Right day, right time?

If there is one thing I learn it’s that nothing is as unpredictable as the process of making a short film. It might be back on track again now, and I am again aiming for a shoot at the end of August. If all goes well, I am going to take a week off there and shoot it five days in a row.

But seeing the nature of this project, tomorrow things might look completely different again.

For those not knowing anything about the film:

Dan (50’s) is an award winning romantic novelist, an expert on romance – in books.
Being a master with written words – Dan loves corresponding with June (50’s).
Until the day where June invites him over for tea.
Having a severe stutter, Dan has refused dating women for what seems like a life time.
Will he lose June or is a Jammie Dodger going to save the day?

The good

I found an editor. I am really happy with that, I know he is a great editor as I have worked with him before at work.

A very talented designer is currently working on a film poster. I have given him this Love Actually poster as a reference. I want something simple and clean. As soon as he has something to show me I will show you. In the mean time – I need a good title for this film!

He is also working on a book cover. Dan (the main character) is a successful writer and one of his books will be prominently on display in several scenes. So the book has to look real and good.

I am in contact with two Directors of Photography (DOP), and I hope to convince one of them to get on board. This is one of the most important crew member, they handle the camera, and if that doesn’t happen the right way your film will look like, ehrm, shit. So cross fingers.

Am in talks with Sony about borrowing a camera for free. This is really nice of Sony! But I really need to have a talk with one of those DOP’s before this can get settled. Deadline for Sony is Tuesday so it is going to be tight!

I had a talk with a very experienced Producer yesterday. Producers are the people who know everything about film making. They know what to do and how to get stuff done. And I really need one on board soon. This talk was really very enlightening, but the thing is, she might get offered work on a feature film today. And if she does, she can’t help me, as the feature film people are actually going to pay her money, while all I can pay her is coffee and Jammie Dodgers. But I am really glad I met her, she will forward me some useful information and contacts and I will take it from there. There is still a 0.001% chance she doesn’t get the feature film job, but they would be really stupid if they didn’t hire her, because she is brilliant.

So I was kind of back to start again regarding an assistant, so luckily this morning I got an email from another producers who might be interested. Will wait for the final word of producer number 1, but if that isn’t going to happen I have another option.

Locations

I had a talk about locations with the very-experienced-producer.

It seems impossible to find a super market location (one that actually wants to let people shoot in their shop). To not have this mess up things completely, I am going to rewrite the Supermarket scene slightly so we don’t need to shoot in a super market anymore. This will both save me shooting time and it will also save me from a big headache. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.

Finding a park should be doable, it’s basically just asking permission in the council and that’s it. Easy. I think I want to shoot in Hampstead Heath.

Finding a book shop and and something that could feature as an art class are the two main locations to be tackled still. Oh, and haven’t heard from Oxfam yet about filming in their shop either.

Actors

No news here yet, but I need to organize auditions real soon. Really I need to find that assistant first, then we’ll go hunting for actors. Maybe, very very very very maybe, there is a tiny winy little chance that I get help from a casting director. Now that would be really cool for reasons I will explain to you when I actually have him. But I am not getting high about this as I know how it feels to fall down.

The title

After having asked several native Brits: it turns out that a Jammie Dodger is in fact not a cookie but a biscuit. So that has some consequences for the working title. Or basically – I need to come up with a good title for this film. Soon. Very soon. It has to be short and good.

There is an enormous amount of work still to be done. And my mood swings from ecstatic to deeply depressed. But I try to remember that this is just a film, my life is not depending on it, and if it turns out to be a disaster then I will survive that too.

Now it’s time for a hair cut.