- NOVEMBER, 2012
Micro-budget pre-production! Christ help you if you don’t clear that Google inbox 5X a day. 10 or more threads continuously in play between the team…no time to slack off if we’re to make this March shooting date. What’s keeping us busy?
- KICKSTARTER
Launched. 30 days, to expire on November 21, day before Thanksgiving. Boris cuts together the two video scenes I wrote with HD footage he grabs walking around his neighborhood, rough treating it to make it appear like Falcon’s POV, cut in some stills from the test scene we shot(and couldn’t use/SAG issues) to make a 2 minute 30 second video centerpiece. I write in the prizes and accompanying text and up it goes.
Each of us has taken a blood oath to write personal emails to EVERY PERSON WE HAVE EVER KNOWN querying if they want involvement in a promising project (i.e. begging for money). In addition, the seemingly random but totally planned social media blasts from each of us daily for the next 30 days constantly reminding (and bugging the shit out of) our friends, pointing them toward the Kickstarter page and reminding them about the 30-day ticking clock (which artificially and quite effectively adds urgency to the Kickstarter concept).
You want family to contribute first…or whoever you can lean on easiest for a maxed-out donation to get that Kickstarter money counter started fast. You want the people you don’t know to come to the site and see money already on the table. Raising money for Kickstarter or any film is almost exclusively impression > reality. Or, as my friend Scott Vehill so famously said, “I’ll believe it’s real when I’m eating the steak from the check which is cashed.”
- CASTING
Off to a rocky start here. We fire the first casting guy, call him J. J was put in charge of the initial round, setting up dates, booking the audition location, contacting all actors. Bad sign #1: The camera he set up to record auditions failed to work, leaving us no video of 75% of the actors from Day 1. Bad Sign #2: Lack of communication. Not returning emails from Boris Wexler, unacceptable for the European mindset that just wants the trains running on time. Boris insists his trains run on time, so yeah, in the future J—answer those emails. Bad Sign #3: You do NOT book actors four per 15 minutes. We watch in confusion on the Google Drive Auditions Doc as J jam packs a single session with an impossible amount of actors. It takes four of us to undo the damage, rescheduling a couple dozen actors over a two day period. And rescheduling J onto a new movie…
The goal is to not just work on the local level, but national, getting it some name actors for a bigger profile and budget. I give the script to an old contact of mine (Kudos to IMDBpro….Putting me into direct contact with people I haven’t taken a meeting with in a decade. If you’re an Indy or Micro filmmaker, you must use it for networking and such)….So the contact, call her K, read the script and loved it. She’s worked with Steven Haft (Emma, Dead Poets Society), with Spike Lee, before founding her own company. My thinking was she would provide entree to agents and managers of people we had no access to…if it was a cold-call, let it be a cold call from someone with cache in the biz. Far better for the call into Gary Oldman or Bryan Cranston or Michael Shannon to come from her rather than from a pack of unknown & unconnected, zero dollar Chicago flea-scratching quote-unquote filmmakers. Weeks go by as she waits for her partner to check in about the script. Our urgency is our urgency, not the worlds. We need the get the script to these actors while moving along the local NON-name auditions here.
Alas, about to give up on K and move on our own, we hear back from her. Her partner passed. K will always be a champion for me and maybe she’ll come back into the process but the Pass pretty much means we are on our own.
Quick note: A fellow Columbia teacher told me something that should have been obvious to me. It’s not a problem pitching a micro-budget to a “name”. A: Work the Manager ahead of the Agent. Just an easier call to make. Get the manager to think it’s a killer role and his client will get their day rate, why the hell wouldn’t they want to read it? If the manager reads and digs it, Gary Oldman will be reading your script. B: Make sure to have the answers to simple questions. Like: Is the movie funded? What’s the schedule? What’s the possibility of back end profit participation? Travel considerations? Gotta present the right image. Image > reality.
We take over the casting process from Day 2. Draft a student of mine in as Casting Director (he gets a credit, we get someone to work 10-20 hours a week for us for zero.) Get Columbia College to provide space (cost zero), video camera set up, actors reading the female parts with me, the male parts with Jessica. Get the audition files up on Vimeo for the production team to check out and give notes. Boris and I disagree on everything… In the room, in emails…what the hell are you seeing, dude???! I’m Southern Italian, East Coast and Type A….I am NOT shy with my opinion and of course I am never wrong. Boris reminds me in that calm, matter-of-fact voice that others are allowed an opinion too. He has the good taste not to remind me of something else: He is the director and has FINAL SAY.
No way to split that final say, either. Someone has to make the final call. Boris is making this project happen both as producer and director. I can give that control up, though it’s not easy after nightmare that was JANE DOE (see previous posts). Boris is too smart to blow off my opinion(knowing that I’m right every time) Patient beyond belief, he will consider and consider before making a final judgement. Emotions might raise up, our Junior Producers ducking for cover when we see things differently, but they quietly get in their opinions in between the inevitable Boris/Paul jousting. Call this part creative DISagreement. Want to see a mediocre project? Put a bunch of yesmen in a room together. None of that here…
Initial auditions end. We work the list of call backs. Interesting that after all the fireworks, Boris and I agree on the top 3 actors for every role, all except one. Initial round, they read two scenes solo. Final Round they will read three scenes, plus interact. The Falcons and Dr. Laurens will read together. The Syds and Geoffreys. Let’s see how they look together, how they react on the spot. We’ll film it, put it up on Vimeo, then call in our “inner circle” again. Look over these actors, give us a 1-2-3 order. Then screen it for all producers at a Columbia screening room. Everyone gets a pencil and paper, screen the auditions, number the actors 1-2-3. Yeah, Boris gets final say and if 10 of 10 people say his #1 guy is #1, it’s a no-brainer offer to that actor. On the other hand, if 10 people think his #1 guy is #3…it won’t take the ponderings of Spock to know the right thing to do.
- SCHEDULING & BUDGETING REALITIES
We’re running on the assumption of a 35K budget. Sure, we have possible investors littering the landscape. A grandfather, my ex-sister in law’s former roommate, some “whales” that Boris knows back in Paris, a L.A. hip-hop DJ who wants to invest in movies and loves edgy stuff. Send that 20K, we’re edgy yo! Boris writes a business plan and we seed the pitch package to multiple sources knowing 98 out of 100 won’t come through. It only takes one whale though…to change the entire landscape.
While we wait for whale sightings, we move toward realities… Trying to find a competent Production Designer for no salary…with an entire budget of…how much??? Yes, you heard that right…$1,000 dollars, for the entire movie.
Or finding a Location guy to spend endless time calling and locking down about a dozen locations. Someone professional enough to be “the face of the movie” for these location owners, but who will cost zero, who will work like the rest of us, for “deferred”.
The hard one will be Boris’ meeting with our DP of choice, getting him to work for nothing up front. With time, camera and light and crew considerations, this would be worth $10,000+ to our production. Say it like a mantra—it’s MICRO, we pay NOTHING or NEXT to nothing.
- CHEERS
We cheer when Boris informs us it’s looking good to use his work offices. They not just offer a tight, fluorescent nightmare of a look…. they are free. That’s the Pee Wee Herman Magic Word to scream on every time. The $1,000 Boris budgeted for the offices can now go elsewhere.
We cheer when we find a capable Location guy who is a total pro but will work for free because he likes the project.
We more than cheer when Fred Miller agrees to DP this project for little to nothing up front. A guy of this caliber—unlike the rest of it—is giving up actual money by agreeing to work for free. This only happens because of a multiple project personal relationship with Boris and because Fred—in the words of Ed Norton— is one of nature’s noblemen!
We cheer when we witness audition performances from the likes of Gary Nuemann Jr., Rush Pearson, Gary Houston, Marielle de Rocca-Serra, Cheryl Graeff, and so many others. You realize that going from idea to the page is a journey, but not the only journey that must happen for a successful movie. You need flesh and blood interpretation to take it from page to image, and that means actors to transmute emotion. With or without a NAME actor coming on board, we have got the horses to pull water!
We cheer and give thanks when, on November 21, a day before Thanksgiving, the Kickstarter campaign ends. The final tally: 30 days. 197 doners. $25,436 raised.
FUNDED!
- THE SECOND CHRISTMAS
Schedule a final writer meeting with Boris. This will be for the tweaks, last minute changes that need to happen.
It’s funny but during the auditions—as the writer—you can hear it, the changes that need to happen. You read it as you write it and that’s fine. But you can’t hear actors read it with real emotions. In an audition you listen to the scene the first time it’s read and you can hear what works, and what doesn’t. The fix isn’t hard at all. I’m not wedded to the script. Not to a word, a sentence, or a scene. The screenplay isn’t a poem or sculpture. There will be changes…guaran-fucking-teed. I am wedded to victory, meaning a decent movie with my name credited as writer.
The change might be a perfectly good line that our French lead actress just can’t read or make believable.
Maybe it’s an improv from an actor in audition or rehearsal that’s clearly better than my choice.
Maybe it’s just crappy dialogue that I didn’t recognize as I was writing it. Do I really want that line up there with a 75 foot actor reading it?
Let’s get in a room, go over line by line, and nail this down.
It’s the second Christmas for CHAT…
We’re funded…
Full crew in place…
Kick-ass Chicago actors in place…
Draft 4 in the can…
Tidings of comfort and joy, indeed!
