A lot has happened in the last three weeks! For starters, I was in India for 10 days getting married for the second time to the same man. (It was an absolutely incredible experience.) Also, I selected my actors for my short film, held rehearsals (on either side of the India trip) and then, today, had my film shoot.
Overall, I don't think the short film is going to be all that spectacular when completed. I'm sure that's bad for me to say, but I'm being realistic - it was my first film shoot, and I have a lot to learn. I'm taking this particular shoot as just a major learning experience, so that I can move onto my next shoot with more confidence and better organization.
To give you a brief overview of everything, the auditions were great. Having invited about 16 actors and actresses, I had a final turnout of 11, which I was told was good. This surprised me, since I envisioned New York actors to be somewhat desperate for parts and auditions. What I learned is that serious actors often have so many auditions lined up in a day, in addition to a 'day job,' that some auditions may go by the wayside - and I'm sure auditions for unpaid student films would be more likely to get cut from their schedule than others.
Overall, the talent was good. Yes, I had one goofy moment where I realized one actor, who forgot what he was auditioning for, had actually applied to audition twice, using two different names and two different headshots in order to get two timeslots - but for the most part, everyone was professional and enthusiastic. I taped the auditions, to review later, but pretty much knew who my picks were by the end of the day.
My rehearsals felt awkward to say the least. Again, as a first-time director, I was a bit unsure of myself, which I think hurt things. The first rehearsal, a basic read-through just a few hours before my flight to India, in order to give some emotional notes, was fine. But once I returned from India, the rehearsals unraveled. Jet-lagged and frazzled with two days before my shoot, I think my instructions were unclear. To add to my angst, my actress, though super-talented, was reluctant to rehearse fully and wanted to save her juice for the actual shoot. Being a bit unsure of myself, I didn't know what to say to coax her into a more thorough rehearsal, which would have put my mind at ease. She said to trust her, and I did - and it actually all worked out because, at today's shoot, she was brilliant.
I barely slept last night due to my nerves over the shoot, and struggled to come up with a clear shot list. Of course, once the camera's set up at a certain angle, it's best to shoot all the necessary dialogue from that angle - even if it means jumping around in the script. (For instance, one camera set-up was the same on page 2 as on page 5, and it would have been good just to film both those pieces together.) While I tried to plan for this in my shot list, it didn't really pan out, and we basically wound up doing the entire script in order, which I'm sure wasted some time and energy.
Happily, though, we completed everything involving the actors today, even though I'd also scheduled for tomorrow. Now, all I need to worry about tomorrow is getting some basic shots around Grand Central to include in the film. This is a huge relief, since I'd worried about going over-schedule. Instead, I'm a day early.
Now, exhaustion is completely taking over, and I'm getting ready to crash. I'm proud of my actors and my crew, which consisted of two of my classmates and an assistant from the DFA, and think we probably all pulled together the best footage we could under the circumstances. My next adventures are going to come in post-production, when I try to correct for both the horrible light and sound in Grand Central - hopefully with decent results!
No comments:
Post a Comment