Working with whatever you have.

When someone else says it perfectly, there is no need to re-think it. And since I've been a bit under the weather, I'll just "phone in" this post by re-directing you to this link:
http://platypusunderground.com/2014/04/23/you-shot-on-the-red-so-what-your-movies-still-terrible/

Fighting The Production Triangle

I've quoted this one about a thousand times over the years, "Good, Fast, Cheap, Pick Two ONLY". And now I'm trying to fight the inevitable.  For Film 48 I've clearly already chosen "Fast", and with no budget, I've also chosen "Cheap". But of course I want it to be good. The question I ponder now is whether or not this is an equilateral triangle. Or can the triangle be "squeezed together" so that cheap and fast could still be fairly close to "good".  I'm not sure of the answer yet, but I suppose we'll be finding that out in short order.
If there is a way to change this paradigm, it will likely come from another interesting property of the production universe.  If you ask every single person you know, someone has exactly what you need. This is a bizarre property, but it keeps being proven to work!  Along those lines, I met some wonderful people at the SWLA Film Alliance meeting this week and they seem eager to help us make a success of this crazy Film 48 concept.  I also met a budding makeup artist who offered her services to the project. I asked her if she could give me realistic abdominal and neck knife wounds. Her mockup and test shot is above.  I have to say, if anything gives me hope that fast and cheap could also be good, it's work like this from talented people who have said "Yes" to being part of Film 48.

The cards mock me.

These cards, simple 3x5 index cards.
They mock me, taunt me even. By the end of the day, they should be full of the beats of the movie we are making in less than 1 month. Even at that I'm behind on where I should be. But there they are, all blank and what not, just daring me to get started.  They point out that my outline is not nearly in depth enough, there are holes in the story, even characters who need a name.  But I'm going to start at the ends and work my way toward the middle. Hopefully I'll meet in the middle without too many blank cards. As an aside, I inherited these cards. My Dad had boxes of them.  I'm not exactly sure for what purpose he needed that many cards, I doubt it was for screenwriting, but I think he'd be okay with them being put to that use.  So if you see a couple of characters in this movie named "James" and "Henry", you'll be one of the few people who know that's a nod to my Dad - and a thank you for the cards.
Now lets get these things filled out. We've got a movie to make.

Austin, A mentor, And making the movie 3 times

Have you been to The Austin Film Festival?  If not you should.  Over the years I've seen some amazing movies there including “Slumdog Millionaire”, “Precious”, “Silver Linings Playbook”, and “Nebraska”.  This year’s opening Friday night Paramount Theater presentation was a documentary on true indie spirit writer-director Richard Linklater. That film and a panel of filmmakers on “Directing Your Own Script” is part of my inspiration for undertaking the Film 48 project. Maybe next year we’ll be screening in Austin. (AFF can you hear me?) And perhaps then when I’m in a coffee shop small talking with a guy who looks familiar, maybe I’ll actually realize it’s world famous screenwriter John August (yeah that happened). 

The Austin Film Festival is primarily a writer’s festival, and that brings me to my writing mentor.  A friend of mine has written, I don’t know, I think it’s 20 scripts. He’s taken on a bit of a role as a mentor on this project, sending me tons of helpful tips and information, plus a few threats to help get me going. The support is nice, and the advice is better.  A lot of the advice is production advice, which is helpful but perhaps surprising from a writer. And yet, my mentor is deadly accurate in providing production tips. Because he understands that the writing IS the production.  If you write in 40 locations, 16 speaking parts, and a car jumping over a flaming school bus, you've written a movie that can’t be made in 24 hours of shooting on a zero dollar budget.

Which brings up the 3 times we’ll make this movie.  The first time is when it is written. That movie will exist in a beautifully perfect form – in one mind only.  The second time a movie gets made is when it is shot, often nothing at all like what was written.  The panel in Austin suggested that if you can get 70% of what you intended shot, you’re doing well.  The third creation of the film is in editing, trying to complete the story that it can be, from the footage that it is, based on the story you thought it would be.

For now though I need to be writing a movie, not a blog, and I’m waaaay behind the suggested timeline. Time to finish that story outline (even though my writing mentor is going to tell me it has too many speaking parts, and too many locations.)  FADE IN: a car flies in the air over a flaming school bus…                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

It...Could...WORK!

I keep running across the "make a horror movie" advice. Apparently this is the kind of movie most likely to find a home in the marketplace without name talent. They can also be made quickly and cheaply. Unfortunately I don't really watch a lot of horror movies and just don't have an affinity for them. If we end up covering people in blood and running around in the dark screaming, remind me that I said I wasn't going to do that.  But lets face it, our budget and time constraints really do limit the ability to make some types of movies. What to do? My daughter suggested a heist movie.  Seemed unlikely when she suggested it, but after digging into it a bit I was suddenly hit like Gene Hackman's character in "Young Frankenstein" discovering his great-grandfather's work. Yes, a lot of heist films have big budgets, the big set pieces, ensemble casts of a-list talent, but there have been some very watchable heist films that were primarily story driven. I'd even argue that "The Town" could have held up as a a low budget production. At least the part that makes me watch it anytime I stumble across it on cable holds up without the big budget trappings.  So we have a genre. And now we need a story and a screenplay. If that all comes together in time, this film 48 project could actually be both fun to make and to watch.  Let's hope that truly "It...Could...WORK!"

In the meanwhile here's a top 10 list of Heist movies: http://www.fleckingrecords.co.uk/2013/04/top-10-heist-movies.html

What's Bob Ross got to do with it?

When you read that title, do you kind of sing it with your best Tina Turner impression?  Maybe it’s just me. 

But did you ever watch “The Joy of Painting” with Bob Ross?  First-time viewers were often amazed that he could finish an oil painting in 30 minutes.  But the truth is, he finished those paintings in 20 years and 30 minutes.  He spent many years painting and learning before he was a television icon.  So when people are shocked that I’m trying to complete a feature length film in just 48 hours of production, I think “Well, really 20 years and 48 hours”.  Of course, I’m no Bob Ross, so there’s that. 

Off to a blank sheet of paper now, at some point we have to have a script for this thing and this is day one of 48.

Film 48 Begins

Production Still from the indie film "The Man In The Chair"

Can a small crew of filmmakers shoot and edit a feature length film in 48 hours?  That's the challenge we are taking on.  The plan is to shoot two 12-hour days  over a 48 hour period (a weekend) and then edit two 12-hour days over a 48 hour period, for a total production time of 48 hours.  If that's not hard enough, we're going to undertake this in 48 days total time for pre-production through rough cut. Did I mention that we won't be spending any money, so we'll have to find people willing to work for deferred pay?  Just from a simply mathematical perspective, we have to get 1 minute of screen time from every 20 minutes of time on set.  That might seem easy, unless you've ever been on a film set!  I've heard of people shooting a film in 11 days, that's pretty impressive, but I'm not aware of anyone ever shooting a film in 2 days. Maybe that's because it's just not possible. We're going to find out.
In "Rebel without a Crew" and his "10 Minute Film School" videos, Robert Rodriguez points out that creativity is the solution to whatever problems occur.  Like his early work, we will not have "name actors", we'll have limited equipment, and even more limited time.  Hopefully those constraints will simply help us find creative solutions to the admittedly formidable problems in trying to make a 70-minute or longer film on this kind of schedule.  And hopefully we'll create something that is at least watchable. Or maybe we're just crazy and it can't be done at all.  Add your comments below and come back to this blog for regular updates on Film 48.