So many pieces to look at, so much information to tell.
Based on the aforementioned project management piece that I’d looked at, I put together an overview of who the key constituencies or stakeholders were for this project.
Creative Team
Crew
Actors
Friends & Family
The General Public
the Boston Producers of the 48HFP
Boston 48HFP Judges
I drew myself a map showing the size of each of these constituencies, and made a list for explaining what elements would determine project success. This was a huge help in starting to set realistic goals and expectations for the whole project, and it really helped me prioritize activities- for instance, one of the first things that I did was to go out Friday morning and buy a bunch of food to stock the apartment with. This took a ton of pressure off, knowing that there were plenty of apples, oranges and juices for the team to consume. Not to mention taking away the need to jump in the car, or to eat a bunch of fast food made a great difference in the time that we could stay on-target. I tried to make this kind of “human” concern topmost priority when dealing with the crew, and feel that the strategy worked – everyone said that they had the best shooting experience with us that they had had on any production so far- instead of leaving with a few (or any) grumblers on Sunday night, we left with people saying they wanted to do something again, and soon. Tristan even called me (!) once he’d gotten home to say thanks for bringing him on board.
Something else that was different this time was that we stayed closer in the first four or six hours as a creative team- we holed up at the apartment together while the writer wrote, the editor organized his files and project, and I called actors and locations. At some point, probably around nine or ten, we set out storyboarding most all of our shots- this was a great time saver and I would attest that this might have been the most productive thing that we did. I owe it to Ben for getting me in gear on this, stopping all the phone calls and getting me to concentrate on the scenes and shots themselves. If we had not done this, we would not have gotten as far along as we did.
Which leads me to where I personally failed this time around- our script was too long – very ambitious, for sure, but it numbered at over ten pages in the first version, ultimately pared down to nine in the final. It is a great script, it really is – but there were a few scenes that required more time, more tightening, more action and more nuance to make the whole story really work. It was up to me, in the role of producer/director, to make the call that changes should be made- to be able to recognize that we could not realistically accomplish what was set out before us. I did not do this, I did not slow the rolling juggernaught of creative thought that was our writer, Tom, and my failure is the now the team’s. No, I’m not upset about this, but I do recognize that I could have given us a better shot by making the call to revise and downsize. This is one way to learn- go after something that’s bigger and harder than you can reasonably expect to pull off, and do everything that you can to do it. It isn’t typically a great strategy for winning, though.
If I had three days to shoot this script, I could make a great 8 minute movie. As it is, we have a technically good 6:53 minute piece that we passed in on time- and we didn’t kill or piss each other off in the making of it. This time, this team, has the most cohesiveness post-production of any group that we’ve put together. This is critical in the feeling of momentum, that not only do I personally feel that I’ve accomplished something, but that I can feel that the rest of the crew and cast have the same residual sense of accomplishment.
We did have the technical piece 90% solved- the only way that we can improve is to have a dedicated audio person, someone to be as aware of the sound as Ben is of the image and light. That being said, there is one shot in our short that has weak lighting– it’s an interior shot with three actors sitting in a café, large windows in the background that let in the outside light. We can leave the blow-by-blow for a director’s cut commentary…
At this point, no one other than the core crew have seen the resulting short- it plays tomorrow night at the Kendall theater in Cambridge. I’m looking forward to seeing the reaction of the crowd, to see what passes on correctly, and if they respond… I’ve definitely been surprised before, so here goes…
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