Just when everything was falling apart and I was on the verge of quitting school and going back to Korea, things started to come together. Right after I published my second blog post, I heard back from all the locations that were giving me trouble. The Union station authorities emailed said that we could shoot there as long as we did not have a tripod and set things up such as lights and flags inside the station. Penn station authorities initially said no, but then told we could work something out with as long as we didn’t disrupt the convenience of their passengers. The house that we really wanted to get through AirBnB was suddenly unavailable, but we were able to rent our second best option for two days at a relatively low cost.
However, the biggest accomplishment of the week was our success in finding our grandmother. We posted on five different websites and contacted the senior center repeatedly to cast our grandmother but did not hear back from any of them. After asking around for weeks, we finally found one person who was willing to act for our film. She is not an experienced actor but she likes the idea behind our project and is excited to film with us. It will definitely be a challenge to work with someone who is not a professional actor, but it is important that we have an actual Korean grandmother play the part.
We still have to lock down more locations, such as the ticketing booth, the entrance of a row house. We also have to scout for outdoor locations, but we now have secured the two most important locations for our film. In terms of casting, we also have 5 more people to cast which includes two boys, a father, a mother, and someone to sit across the grandmother on the train, but we are just very happy right now at the fact that we have a grandmother.
I was ecstatic for exactly three days. Then, I realized that there are still plenty of other things that I should be doing and worrying about. First and foremost, now that I had a story, a location, and an actor, I needed to put together a team that could help me realize the film. Because I am not a very experienced filmmaker, I needed to ask for help, a lot of help. One of the most important lessons that I have learned from taking classes at Hopkins and watching a lot of student films is that sound can make or break a film. From the very beginning, Sue and I knew that sound would play an integral part in capturing the empty, lonely world in which our grandmother lives. Although we are on a tight budget, we still decided to allocate money to hire a sound person because we felt that it would be worth the money.
Another area that we needed help on was production design, someone who could realize the atmosphere of a Korean row-house. After a long discussion, Sue and I decided to contact a recent JHU graduate who is very acknowledgeable about both Baltimore and Korean culture. The three of us will meet and plan the minute details regarding the props for the house and the clothes for the family members. We also managed to find a costume and make-up artist, and grip. We are still in the process of finding a gaffer, which is essential as we are shooting on film.
Lastly, we’ve been working on launching a kickstarter campaign. The biggest drawback to shooting on film is that it is very expensive to buy and develop since it is a dying medium. The biggest chunk of money that we are spending is coming from costs due to film, sound, location and transportation. We are now in the process of writing up blurbs about our project and planning a short introduction video so that we can inform people about our film. We are hoping to launch our project sometime during the middle of the next week at the latest. One significant drawback to using kickstarter is that it is an all or nothing campaign. I hope that the issue of isolation resonates with a lot of people and they find the idea of shooting on film interesting and endearing.
I wasn’t able to check any of the big boxes off my production notebook, but I am proud that I am getting somewhere. Less than a year ago, I didn’t even have second thoughts about realizing this film because I knew that I wasn’t experienced to make it. Two months ago, we had nothing but a script. Now as I am writing this, I still have a lot of work to do, but I can definitely say that I’ve made progress. I was talking to my friend Helena Chung, who is the assistant director, about what we’ve done so far and she told me that she was surprised and proud of what Sue and I were able to do over the past couple of weeks. Hearing that really made my day. I have 5 more weeks until our first shooting day, and as always, I am more worried than excited, but I too am proud of us for what we have achieved so far.
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