Marking a movie is not about getting cool shots

Movie-making is all about making tough decisions. Directors and producers, especially, have to make dozens of important decisions every day, and the number of decisions increases exponentially when you move from pre-production into production.

(This is especially true if the director and producers avoided making some hard decisions in pre-prod, or -- far worse -- didn't realize there were hard decisions to be made in the first place. There's a reason why shooting scripts tend to have lots of "[this scene omitted].")

One of the toughest decisions is this:

"Do I want to get a bunch of cool images on film, or do I want to make a movie?"

In other words, you can only get so many shots in a day. How much time should you spend getting the cool, exciting, cinematically-difficult shots that will make for good 'trailer moments'? How much time should you spend getting the relatively dull shots (like coverage of a dialogue scene, for example) that you will need to actually edit together a movie that makes sense?

So: Do you want to get a bunch of cool images on film, or do you want to make a movie?

It may seem like a no-brainer when phrased that way - we're filmmakers after all, not cool-shot-getters - but filmmakers stumble over that decision every day. And even when a filmmaker realizes that decision must be made, it's often complicated by outside influences.

What if you're nearing the end of your scheduled production period, and you're a day and a half behind schedule, and you have to choose between the cool sequence that got you interested in making the film in the first place, or the comparatively dull sequence that sets up the premise of the whole movie? Which one do you cut?

What if your best friend plays a character in the cool sequence, and he thinks this role is his big break as an actor?

What if your investors are on set, and they've been looking forward to seeing how you execute the cool sequence? What if the cool sequence was part of your pitch, and it's one of the reasons why they gave you money in the first place?

There can be lots of valid and compelling reasons why you want to get the cool sequence.

But...

What if you do get the cool sequence, but that means you don’t have time to get the necessary sequence ... and now your editor won't have the footage he needs to cut together a cohesive narrative?

The average director, of course, would say that you don't have to cut either of them - this situation is exactly why God invented 'pickup days.' But pickup days aren't guaranteed. I've seen a number of promising productions lose steam and eventually be abandoned because they weren't able to get the footage they needed during their allotted shooting days, and for one reason or another they were never able to do pickups.

Money runs out. Vital crew members move on to other projects. Actors cut their hair or gain 30 pounds or move back to Poughkeepsie. You can't count on pickup days.

So, if you can't count on getting more time to shoot, which sequence do you cut?

In a way, this is a litmus test for what kind of director or producer you are. Are you into sizzle, or are you into steak? Are you more concerned with telling a cohesive story or with getting a great trailer moment that will help sell your project? This situation can reveal where you stand on the age-old "style vs. substance" spectrum.

For me, the answer is simple. (It's not easy, but it's simple.) Get the sequence that will allow you to cut together a movie that makes sense. Try to schedule a pickup day to get the cool sequence. The cool sequence is the icing on the cake -- but you need to have a cake in the first place. Icing by itself quickly becomes cloying.

We are movie makers - we aren't cool-shot getters. The story is the thing.

Film & Wine & Scum!

Such an irresistable combination, dontcha think?

This weekend, the Children of Scum are heading to Johnstown, PA for the Johnstown Film & Wine Festival! SoCalFilm's Who's on First: The Movie played there last year - thanks for having the SoCallers back, guys!

If you're in the area, stop by to watch a film, have a glass of wine - and say hi to the Children of Scum!

Danny

TOSSERS - Meet The Cast!

Hey, all. As we get closer to the final cut of TOSSERS, I wanted to introduce our cast. Here's some of the folks in our frisbee dance competition:

Frederik Vilhelm, founder of Frisbee Dance.


Simon Worcester, punk from the UK, putting his best side forward.


Willow & Moonbeam Goldberg - they're VAICANS (Vegans Against the Imagination of Cruelty to Animals).


Sherman Talbot, very sweet guy, occasional werewolf.


Misha, Frisbee Dance Instructor extraordinaire.


More to come ...

Danny

Diggin' Mockfest Muchly.

So, Mockfest!

This was the festival’s 2^nd year, and we’ve been there both years (last year with My Life in Subtitles, and this year with Children of Scum: A Retrospective). Festival director G.R. Claveria put together a really nice collection of mockumentary flicks. This year, he could be seen running around with his video camera, taping everything in sight. Co-host Alesha Noice was very charming and engaging, introducing each film (or program of films) and keeping everything running smoothly.

The fest was held at the Vine theatre in Hollywood – really cool single-screen theatre on Hollywood Blvd, normally showing 2^nd or 3^rd run movies. Great location – my only complaint is that, half the time, the air conditioning wasn’t working … so you’d go from the hot outside … to the not-much-cooler inside.

I caught a bunch of flicks, but a couple stood out – if you have a chance to catch them at a future fest, please do:

Virgin Wanted – really well-done mock about a cute 30 year old redhead who wants to lose her virginity to another virgin, so she holds interviews and goes out with the top 3 candidates. Trouble is, her top 3 turn out to be a Racist, an In Denial Gay Guy, and a Stud who’s nowhere near a virgin. Great dialogue and performances by the redhead and the 3 candidates. The comedy never felt forced and was very Guestian, coming very naturally from the characters.

The One That Got Away – clever mock about a guy who’s trying to find Miss Right, but just can’t seem to sustain a lasting relationship … more than likely because he’s a serial killer, and chops up all of his dates. The movie follows him as he tries to reconnect with an old girlfriend who he turns out to have a lot in common with…

Anyway, we had a blast. They’re planning on another fest next year, so check it out if you can.

Danny

Children of Scum keeps on Scummin'!

Hey, all -

We're having a great festival run with Children of Scum: A Retrospective. We won Best Short Film at the Rogue Independent Film Fest, and were Audience Choice for Best Comedy at Smogdance.

Wanted to give a heads up for our next two festivals: first up, we'll be playing the Fallbrook Film Festival (near San Diego) this Saturday 4/26 at 10 pm. More details here: http://fallbrook.bside.com/2008/?_view=_filmdetails&filmId=86874735

We're also playing Mockfest in Hollywood on Saturday May 17th at 5 pm. More details here: http://mockfilmfest.com/

Tell a friend and come see the making of the greatest movie ever, Children of Scum. :-)

Danny

Tossers - That's a wrap!

Slightly past midnight in a parking lot in North Hollywood last Saturday night, we wrapped TOSSERS!, the true(ish) story of the world's fourth gay frisbee dance competition.

Production was pretty smooth - we had Wacky Weather one day (seriously - one minute it was beautiful California sun, the next it was slamming down rain, then gorgeous sun, then HAIL, of all things), but aside from that, it came together swimmingly.

I'll post more pics soon - in the meantime, here's a few pics of the WORLD FAMOUS frisbee dance team Simon & Sherman!

Danny

Dogged "Gone"

I'm in the early stages of editing my latest short with the SoCal Film Group (SCFG), entitled "Gone". It's the fifth short I've written & directed for SCFG, and -- as always -- had it's own series of challenges. I'd originally hoped to shoot it in 3 days: two days of "principle" photography, and a short day of inserts and pick-ups. Before the 2nd day was over, I knew I needed at least another weekend of shooting. It ended up taking four 8-9 hour days, plus a half-day of inserts.

The story takes place entirely in and around one car. It starts at the featured character's home driveway, and continues with him on his journey through suburbia, into "urbia" and finally to his workplace parking lot. Except for the first shot, it was all "DAY EXT." stuff.

I had considered shooting it partially or mostly with green screen. After doing tests with and without green screen -- and considering the various limitations and the realism required of the piece with minimal resources at hand -- I decided to shoot at practical (sometimes impractical) locations.

For that reason, the shooting times were limited to daylight hours -- which, in the winter (even in L.A.) means less than 12 hours. Even though we could have started by 7AM, I held the call times back to 8AM, to keep my cohort from yawning and napping during their precious, shortened-by-my-movie weekend. Therefore, we had to close shop by 5PM, when the sun was too low on the horizon to help us.

On Day 1, we managed to shoot 3 of the 4 scenes I'd hoped to complete. Part of the reason was the nature of the shooting situation, which required blocking as many reflections as possible from the featured windshield(s) of any given shot. This took some rigging time and a lot of careful adjustments. Also, we had a small generator that supposedly had enough power for the key light we planned to use -- but turned out to be inadequate for that task. We ended up using some smaller lights for the closer shots, which we had to place close to the edge of the frame for adequate exposure. Hey, that's what you get for "free" or "cheap" sometimes! At least we were able to use it for something.

Upon viewing the day's footage, it turned out that one of the scenes had technical problems, and would have to be re-shot. Sigh...

On Day 2, we got to contend with some impressive rainfall. I liked the weather on that day, as it contributed to the movie's atmosphere without the cost of rain machines. We DID have a "Hudson sprayer" of sorts, which was a great, cheap tool to use for creating fake rain on windows for closer shots (it has also been used by SCFG'ers several times for blood-spurting effects). Unfortunately, we also had some wind gusts that day.

We had a small HMI as our key light, and it worked beautifully on one of the scenes. After setting up the next scene, a gust of that afore-mentioned wind sent the HMI crashing to the asphalt, breaking the bulb. We only got one take of the master on that one, but it worked as an establishing shot, anyway. And the light was borrowed, to boot. Luckily the loaner was a nice guy, and forgave me.

On Day 3, we started shooting in a public parking lot. After getting through the first scene (the re-shoot from Day 1), we spent some time setting up for a second scene. Just as we were ready to start rolling on it, the local authorities told us we had to leave. Damn... At least they were nice about it. While we slowly and half-heartedly sort-of started wrapping up as the authorities watched from nearby, we rolled the camera (which was locked off) and let the actor run the scene a few times, hoping that it might actually be worthwhile.

Then we left, and during lunch, I looked at the stealth shots we'd just done, on a 40" HDTV screen: NG. No Good. Besides needing more takes with a director (me) actually present, watching and listening, the cable for the plant mic we had in the car was quite obvious [note to self and other interested parties: double and triple check your frame with your own, naked eye -- not a monitor -- just to make sure unwanted stuff isn't in the shot].

So, we moved back outside (on another street), and set up for the same scene -- again. And we had another lighting problem. Yes, the key light was malfunctioning (or so we thought). We finally got it to work, after a fashion... then we blew a fuse. After which I almost blew a fuse. But we resourcefully broke out our bounce cards and other reflective items, catching enough late afternoon sunlight to make the scene end up looking great, after all.

On Day 4, we got lucky. Everything I needed to get that day, I got, including a bunch of driving shots with a camera mounted on the car. Oh, we saw a cop car or two on our journey, but we were parked when they came around, and they didn't seem to care. We finished as the sun faded behind the trees in the near-distance.

Yes, there were some inserts and pick-ups left to do, but they could wait. And they did. I got them a few days later. Now, I need to finish the first edit, get some reflection shots and effects (to be added to the "blank" surfaces of the windshields), some voice-overs, sound design, music, etc.

More later...