A wrap on casting is always a relief, but it's not anywhere close to the end of the game. With shooting now less than a month away, there's a lot that needs to get done.
Where to start? Crew. The crew is going to be the foundation of shooting and can or break your final product. A few of my crew members have been with me from the beginning. My two Directors of Photography (hereby, DPs), and I mean this in no light terms, are the reason this project will be made. They signed on to the project at the same time I did. Actually, they helped convince me that I should make the film, so I guess you could say that they signed on earlier than I did. Finding a good DP, or in this case two, is never an easy task. With this film, I was able to not only find two competent, but also dedicated, DPs. I am extremely lucky and extremely grateful for them and the work they have put into this project. At any moment's notice I can reach them and ask them questions. We have a group chat where we schedule meetings, ask questions, and exchange pertinent information. These staple members of my crew help with the grunt of planning, especially technical planning. For example, recently, we've been trying to finalize equipment rentals. After some confusion and stress about renting out cameras, we were able to get camera equipment we need:
DPs are known for their work behind the camera during the shooting process. However, in a smaller, independent project like this, in-person DP pre-production meetings are incredibly important. Since we are within a month of shooting, I meet with them 3-4 times a week for around an hour and a half. Lately, during these meetings we've been going over shot lists. Shot lists are possibly the most important aspects of shooting. Essentially, what happens during a shot list meeting is that I give my DPs my vision for what each scene, shot by shot, should look like. The DPs then break down the technical aspects that would go into that - what camera do we need? What's our angle going to look like? How many cameras do we want to run? What lighting do we need? We then come up with a full list of what needs to get shot and how many shots that is. This gives us a better breakdown of how long we can expect our shooting day to last. As we know, time is money in film. So an accurate and up-to-date shot list is crucial.
Although the DPs and Director handle a fair amount of the work, they aren't the entire crew. After the Director and DP(s) have been determined, the rest of the crew needs to be filled out. A standard crew could include gaffers, for lighting, assistant camera operatives, boom and sound operators, producers, assistant directors, and production assistants. Depending on the needs of the script, the crew can range from a few people to many. For my project, I'm looking to have an intimate crew of around seven people because we're dealing with confined spaces and sensitive material. To start this process, I started asking around in my classes and asking the people already signed on to my project to give me recommendations. I then started sending a lot of emails and asking around to figure out who's available for the given shooting schedule and who has the credentials to get the shots I need. From here, I started to build a solid crew foundation. As we get closer to the shooting dates, it's exciting to see how everything fits together and is progressing.
Each project has a different way of going about assembling crew, however it's just one step of many. In the coming weeks I'll talk about some of these other steps.
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