C.R.T. Pre-Pro: Producing Trenches + Directing Lessons

The goal was to write in here after every day. But for practically the last week I’ve been so tired at the end of every day that I’ve been some kind of mindless zombie. I seek sleep and that’s been about it.

On the directorial side of things, they’ve been fine. Charles came over and we hashed out the blocking and coverage in my kitchen. Another lesson learned: do the rough storyboards with your DP first before sending them to a professional. A lot of the storyboard ideas I had and that JJ drew with my input had to be chucked, or we had to input new storyboards. I didn’t think of the right amount or correct coverage we’d need for a particular scene. For example, with the shots I designed, the three actors or the whole scene couldn’t be lit properly. We couldn’t get a shot from the corner of the kitchen where we’d need the necessary wide that shows the characters moving from different parts of the kitchen, so we had to reverse it from the other side of the kitchen, and think of other angles from which to get the characters that would work in the cut.

I was trying to think of the most effective and simple way to cover a scene, because I remember seeing that sort of coverage in movies, where a two shot or an establishing shot of characters in a living room speaks more than I thought single coverage ever could, and being like, yeah — that’s a good idea. Sometimes there doesn’t need to be all this coverage or editing in one scene. But it’s not like directors only shot the scene from one or two particular angles — the scenes I’m seeing are what made it to the edit. In production, the director(s) probably shot from all the coverage they’d need first: the establishing, the over-the-shoulders, the singles, etc.. Maybe you should think of what coverage you need first, rather than trying to simply the coverage from the very beginning, as that’s probably essential to blowing your foot off.

Another example: I designed going from an over-the-shoulder into a two-shot from behind the stove in a crucial moment. But Charles was like, in this two-shot, you’re not going to be able to fully see the faces of both characters anyway, because you’ll be behind them and their hair will be partially blocking their faces. And you desperately need this coverage of this other character’s reactions. So we had to break the two-shot into two over-the-shoulders. And I was like, duh.

Another thing — Charles knew what could be seen properly from the lens, and from where. I had thought of inserts and close-ups for a key item that would need to be seen clearly in a scene. But Charles thought of a shot where the item could actually be seen from behind the two characters, at waist level and from the back of the kitchen, that encompassed the moment in that scene and their relationship between them far better than the insert every could.

If you’re not a director of photography already, do your rough storyboards with the DP before getting a professional artist involved. And again, this is only if you’re really shooting for the stars with your short film and want it to look polished. This would probably be a really good learning lesson if you weren’t paying anyone, and just shooting a short film in a tight space in a more informal collaboration, say, with friends. But because I’m making a noticeable financial and temporal investment in this project, this would be too expensive of a learning lesson for me to realize in post.

This is somewhat hilarious in hindsight, because I was so ecstatic to be getting what I thought were better storyboards. After eight days, I can’t remember what I thought was better about them. All I remember is that a good portion of what I drew, and what I gave the artist to draw, didn’t work.

This is naturally adding more work to my plate, nine days before we’re supposed to be shooting.

And producing. I don’t remember feeling this stressed when I produced last time. It sometimes feels like I am coordinating or communicating for eight hours out of every day, when I need to be devoting more of my energy to really connecting creatively with the film itself. I am coordinating with actors and agents, hunting down casting spaces, securing a makeup test, filling out payroll, for sometimes what seems like eight hours out of every day. And I don’t understand where the time goes. I think last time I was like, “f- yeah, I’m making a movie!” And everything I did in any capacity, whether interacting with the location manager or booking food, was the best.

Now it’s like, I don’t want to be doing this. I don’t want to be asking or answering questions for eight hours a day. Casting actors has also added a considerable amount of work to my plate, with looking through the hundreds of applications, watching the self-tapes, interacting with agents regarding auditions. Last time, the quality that the candidates needed to play decent basketball really made my search easier. If you had the experience, which most candidates didn’t, I auditioned you.

For this project, you needed to be of the right age range, and have a demo reel so I can see you can at least act. And there were a lot of women who fit those specifications for one role; now multiply that by three.

We also had a lead actress — I should say, the lead actress, drop out due to scheduling conflicts, after I had casted her and began talking to her agent. And I was having several miscommunications with the lead actress I had asked to fill her shoes over the role, which siphoned away an additional amount of my time and energy, so then I chose to go in a different direction. By this point, I was so stressed that I didn’t know which was worse: the considerable investment I was putting into the production, only to have an actress that couldn’t do this very big part justice. Or, the considerable investment I was putting into the production, only to possibly have the production shut down, because I wouldn’t be able to find her in time. Because if the lead’s acting is going to be wooden, what’s the point of putting all of my resources into the project?

Charles actually had to tell me to calm down. And I got through it. And now we have a Carol, and it looks like we’ll be shooting in nine days. But man, this whole time, what I really should have been doing is reading the screenplay, visualizing the scenes and performances, and figuring out ways to better connect with the actresses as a director. Which are all stuff I’m going to have to do anyway, in addition to everything else.

I’m a little grumpy, right now. But I do want to say, that when I picked up Charles from the airport and drove him back, and the day was sunny and we didn’t need to say anything to each other, the fact that I was actually going to make a movie, with someone I had worked with before and had a good relationship with, was the most pure feeling in the world. And thinking of this, it’s like, all that nitty gritty stuff seems less important and wearisome. I just have to try my best to get through the next eight days and figure out what I need to do, from a directorial and a producing standpoint, so this production can go as smoothly as possible.