ON FILMMAKING – PART ONE:

FADE IN:

INT. RYAN'S OFFICE - NIGHT

            I realized recently that I have spent a great deal of time on this blog speaking mostly about video games. I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea and think that this is all about video games and that I have nothing else interesting to talk about. You would only be 50% correct. The other half of what I talk about revolves around movies and I wanted to take this opportunity to speak of my experiences thus far in the Indy Filmmaking world.

           

            First, let me start by saying that I am not an Indy Filmmaker. Indy filmmakers usually have budgets and the support of one or two professionals in the field who felt it was worth taking a chance on this rag-tag group of camera toting morons. No. I am, for all intents and purposes, a guerrilla filmmaker. Basically it means I often work with no budget and go to sometimes extreme lengths to accomplish even the simplest of tasks. Sometimes we have to do things we don’t always want to do and make sacrifices when we really don’t want to make them. But that’s guerrilla filmmaking. You get what you get and deal with it.

The great Mr. Spurlock

            I distinctly remember working on our first short film, “The Choice”. It was based on a script which my good friend and business partner Keith Melcher wrote. I directed and starred in the film as the Man in Black and our other good friend Marty Spurlock starred as the Man in White. The goal of these two brilliantly named assholes was to convince a young woman (Tracey Lehman) to either commit suicide or choose life. Oh! And I can’t forget about Gary who played the character of Danny in the film The end result being a horrible conclusion one way or the other. I felt this was a strong script. It lacked story at first, but Keith eventually came through with the re-writes.

Tracy Lehman during one of our finer moments.

            Anyway, we planned our first shoot to be done at Spearfish Park near the creak. It was a surprisingly nice day out, but I think we ended up getting a little rain which delayed the shoot. However, the overcast skies gave us some very good lighting. Everyone showed up (eventually) which would probably be the first and only time this ever happened consistently. There was always someone who would forget about a shoot or I would forget to tell them which resulted in us having to reschedule on numerous occasions. To backtrack a little, prior to the day of shooting I had spent close to three hours and $60 or my own money attempting to build what I thought was going to be an awesome, homemade dolly with wheels and everything. I designed it with the camera and camera man in mind, constructing a large flatbed where the camera man could stand and hold the camera. What I didn’t anticipate is that this thing was heavy as fuck-all and impossible to safely balance on. We had to delay shooting for twenty minutes so we could pick the thing up and bring it to the park only to show up, try it once and suddenly realize that the fucking thing wasn’t going to work.

Marty Spurlock & Myself just before action.

            Go figure.

Gary complaining about his full stomach before shooting.

            Now, this monstrosity sits in my shed, a constant reminder of my first failed attempt at DIY filmmaking. It was a glorious and epic fail that you simply had to be there to appreciate and it was a shining example of the kind of crap you have to put with on the guerrilla film set. Still, despite the equipment problems we ended up with a pretty solid set of shots. There was some good picture quality but horrible audio. We didn’t own an external microphone and were forced to put up with the dinky little built in microphone on the camera. I swear to shit, it didn’t matter how calm it was, the camera microphone would pick up everything BUT the actors speaking. The rushing of the creak, the kids screaming in the background, Keith stepping on a fucking ant. Everything. It would pick up wind blowing in a different state. That’s how bad that thing was. I was able to pull off some movie-magic in post- production to clean up the audio, but overall it was usable.

Sometimes you just gotta wave.

            Then came the second half of the shoot and the first half of the film. Looking back on it, I can’t say I clearly remember why we shot out of order. Maybe it was because of the timing and the fact that we wanted to make sure it was nice outside for the park shoot. I don’t know. What I do know is that the second half of the shoot, which didn’t happen till probably three months later, taught me a great deal about the importance of lights. We ended up shooting at my house impromptu because Mr. Spurlock --  bless his little heart -- forgot to mention that his sister had turned our original location into a nursery. This doesn’t excuse the fact that all I owned were a couple of clamp lights and had nowhere to hang them during the shoot. Plain and simple, I take full responsibility for anything and everything that ever went wrong on any of my sets. As director, that’s part of the job. However, as the director I also reserve the right to point the finger at everyone else and vehemently state over and over again that my “vision” was compromised by some other incompetent ass. It’s not true, obviously. But I’m still gonna do it. ;)

            Anyway, the room we shot in was dark, cramped, and hot as a blast furnace. Not to mention the fact that it was my wife and I’s room. She was none too happy about the sudden relocation of the shoot, but I think she was most unhappy about the main character being a woman and that she had to be in our bed at one point. Can’t say I blame her there. By the time we were done shooting (six hours later) I had probably lost about five pounds in sweat alone. This is pretty typical of any shoot we do since I somehow always manage to be cast as characters wearing long sleeve outfits made of heavy materials. Don’t believe me? Look at all the movies we’ve done that I’ve starred in. Twenty bucks says I’m wearing a fucking suit and tie in all of them.

            By the time all was said and done, I had learned a lot. Mostly about the importance of good gear. Having a decent camera and external audio recording are very important as are lights. And I thought I would carry this knowledge with me over to the next project…. Boy was I wrong….

                                                                                                  FADE TO BLACK.                                 

TO BE CONTINUED…. 

In case you hadn't guessed, this is a hint at the next blog...