have an IPO they made so many changes I lost any interest.  I comment occasionally on the news sites or blogs I follow, but don’t make any sort of concerted effort to promote myself, keeping the focus on whatever article/post I’m responding to.

That doesn’t mean I don’t see the value, it just means it’s not something built-in to go out an trumpet myself.  Assuming I go forward with this making movies idea, getting a social media manager is a very important step.

I haven’t bothered to check metrics to see if any actual humans were visiting this blog, not wanting to get depressed with the answer.  But if you are out there, first, thank you for visiting.  Second, please tell your friends about the crowdfunding page and I encourage you to be the first to donate.  I’d prime the pump myself, but doing so is strictly verboten.

Halfway through filming, but barely started editing.  Why? I’m not sure. My birthday is coming up, and they always depress me (another year older and deeper in debt no closer achieving any of my goals (beyond getting my trophy wife, of course)).  I had some technical issues: my brand spankin new computer wouldn’t read the SD cards we record the video/audio on, which was only resolved with my wife’s genius suggestion of not using the built-in reader, but a USB adapter instead.  But beyond annoying (really annoying! I. Hate. Computers.  I hate even more that that’s how I make a living!), no real reason why I should be depressed.  Yes, I was down in the dumps after our second weekend of filming, but by the time I finally started editing end of last week I actually felt really good about the imagery captured.

It could be the normal wishy washy nature of my ‘moods’ (I consider myself mildly bipolar, or dealing with cyclothymia, as a friend educated me about yesterday) and it’s a ‘this too shall pass’ sort of thing, but it feels deeper than my usual down-in-the-dumps days (and has lasted longer as well).  Last year, around my birthday, I was really down and it lasted for nearly a month.  It either naturally resolved itself or was helped along by my decision (and wife agreeing to support) the notion of making this very movie.  But, on a global scale, the things that were dragging me down last birthday aren’t replicated this year.  So what the hell is up (down) with me?

One of the reasons I put off this week’s (well, last week’s, as my reminder comes on  Sunday) blog post is because I’ve done so little this week.  I have a dead period right now and am not motivated to work on anything else, so decided to do this blog post. Maybe this Sunday I’ll be out of my funk and the next post will be more upbeat.  Or not.  The problem with this whole depression thing is I just don’t give a damn either way.

Oh, forgot to mention: I still haven’t done the crowdfunding site.  Thinking about that failure tends to depress me even more than thinking about the editing I’m not getting done, which is probably why I forgot to mention this when I first wrote the post.

Saturday was a critical day in filming Treasure Hunt, as I had three locations with hard schedules (and a fourth, but that’s at a friend’s house, so could be moved, if necessary (the first weekend’s thoughts)).  The Shenandoah County administration offices, where I was going to make use of the Virginia Tech Extension offices (thanks Bobby and Mary Beth!), the WO Riley park in Woodstock (thanks to Mandy!) and the Edinburg branch of the Shenandoah County library (thanks to Sandy and Dallas!).  Changing those shooting times/dates would most likely be a long drawn-out affair and one I really didn’t want to have to deal with.

Things started out well at the admin offices. Bobby was already there by 8:30 and I had my sound guy and two of my actors, so being ready to shoot at 9 seemed like a shoe-in.  Not.  My DP forgot the camera when he left that morning and had to turn back and if memory serves, he didn’t get there to around 9:40.  Which took some of the pressure off the other three actors, who were late (I’m detecting a theme here).  It was around 10 when we started to film, so we rushed, rushed, rushed to get all the scenes filmed before Bobby had to leave at noon.  We manged to get them all, but several were one takes, so not much fodder for editing.

There was an amusing moment (well, amusing in that after all of our rushing we had to wait because of it).  A scene called for one of the actors to drink from the water fountain. No sooner did he finish when the very noisy cooling mechanism cut on, for what seemed like 20 minutes.  Then, in another take, the actor inadvertently leaned back on the water fountain and turned it on, getting his shirt wet.

We piled everything into the car and hied off to the park, where I had done about 10 seconds of scouting that morning (though I did view a number of pictures online).  We set up for the exercising-in-the-park scenes, but it took a while for the actors to get ready and I was getting antsy.  One of my leads had to leave by 2 and we didn’t get setup until almost 1, so we did his scenes as fast as we could.  We ate lunch afterwards, even though the schedule had us eating first, because the actors, since they weren’t wearing that much, wanted to get those shots before they ate.

We packed and ran off to the library, where we had to arrive before 3, but couldn’t start shooting until after.  One of the actresses wasn’t scheduled to shoot anything for several hours and was stuck with what to do with herself.  She lives about an hour away, so wasn’t sure it would be worth going home, so hung out in New Market, getting antsier by the hour.

The library scenes went well, I felt, capturing what I had in my mind when I wrote the scene.  I intended to be out of there by 5, but it was after 5:30 before we left and headed back to the park to get some later-in-the-movie scenes with two of my leads.  We went with hand-hold camera, which is really shaky and I personally hate, but we were running out of time because these scenes all needed to be in daylight and the sun was heading down.  And my idle actress began asking if we really were going to hit our later scheduled scenes, since she knew one was outdoors.  I was trying to get everyone moving to start filming the park scenes and still held onto fantasies we were going to get those final scenes in, so was a little short communicating with her, through texting, via my wife and her phone.

About half way, she called. While she was friendly and polite, it was clear she was really bored and resentful she’d been wasting her whole afternoon.  She convinced me that there was no way we’d be set up in time to get those late shots, so I agreed she should head home.  With that pressure off, now I could focus exclusively on getting the park scenes done.  For the final scene at the park bench we needed to set up lights because it was getting dark so fast.  Then we had to go without coverage (shooting from more than one angle) because we simply ran out of time and light.

A marathon day with travel everywhere, so I was really hoping Sunday would be better, since it was all at our house and most was in one room.

Yeah, right.  It rained off and on all day, so my exterior cafe scene became an interior coffee house scene.  That went fairly well, so we shifted to the dining room in the house.  Because of a wardrobe change, we wound up putting off a couple of scenes, which got postponed all together later when we (well, for sure I) ran out of energy.  After that the real fun began…

The actors were all told with the original ad they’d be singing.  I had them all sing (except for the first).  I sent them a link to the music recorded for the scene.  The musicians recorded it in key of G (whatever the hell that means) and asked if the actors were happy with that.  I asked them and got no response, so assumed yes.  The poem to be sung isn’t that long to begin with and for the movie I cut half of it out, but wanted them to sing the whole thing so I could use it for the end credits as well as a possible music video.  I’m sure I mentioned to them all about the plan to record them singing to the music before the camera rolled, then they’d lip sync to the recording when the camera was rolling.  And yet, when it came to do this scene, now, ‘all the sudden,’ there were all sorts of issues.  They were uncomfortable with the key, they struggled with the words and pacing and didn’t like how they sounded (but they sounded fine to me).

I worked very hard not to let the ‘real me‘ out with all these last minute objections (one of the actresses had all sorts of objections to how I wrote the intimate scenes, many of which were really good, but _all_ of which I wanted to discuss _before_ the cameras were set up; do I sound bitter at all?) and eventually the sound guy suggested we all take a break.  Eventually we decided to skip filming that specific scene and get the rest done.  Which didn’t include the other two scenes we initially skipped because of a wardrobe change.

My wife ‘complained’ that I wasn’t my normal raging, yelling asshole self around the cast and crew, yet I drop into that mode so easily around her and our son.  I’m not sure why I find it so difficult to control myself around my family, though I must point out I was struggling very hard to control myself over the weekend around the cast and crew.  I wound up totally exhausted when we got home on Sunday and struggled with the same on Monday (which is why I’m writing this on Tuesday), yet all I really did was stand around all day (boy, did my back and feet hurt!).

So, my overall thoughts?  As aggravating as I felt during most of the weekend, we now have around 38 pages filmed out of 84, so almost half, and we’re half way through.  I expect things will smooth out a bit as we’ve learned to work together, so I’m still thinking it’ll be possible to get everything filmed in the time scheduled.  We have, though, started discussing the idea of an extra day or two to do pickups (scenes that need to be reshot, or angles that got missed), but getting everyone to have the same time available is hard.

I’m really frustrated that I can’t get all the cast and crew to show up early so we can start shooting on time.  Car problems, traffic, rain, they all sound plausible, but they happen over and over again and seem entirely predictable (well, not car problems).  I’m really frustrated when the actors want to change up how the scene is written when I asked them several times if they wanted to discuss any aspects of the script, and had _specifically_ mentioned that I wanted to resolve any such issues, and alter the script, _before_ we started filming.  Which makes me think they didn’t actually read the script ahead of time, which robs me of a sense of professionalism.  Not all the actors all the time, but everyone knew we had a very ambitious shooting schedule, so would have little time to have these discussions when the camera was set up.  I wound up largely going with what they wanted to do because we have to get the scenes shot in the time allotted.

I’ve read many places that directors often undergo acute depression after they’ve wrapped.  I didn’t feel that so much the first weekend, but I sure felt it this last weekend.  I looked at a lot of the shots and, almost all the time, all I could think of was how I would rather we did something else.  But we just don’t have time.  That being said, rewatching a couple of episodes of “Major Crimes” last night, I saw many of the same sorts of shots that we (or, rather, Nate) took, so perhaps things will smooth out during editing.

Which I haven’t started yet.  We have the next two weekends off, so almost three weeks to learn to edit. That way, I can learn what pickups I might want to get, so I can get them when the cast and crew are available.  I’m getting tired writing this, I guess from reliving the experience.  I know every project has its ups and downs, but I feel, on balance, this last weekend was more discomfort and stress than fun and rewarding.  I’ve been rethinking this movie making thing, particularly on the long ride home Sunday.  If chronic lateness and actors not being willing to put the time in the script before shooting is the norm, at least at the budget levels I expect to operate, then I’m not sure the hassle is worth the reward.  And this assumes I have a watchable movie when all is said and done.

Of course, I might feel better later, after I’ve had a chance to work with the imagery and sound…

So this has been an interesting learning experience.  We started filming Treasure Hunt Saturday morning, but not quite at nine, like I had hoped.  Hopefully I can get people moving a bit faster in the morning, though John, the sound guy, did arrive at 8.  We started off with a continuity error on the very first scene: one of the characters wears glasses (without lenses, as the curved lens was creating bright spots; it looks funny on the closeups), though the rest of the day seemed to go well.  The day went quickly and the material we recorded all seems good (well, not all, of course; we had to do a number of takes on a few scenes).

We tried to do one of the important scenes the way I had it in my head, but without a dolly (basically, tracks to move a cart the DP sits on) it had to be handheld, and I hate the shakiness of handheld, so wound up discarding that approach.  However, Nate (the DP) did a quick edit when he got home and used one of those takes and we discussed the idea of using software to stabilize the image, so maybe I can make use of it.

The schedule proved both easy and hard to deal with.  Sunday started on the schedule with a call time of 4:30 AM, which no one was wild about (for a night scene that couldn’t be faked, and one of the actors had to leave by 5 PM Saturday, so we couldn’t do it during the evening).  Because we seemed to be making slightly better time that I had estimated, I suggested to everyone that if we moved a couple of scenes from Sunday to Saturday, then I could do the zero-dark-thirty scene on another day (got to be sure I don’t forget that!) and we could start at 9 in the morning again.

The only wrinkle?  We were shooting those scenes outside, which proved to be noisy. I picked a location where I had never seen any cars go by, yet there must have been 15 of them while we were (trying to) shoot.  I think we got good audio, though that was interesting.

Wrinkle two was the inconsistent results of asking the actors to turn on/off their lavs (lavalier microphones).  Since they had to hide the recorders, sometimes it was difficult to get at them.  Eventually, we (rather, John, the sound guy) decided, since the file sizes were small relative to the storage medium (100’s of megabytes vs 32 gigabytes), we’d (or, rather, John’d) let them run until we got the whole scene done.  That, of course, means I need to wade through sometimes 10-15 minutes of audio to find the 10-15 seconds I need, but such is life.

My wife/boss/executive producer and I watched some of the ‘footage’ last night and she seemed a little impressed, which bodes well, I think, for the project.  The images Nate is capturing look great and he’s conscientious about getting the shots he thinks are needed for editing.  John offers lots of suggestions as well.

And the actors are doing great.  Sometimes I have to explain what I was envisioning when I initially wrote a scene, then we’ll discuss it, and often they come up with better ideas.  That’s what I was hoping would happen, that the cast and crew would take the raw material from the script and improve it with their input.  I’m starting to get cautiously optimistic that I’ll have something watchable at the end.

We managed to film 8.5 pages on Saturday, Sunday, originally scheduled to be 10, got shortened substantially. We wound up putting off 4.4 pages, had moved 1.5 to Saturday, leaving us with about 4.7 pages.  I figured it’d be a breeze.  Half the pages, half the time, right?  Well the first scene we shot was in a bathroom, and Nate needed a while to light it.  Then, when we set up for the second scene, Nate and I got at cross purposes when we initially discussed it, and he spent a lot of time setting up for a shot I didn’t want.  AND the paint in that room was some kind of avocado or something, which was giving him fits trying to get the lighting right.  So the first two scenes, which together represent less than 30 seconds on screen, probably took around an hour and a half to film.  We did pick up the pace the rest of the day, but instead of being half the time to film half the pages, it took the same 8 hour day.  But less than the originally planned 10 hour day.  I can’t imagine what it would have been like if we stuck with the original schedule.

The the first real acid test is next Saturday. The schedule calls for almost 18 pages to be filmed.  Which seems absurd on the face of it, but they are three location shots.  The first we can’t start until 9 AM and have to be out by noon, so we must finish the 6+ pages in that time, then we can’t start at another location until 3 PM (relatively short, a bit more than 2 pages), so we have a three hour window (though we’ll need to grab a bite to eat) to try and squeeze in almost 5.5 pages.  I think it’s possible, based on the last weekend’s performance, but it’s going to be hectic.

The poster artist send a work in progress copy end of last week and I showed it to the cast and crew and they all seemed to like it.  Once she’s done (hopefully later today), I’ll update the images on the website.  I also re-recorded the voice over for my crowdfunding video, so that’s going to be the first thing I plan on working on this week.

Now it’s about editing.  I have all week to go through the learning curve and to try and cut together the material already filmed.  I’m really not looking forward to that learning curve, though I totally accept that it will be beneficial, assuming I stick with this whole movie making idea.  The good thing about editing is it’s non-destructive, so if I decide I just can’t get the job done, I can try and persuade my executive producer to cover the added expense.

I was surprised at how tired I got from what was basically just standing around all day (toward the end I had to spend a lot of time sitting; it’s tough being an old fat man).  And sore as well, which initially didn’t make much sense.  I suspect it’s a combination of lots of furniture moving, as we slid stuff around for various shots, and awkward leaning/reaching to work the slate.  I’m still having a great time, though, and am feeling that I can, probably 80% of the time, just let the actors do their thing and all I have to do is call ‘action’ and ‘cut.’  Which is not to say there aren’t 1,001 decisions that need to be made.  One thing I probably do need to do more of is looking at the camera while the scene is being set up.  That probably would have saved some time on Sunday when Nate spent all that time lighting for a setup I didn’t want to use.  Live and learn, eh?

At long last, tomorrow at 9 AM I officially become a director.  I figured I’d be excited or nervous, but mostly I’m tired.  I expect I’ll be more tired still by Monday, but building a house and greenhouse/pool has prepared me for finding weekends exhausting.

My poster artist is almost done taking the images of the actors and incorporating them into the poster she made for me, using stock images she found.  Pretty amazing stuff she’s able to do, and I can’t wait for it to be complete so I can show it off to all and sundry.

Last Sunday we were scheduled for some rehearsal time.  It’s been remarkably difficult to get everyone scheduled, which has made me think that if I do any future projects I’ll want to make them full-time for the duration so there’s less of that headache.

Anyway, we had a few hour window where everyone was available and I picked out several scenes I felt would benefit from practice.  Not only for the actors, but for the DP and sound guy (Nate and John, respectively), so they could think about issues they’d need to address.

It didn’t start off well.  The start time was 7:30 AM, but weather was lousy and the first person to arrive (John) was on-time, which translates to being late in the world of movie making.  Then Nate made it a few minutes later, then the actors started to straggle in.  The last one didn’t get in until almost 9:30 and we had to wrap up by 11 because one of them had another prior commitment.

We wound up doing very little rehearsal, but we did get them to try on their wardrobe (my beautiful wife enjoyed shopping the second-hand stores to get a collection) and got the pictures for the poster.  We discussed a number of logistical items. And it became clear to me that most, if not all, people making movies are insane, as several were there with barely any sleep.  And they that considered normal!

I also learned something very important about myself: I can’t act.  I had a very simple video to record, for the opening and closing of the crowdfunding video plea (the rest is voice over while I show images/video of the cast), yet it took me nearly 20 takes to get the single sentence done.  And even when I was _reading_ (as opposed to memorizing) for the voice over, I still struggled to get the damn thing done.  I can talk extemporaneously for hours without any problems, but I can’t read a prepared speech.  What a moron!

This is important because up until that moment I was intending on playing the part of Ken, the property owner where the students are digging.  That was primarily a liability issue, as Ken is scripted to use the backhoe for digging and I didn’t want anyone else to operate it.  After my debacle of ‘acting’ for the crowdfunding video, I knew I couldn’t handle the real deal, so started to think how I could use movie magic to make it look like the actor was driving/operating the backhoe while I was doing the actual work.

Then I remembered an obscure comment my sister-in-law’s husband (brother-in-law once removed?) made the night before at a birthday party.  Something about which was his best side for the poster or something.  I have trouble hearing when the ambient noise level is high, and in any case was focused on stuffing my face, so probably just smiled and nodded (though in the past I learned that can be dangerous).  But once I realized I was incompetent as an actor, I figured I’d see if he was interested before I went and started advertising.  Lo and behold!  My BIL (once removed) used to do theater in high school and college.  He had to be at least 1,000x better than I would ever be, so he was hired on the spot.  The only wrinkle is that role was scheduled to be done over two days and he could only make one, so I needed to re-shuffle the schedule.

Speaking of reshuffling the schedule… Hurricane Florence was threatening to run up the east coast and, at a minimum, drown us under several feet of rain. And I had several outdoor scenes scheduled for right when she was to arrive.  Fortunately (for me and my neighbors), Florence decided to terrorize North and South Carolina instead (not so fortunate for them; sorry).  Anyway, originally the first day of filming was only slightly less than the highest number of pages we were going to try and film in one day and I’d read in many places to try and make the first day the lightest, so the cast and crew can get used to how everyone operates.  And the permit was going to cost me $350 for the location.  So, after some research and head scratching, I decided to try and squeeze those scenes in next Saturday, at the expense of making that day even longer (logistically, I think it will work, but it’s intimidating to schedule nearly 18 pages when the typical average is 3-5 per day).

I rejiggered the schedule and will no doubt do some rejiggering on the fly (I can’t shake the thought that, despite my extensive efforts, I’ve forgot some scenes and will get bit on the ass when I’m doing editing).  I thought about adding onto the dates for filming, but beyond that reducing the cast and crew’s daily rate (since they’re being paid at a flat rate for the job), it seems getting everyone with another free day, let alone weekend, might take this into November.  I really hope we can get everything filmed without it looking like I yelled ‘Print it!’ to every first take.

Next week I really need to buckle down and figure out how to use the editing software.  I elected to start with Kdenlive (if I struggle I may try something else).  I played with it for about a half hour before accepting I’m going to have to follow a tutorial to get started, I’m not able to intuit the interface.

Tomorrow is going to be interesting…

So I cast my four leads, then got some bad news.  The actress I initially cast for the role of Velma was basically being forced to join SAG and could no longer work non-union projects.  While the incremental cost/effort of making my project SAG compliant isn’t huge, it isn’t trivial and has potential long-term consequences, so I thanked her, wished her the best of luck, and recast.  I got incredibly lucky that another very strong contender for the role was not only able to commit within hours, but could make the chemistry tests and table read in less than 24 hours!

Wednesday we did chemistry tests, where I ask the actors to read together to see if they look like life-long friends, in the case of Max and Harry as well as Kayla and Velma, or could become lovers, as is the case between Max and Kayla or Harry and Velma.  The actors all looked fabulous, though there was a small change.  The new actress, Natasha-Lee, is Hispanic (born in Puerto Rico, to be more precise) and normally has an accent.  She said she could go accent free, and I believe her, but as amusing as I thought it would be to cast someone ethnic as Velma, we quickly decided that swapping Natasha and Crystal for the roles of Kayla and Velma would be best for the project.  It does make the story easier with a white woman in the role of someone who has roots that go back to colonial times, but I had all sorts of ideas for what I felt were cute ways to address this in the story.  Oh well.

I was surprised, nay, shocked, at how well I felt the actors handled the table read.  Not that I was surprised they did a good job, I mean that I was surprised how often my dialog seemed to flow smoothly off their tongue.  While I do think I’ll tweak a few lines (being an old guy, I have a lot of old turns of phrases, but, for the historians, I may leave those phrases in there), on the whole I felt it went very smoothly.

Even John, the sound guy and my mentor, felt much better about the idea of the quartet after the table read.  He was initially skeptical and felt it would be a tighter story with just two leads, but I felt that would cut out the core of my original intention for the story.  He also liked that I increased the level of conflict from when he initially read the story, so thanks to my editors Jacque and Jennifer, for giving me such good suggestions.

We have a shooting schedule, after several headache-inducing days (not full-time, of course) trying to mesh everyone’s prior engagements.  The next wrinkle is setting up a day or so for rehearsals.  Mostly blocking and the physical action, I don’t think I have that many scenes that need a lot of detailed exploration from the actors in order to nail, but, as with the chemistry tests and table read, getting all the cats herded into the same room at the same time is proving challenging.

With shooting starting in just three weeks, I still have a number of things I must get done.  Biggest is I’ve got a quote for insurance to cover the locations, but need to execute it, so I can get documents for the locations so I can film there.  Slightly smaller, I have a number of very specific props I need to make arrangements for, as well as a few wardrobe ensembles to assemble (though I expect to push that last onto my wife).  Probably 101 things to do, at least, before I’m ready to legitimately say ‘Action!’ for the first time.

I’ve been having a blast so far and I feel optimistic that I’ll have a watchable film when I get done.  I’m feeling good that I’ll want to take the plunge and try my hand at this to make money, but won’t make that decision for sure until probably early next year.

Below are my four leads.  I tried to make their images smaller, basically thumbnails, but it seems WordPress ignores my attempts to do so.  I’ve also cast several other of the smaller roles, but since these images are so large, I elected to not add them here.

Crystal Day as Velma.

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Natasha-lee Loyola as Kayla.

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Parker Damm as Harry.

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Marquis Davis as Max.

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