We are well on our way! Shooting begins in a week. Casting is complete (seriously this time). Locations are set. Props and wardrobe are being collected as I type. Our first table reading was a success! And we have a very cool production poster.
Pre-production is a lot more work than I imagined, and I seriously thought that my imaginings were pretty realistic and intense. But I love every (stressful) second of it! My group, although we have our quarrels, has become very close. It’s incredible.
But we still have our share of blunders. Let’s see… There was poster-gate. This was a cyber argument that occurred early last week. It began as constructive criticism of our poster designer’s interpretation of our film, but swiftly escalated into a full-blown match of words averaging 95 words per minute –Facebook time. In this debacle, I was forced to play the role of the referee and suggested a peaceful exit strategy. We’re going to have a poster for each “memory” that takes place in the film, which I think gives us a lot of room to play with when disseminating the posters. I chose to mention this intra-production quarrel to illustrate that our cohesive little unit has its problems, but we function very well together –like a family.
Casting has also proven to be much more of a challenge than expected. Left unguarded, it sneaks up on you with vengeance. We thought, and from now on I will always triple check, that our actor’s schedules were solidified and meshed perfectly with our production needs. In the past few days our major concerns have been mitigating project wedding crasher and south by Southwest Airlines. In short, our scheduling tragedies have been taken care of and everything is back on track. Whoo! I must say that this experience has taught me to be extremely diligent and perceptive of the necessities of keeping an open line of communication with cast and crewmembers. As director, I am not only learning how to be a better leader, but also a better team player.
With everything that has taken place in the past few weeks, the big push—actual production! – is right around the corner. Wish us luck!
Action!
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